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Interesting your feedback as my tires looked like new after half the miles you did, I push pretty hard and try to be smooth as possible so I don't over heat tires. What PSI were you running hot?
A friend of mine has the 305 size and his are still going after 22 or so heat cycles. I will ask him to get some pictures.
With the next set I would try running 32 hot max as the perfect window is 29 or 30 psi. I slowed on some laps to reduce the pressures and went again and they worked a treat.
I wouldn’t start higher than 26 cold either unless your in sub 40 degrees track temperature.
I was told a gradual heat cycle, and wait 24hrs, really helps these tires but to run lower pressure 32f-34r max. I've also been told 20+ heat cycles are no issue.
Likely will try these but damn that set that was corded at 330 miles looks trashed... Did u monitor temps, warmup lap? That's the best thing I've heard is that they come on strong after a lap, 90% or so, but watch overheating and pressures.
I’ve been tracking for years so I’m familiar with how to run them, heat cycled them, let them warm up on outlaps. OEMs are toast at 4 days when you are pushing hard (or less) so 3 isn’t terrible but these tires aren’t as good as what people say in my opinion. And the fit on the rears isn’t good.
I have no Prosche experience with these tires, but still I would like to share my opinion as might be relevant as I used them on two of my cars:
- M5 F90 with 285/35/20 squared
- Mclaren 720S with 235/35/19 and 305/30/20 - the rear rim is 11" and it fits fine, I would say a 12" is a bit streched, but nevertheless the AR1s have stiff side walls, so maybe not that much of a problem.
M5 F90 usage
- Started from Bucharest, Romania till Nurburgring, Germany - thats like 1400 miles trip one-way inlcuding some stops we did on the road. Including German rainy days, we slowed down on the Autobahm till 100-130kmh in heavy rain.
- 10 laps of Nurburgring, that is 220km or almost 150miles of track. I have tried to keep them like 2.1-2.2bar cold and 2.5-2.7hot, they were reaching temps up to 90C !!!!! Outside temps 28-29C.
- Transfer to Spa in Belgium and 1 full track day in SPA, here we pushed a lot the car into the turns
- Come back to Bucharest, another 1400 miles and did 2 sessions on a local track.
- Used gthem as DD tires for some other 1500 miles or so
- After that we did about 3-4 sessions at Serres in Greece and they were done, but only after pushing them really hard. Pieces of the tire went off and front driver tire was destroyed completely.
In my book this is a great tire, lasts way longer than Trofeos and costs 50% of them, it has maybe Cup2 longevity if not more. They are noisy and take care in the rain, other than that freat tire.
720S
I have tracked them only at Serres in Greece, my best time 1:24.6s with 2 persons and to compare Hoosiers R7 with driver only - 1:24.1s
Still for 720S I had very narrow fronts in 235 form, which are -10mm vs the hoosiers and car understeered a bit nore than with Hoosiers. It seems the 245s are out too and also 720S should be happy with 265/305 combo That is my next combo and already bought them.
I was able to get the car out in muddy weather here in Romania, winter time at about 5-10C, and still squeezed 3.9s 100-200kmh with them (added a tune and exaust in the meantime), so they have decent/good grip even in cold weather, the maximum tire temps I wa able to achieve was like 27-28C. I have sold my 991.2 TTS and willing to get asap into the next 992 gt3rs, really considering 265/325 Combo for that car, besides perhaps the Cup2R, I would stringly consider the Nankangs.
This weekend we were able to successfully test the new AR1 in OEM RS Sizes, 265 front and 325 rear. The car was a .2 RS with a DSC controller and alignment -2.7F and -3R camber. The testing was done with back to back against a new set of Dunlop Max Race 2's and the data from my .1 RS with a much more aggressive setup on Cup 2's and Cup R's as I have quite a few laps around Sebring now. Weather was nice and cool in the 60's and the .2 RS was new to me as the alignment / height etc needs allot of work to dial the car in for any tire and the results from previous tires was done in very similar conditions.
Impressions:
First session I thought these tires are quite hard compared to the MPC and Dunlops as out of the gate I could feel more bumps and undulations as compared to the other tires. PSI Set to 25 cold and it rose to 28 at the end of lap 2 and the car comfortably put down a lap 2.16.5, quite allot of understeer in the car which was due to the setup which needs adjusting, as the same understeer came from the Dunlops only a session earlier which were also fresh with back to back heat cycles tested. The grip compared to Dunlops and Michelins was 10-15% better in session 1 although I didn't want to push too hard given the amount of understeer the car had in high speed corners.
