How to launch a performance tyre...

Michelin has launched a new super sport tyre. It’s called the PS4S. This may not sound very exciting, but bear with me because there’s quite a lot worth knowing about how they launch a new tyre, how they demonstrate it and the technology that goes into it.

The trouble is that tyres are inherently dull, so I can tell you that the PS4S is the sportier version of the PS4 tyre and replaces the existing Pilot Super Sport, but now you’re dozing off. I can tell you that it has Bi-Compound Technology where the outer section is biased towards dry grip, while the inner side uses a new compound employing silica and functional elastomers which improve wet grip. But now you’re fast asleep.

Michelin has worked out that tyres, while very, very important to making a car work to the best of its ability, are actually very dull indeed, so it injected some glamour into the launch of its new PS4S.

Yep, it's Keanu Reeves. Neo himself uses Michelin. Or at least his bike company, Arch Motorcycles, does. So, I assume, in exchange for free tyres, Keanu gave a couple of days of his time to hanging out at Thermal raceway. He was guarded, as you’d expect from a Hollywood A-lister surrounded by a bunch of journalists, vloggers and ‘influencers’. His bikes are cool, though.

There were other famous faces there to. Three-time Le Mans winner Allan McNish was really interesting on the advantages of tyre longevity in endurance racing, and how they can run four stints (about three hours) on one set of tyres. It’s perhaps no coincidence that Michelin has won Le mans every year since 1997.

Michelin had set up some exercises for us to do so we could see how good its new tyre was. One of these was pointless, the other two were quite revealing. This was the largely pointless one. Just driving a BMW M4 around the circuit on the new tyres, behind an instructor who manages the pace and insists you don’t turn off the stability and traction. This is known as ducks and drakes. It’s fun and all, but with nothing to compare it against, not even the old tyre, you’re not learning much and it’s impossible to know whether it’s the smoothness and surfacing of the track that’s doing the good work, or the tyre itself.

This was better – basically punting a 335i around a lap marked by a set of cones in car park. Sounds dull, was actually quite revealing as the course was tight, had been wetted at one end, and featured plenty of corners to unsettle the chassis. Plus I did it twice in identical cars, one fitted with Michelin tyres, the other with Pirelli, Continental or Goodyear.

They asked me not to look closely at the tyres as we got in, so I wouldn’t know what each car was on. The aim was to drive a lap in each, then give a bit of feedback. One had notably better front end grip, was more stable under wet braking and broke away more progressively. Handily, that was the Michelin. But that’s just a subjective opinion. 

All these orange dots tell a more objective story. We also did braking tests on each tyre. These were measured by a datalogger and then an orange dot was put on the board for how they did.

There were two different tyre widths and in both instances the Michelin was the clear winner at stopping from 60mph. Being a cynic I’m always looking for why that might be. Short of Michelin using a bespoke tyre compound (possible, but unlikely) we have to take this at face value. Oddly, if the clusters indicate anything, it’s that the narrower 235-width tyres seem to stop better than the 255s.

For the most part, unless you’re a chemical engineer, all you need to know about tyres is that they work. Because to be frank, when I talked to the chemical engineers, I was lost inside of 10 seconds.

Couple of interesting things, though: the reason that the cuts near the sidewall are irregularly spaced is due to noise. Regular spacing allows harmonics to build up, creating more noise, so Michelin space them differently. The same goes with the angles cut into those edges – they help the tyre’s noise profile.

What I liked best was that the PS4S has an ‘aesthetic designer’. Michelin has come up with a process that allows them to give the sidewall a velvety effect. Seriously, it feels lovely. And it means they can draw things on the tyre. Further down the line, personalisation is possible. You could have your name on them. If you really wanted.

They also talked about colours. No longer just black circles, but any colour you like as long as it isn’t black. Michelin has the technology to do this, but the one thing holding them back is fade. Sunlight will eventually break down the colour and the perfect match of orange tyre to orange McLaren would then look hideous. Nevertheless, it’s something they’re working on.

And they still have the Tweel. Remember that? The open-sided tyre? I spoke to the man who used to be in charge of it, who told me the performance of the Tweel is incredible – it generates so much more cornering force for example, you never have to worry about punctures, and it has a more angular contact patch that spreads the load better.

But regulations mean it’ll probably never make it to road cars – the open sides cause issues and there’s a legal requirement about having technical markings on the sidewall. Michelin is still producing it, though. Apparently it transforms the handling of any golf cart.

The line-up of metal was ridiculous. Michelin had obviously called in favours with everyone they supply tyres too, from Porsche and McLaren, to Aston Martin and Koenigsegg. Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to drive them and some weren’t even on the new PS4S tyres, as Michelin is only making them in 19 and 20-inch sizes initially and at the more popular widths.

At the end of the day Michelin laid on hot laps in a whole load of the cars, from an Aston Vulcan to a Porsche 911 reimagined by Singer. All good. This is the one that stood out though – an old Audi R8 driven by the last-of-the-late-brakers.

Look, the outgoing Pilot Super Sport is widely regarded as one of the best high performance tyres available, so the PS4S starts at a high base level. Michelin produces around 180 million tyres a year across 68 different production facilities worldwide, so its unlikely they’ll have made a mess of this one. But without doing direct subjective and objective comparisons with the old model and also competitor tyres it’s very difficult to give much feedback about how one tyre differs to another. That’s the nature of tyres – they’re a component we don’t have enough interaction with to build up a detailed picture of how one differs from another. Michelin knows this.

And that’s why you have Keanu Reeves to help out.