Type R Club of America

Tire Rack wrote: Tire Test Summary:

Bridgestone Potenza RE-71RS (Extreme Performance Summer, 275/35R19 96W)
-What We Liked: It takes everything you can give it while asking for more.
-What We'd Improve: Drivers do need to be cautious of standing water.
-Summary: An ideal dance partner that's always willing to up the tempo, while still setting the benchmark for wet driving.

Falken Azenis RT660 (Extreme Performance Summer, 275/35R19 100W)
-What We Liked: It uses everything it has really, really well.
-What We'd Improve: A touch more longitudinal traction and braking authority.
-Summary: Well-balanced and fun to drive in the dry or the wet.

Kumho Ecsta V730 (Extreme Performance Summer, 275/35R19 96W)
-What We Liked: It's not bad on the road and has reasonable initial traction.
-What We'd Improve: We'd like to see less fall-off in grip as it heats up.
-Summary: If you're not looking for peak performance, it's a pretty good option.

Nankang Sportnex CR-S (Extreme Performance Summer, 275/35R19 (100Y))
-What We Liked: Powerful grip, reactive steering, it's a very capable tire.
-What We'd Improve: It could use more steering feedback.
-Summary: A great tire that could be even better if drivers could maximize it with all their senses.

Yokohama ADVAN A052 (Extreme Performance Summer, 275/35R19 (100Y))
-What We Liked: Just about everything, it leads the category on and off the track.
-What We'd Improve: A little more wet grip and a hair more precision.
-Summary: It's about as good as this category gets in almost every situation.

Yokohama ADVAN NEOVA AD09 (Extreme Performance Summer, 275/35R19 100W)
-What We Liked: The steering characteristics and feel compete with the best out there.
-What We'd Improve: If only its grip and performance could match the steering.
-Summary: It can be capable, but whether the performance fall-off and lower overall performance is worth its durability depends on your use case.


Summary Conclusion
If you're here, you don't need this category explained to you - and while the data available does tell part of the story, there's more to each one of these tires than just lap times and braking distances. Understanding the "personality" of a tire can go a long way in finding the right fit for the way you drive, and because the gap between some of these tires is so close, knowing the conditions, track, temperature and driving style might make all the difference in the world from one tire to another.

Starting with the Yokohama ADVAN A052 - our testing only reiterated its position as a category benchmark. There's very little it doesn't do incredibly well. It may not be the best on wet surfaces, but even there it's not unhappy to dance around. We'd love to see a bit more precision in the steering, but there's little room to question its performance. Michelin's Pilot Sport 4S is a fascinating tire here among the Extreme Performance Summer options. It's behind everything else in the dry, by a second in lap times, a foot in braking, it's close but not quite there. Conversely, it outpaces every other tire in the wet in the same way. It speaks to the highly specialized nature of these tires that there's such a clear divide, but it also speaks to the capability of the Pilot Sport 4S that the divide was as narrow as it was. The Bridgestone Potenza RE-71RS is another option that typifies the kind of narrow performance tradeoffs each tire has. It was a joy to turn dry laps on thanks to its incredible traction and eagerness for speed, even if it wasn't our absolute favorite. It was our top subjective choice in the wet, despite not being the quickest tire tested in those conditions, it was the fastest for the category. A wonderful option that drivers can set without sweating the weather as much.

Nankang's Sportnex CR-S could perform, on a level that matches some of the best options out there, but its lack of feeling made every action require thinking about it rather than being able to utilize all senses to react and move intuitively. The Azenis RT660 is another particularly interesting case in this test. For sheer performance, it easily runs with the best in the test, both in subjective and objective measurements, and in both dry and wet laps, it lives and breathes the category of Extreme Performance Summer. However, it definitely does so at more of a cost to comfort on the road than most tires in a category that already doesn't place a strong emphasis on it. Whether or not that matters here is an individual preference, but it's good to know beforehand.

Kumho's Ecsta V730 is in the unenviable position of just being a really good tire surrounded by really great tires. Its steering and handling in the wet were no slouch, but it always seemed to be working with a little less grip than the others, and the deterioration in performance was too notable not to ding it. Finally, the Yokohama ADVAN NEOVA AD09 makes its aims clear from the onset - a bit more longevity for a bit less performance. Unfortunately, it's a story that plays out exactly like you might imagine - since this is a performance test, it isn't advantaged by much here, and the sacrifices it does make put this tire just a step behind the rest of the class.

That's it! Keep an eye out for the second part of our Extreme Performance Summer Test when we take each one of these tires up to our favorite racetrack to really let them stretch their proverbial legs!