Session 2 - Tires set to 25psi again and the bounciness had almost disappeared compared to session 1, the PSI rose to 29 on lap 3 and I pushed harder, under hard braking these tires are immense compared to the other street tires, same braking threshold as Cup R's on Sebring and definitely better thresholds than the Dunlops and Cup 2's. I pushed 3 hard laps and the tires remained consistent, the PSI rose to 33 at 1 point on lap 6 due to the setup of the car and squirming around allot but the grip levels felt almost the same as lap 3.
Session 3 - Tires at 24F and 25R to minimize a little understeer, Lap 2 hot lap immediately after the out lap, the tires were on at 28PSI and I pushed more, immediately set a 2.15.5 lap time and it was consistent for 3 consecutive laps with almost no loss of grip as the long laps kept continuing, i only slowed down to to traffic and cooled down to 30PSI and went again, still the grip continued and I could tell that this tire was far more capable than a Cup 2 or Dunlop any day of the week. The grip on mid to high speed is incredible as those who know Sebring it can take some commitment and Bishops was showing 135mph without pushing super hard.
Session 4 - Tires 25PSI all round cold, 1 out lap and then straight onto a hot lap at 28PSI and the lap time was an immediate 2.14.9 with no real commitment to push hard as I was getting more comfortable with the new car. Then consecutive 2:15.2's for 2 more laps due to all the mistakes I was making to push even harder on a car I unfamiliar with. The theoretical showed 2:13.2 consistently if I had the understeer fixed but that can wait for the next event. The grip levels continued to come on more with continued laps and the braking became a little deeper with the tire holding steady between 30-31PSI which seems to be their peak performance zone.
Checked the wear and it was fairly minimal after 4 hard heat cycles with just the outer edges showing the heat cycle as the tires still look great as though I had been driving on light road use.
Conclusion:
For a tire that is incredibly cheaper than the competitive brands like Michelin/Dunlop/Hoosiers etc, the performance is incredible at its price point and the consistency remains on point as the others drop off quite quickly after a hot lap or even 2, i noticed the other brands require some cooling before you push again and the AR1's just continued to get better with more laps. The AR1 exceeded and outperformed Cup 2's and Dunlops is my opinion, compared with a Cup R they can keep up for sure but not as quick we all know in a first few runs. I can now understand why all my Euro friends back home use this tire in allot of sizes as it stays consistent and can perform as good as all the others with the right settings and obviously needs a better driver.
The AR1 will allow flat out cornering compared to the others, those who know Sebring understand that it can take some hard commitment. Bishops Bend with the AR1's is a Flat Out Turn with Vmax of 138MPH+ on a fast street alignment setup. I am confident that this tire will continue to hold up over more heat cycles as the car gets dialed in and can achieve times and consistency way better than the expensive brands.
Roll on to the next testing ventures., pictures below are after 4 hard heat cycles showing almost zero wear.
Thanks for the superb review hsb1001
Super interesting. I first got into contact with the AR-1 on Nürburgring a couple of years ago with a friend of mine Moritz Kranz driving a heavy 4 bucket seater Schirmer M3 hard but super soft. Predicable cold and warm grip. Heat cycles they said it was best on market for them in this car doing easy 40 of them. I went home and bought them for my GT3 with very similar impressions as you had.
I also noticed they have very stiff side walls and easily take very low cold pressures heating them and having no problems with rear section of 305 on a 12" rim. High side wall stiffness would also be the reason they recommend camber between -1 too -3degrees. I tended to run the rear tyres with a tiny bit too much pressure rear so they got a bit more worn in the middle but got perfect wear in the front.
Can you share the pressures and cars you were running them on?
Hi. I drive an 991.1 GT3 with camber -3 in front and -2,5 rear.
Hot I tried to keep 2,1bar front and not more then 2,3bar rear. I succeed in front but went up to 2,5bar rear and thats too much and you can see it that my rear tyres are more worn in the middle section.
Hi. I drive an 991.1 GT3 with camber -3 in front and -2,5 rear.
Hot I tried to keep 2,1bar front and not more then 2,3bar rear. I succeed in front but went up to 2,5bar rear and thats too much and you can see it that my rear tyres are more worn in the middle section.
Gotcha, I usually come in once they get too hot / high pressured, so good u did the testing and we can benefit.
01-12-2021, 07:26 PM
That is my next combo and already bought them.
