The Power of Tires: A Game-Changer on the Track

In a recent experiment, a car with double the horsepower was put to the test on a tight track. The results were astonishing - the car with half the horsepower and nicer tires was able to post a faster lap time. This may seem counterintuitive at first, but it highlights the significant impact that tires can have on a car's performance.

The key difference between the two cars was not just in their power output, but also in their cornering capabilities. The car with double the horsepower was able to accelerate to incredible speeds on the straights, but its lack of grip and traction made it difficult to maintain speed through the turns. In contrast, the car with half the horsepower had better tires, which provided a significant improvement in cornering ability. This allowed it to hold onto its speed throughout the track, ultimately resulting in a faster lap time.

The data from this experiment is clear: when it comes to a tight track like the one used for the test, power becomes less of an advantage and grip becomes more important. In fact, the results show that a 10% improvement in tires is equivalent to a 100% improvement in power. This highlights the importance of investing in high-quality tires if you want to improve your car's performance on the track.

The same principles apply to autocross events, where cars are being tested on a variety of surfaces and conditions. If you have a powerful but heavy car, it may struggle to handle tight corners and tight turns. On the other hand, a lighter weight car with better tires may be able to hold its own against more powerful opponents. This is because good tires provide not just better grip, but also better braking performance.

One assumption that was made in conducting this experiment is that drivers will maintain a constant speed when cornering. In reality, most drivers will slow down slightly as they enter a turn and then accelerate again once they've straightened out. However, even accounting for this factor, the results of the experiment are still striking - the car with better tires was able to post a faster lap time than the more powerful car.

Another benefit of using good tires is that they can also improve braking performance. In the experiment, it's shown that the car with better tires was able to brake later and accelerate sooner, resulting in an even faster lap time. This highlights the importance of investing in high-quality tires if you want to shave precious seconds off your lap times.

In conclusion, this experiment highlights the significant impact that tires can have on a car's performance. When it comes to a tight track like the one used for the test, power becomes less of an advantage and grip becomes more important. Investing in good tires is a key part of any serious racing or autocross program, and can make all the difference between victory and defeat.

So what are our conclusions from this experiment? Simply put, if you want to improve your car's performance on the track, start by investing in good tires. This may not be as exciting as adding more power under the hood, but it's a crucial upgrade that can make all the difference. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, braking is also improved with better tires, so this will result in even faster lap times. And remember, the key to success on any track is maintaining a high speed throughout the duration of the track, rather than slowing down and then accelerating again. By focusing on grip and traction, you can shave precious seconds off your lap times and leave your competition in the dust.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enHello everyone and welcome.In this video, we're going to be talking about what the best modification isto make your car faster, and we're going to do this using some mathGoing around a track it's going to be straight out of this book herewhich I will include a link to in the video description, but essentially what we've got iswe're gonna have 3 different cars and each of those cars is going to go around this trackand we're going to see what lap times they post.One of them is going to have new tires, one of them is going to have double the horsepowerand double the torque of the original car, and we will see which one is the fastest.So this track here, what we've got going on is you've got two straights on each side hereand then two straights on each side here and so each one of these is going to be300 feet or about 90 meters and each one of these longer straights is about500 feet or about 150 meters. Clearly, I didn't draw too great to scale, but whatever.That's what our track looks like. We have a width of about 30 feet or 9 metersand we've got these corners here so the total track lengthis about 2250 feet or 685 meters. You'll notice it's a fairly tight course, but you do havethese decent straights to get up to speed.So car number 1, which is going to be our base car - our control essentially -it's able to accelerate at 0.3g's, which isn't all that quickyou know pretty much any family sedan out there could probably hit that these daysIt's able to brake at 1.1g's, which is pretty decent, and corner at 1.0g'swhich is also pretty good. Typically, your braking is going to be slightly higherthan your cornering g's, but essentially this is our control car. We're going to see how fastit can go round the track. You do all the math and there's quite a bit ofcomplicated math in order to get to these numbers but, like I've said, it's all in that bookwhich I've linked in the video description and you get the top speed on this straightawayof 73 mph or about 117 km/h, and the car is able to post a lap time of 27.47 secondsSo, the thing is, we want to compare this now to if we were to upgrade to some new tires.Okay. So our vehicle with the new tires - it doesn't have any more power - so it's still going tobe accelerating at the same 0.3g's.Braking we're going to say it remains the same. In reality, it would improve a bit but, just to keep themath simple, we're going to say that braking stays the same.Cornering is going to go up from 1.0g's to 1.1g's. So, a 10% improvement in the cornering forcebased on these new tires. That's something realistically if you were to get a nice compoundversus a lower quality compound or perhaps a summer versus an all seasonYou could easily get that 10% difference in the cornering force and so if we take this car,and we go around the track, our top speed is going to be 74.5 mph or about 120 km/hSo, where does this improvement come from? Well, essentially, you're able tocarry more speed in the corners so when you start accelerating on the straight,you're going to be able to get to a higher speed; slightly higher74.5 mph rather than 73 mph and, just so it's clear, we're taking the racing line around this.So, if you were to take the inside line; which is of course one path you could take,versus the outside line, the inside line will be slightly quicker than the outsidebut taking the racing line on this track is going to give you about 3 seconds of improvementif you kind of, you know, cut these corners. You go wide, cut the corner and then hit the apexand then come back out wide. That is going to save you about 3 secondsgoing around the track, so that's the lap time we're going with.That's where this 27.47 seconds comes from.So, doing this with the car with better tires, we're going to get 26.34 secondsor a difference of 1.13 seconds split versus our car without these tires.So, we're able to shave off 1.13 seconds just by changing the tires on thisbecause we're able to carry more speed in these corners.Okay, now let's take a car and double its torque curve. Let's essentially just take thattorque curve and shift it up twice whatever it is, and that will essentially double thehorsepower as well and so we're able to now accelerate at 0.6g'sOur braking is going to remain the same at 1.1g's. We don't have those nice tiresso we're still cornering at 1.0g's. So now, our top speed on the track because we've got so much morepower in this engine - in this car - is going to be 84 mph on the straightsyou're going to be able to accelerate. That's the equivalent of 135 km/hand this will give us a track time of 26 point - here's the magical moment - 53.so a split of point nine four over the original carSo here's the crazy thing: we took a car, doubled its horsepower, we sent it around this trackyes, it is a tight track. If you were to have longer straights, you would have an advantagein a car with more power but essentially the more turns a track has, the more advantage will begiven to a car with nicer tires.So, what we're seeing here is that a car with nicer tires and half the horsepower - they're the exactsame vehicle, this one just has half the power - is able to go round this trackfaster than a car with double the power and slightly worse corneringSo, this has a 10% improvement in tires and this has a 100% improvement in powerand yet a 10% improvement is just as effective on this trackThat's crazy to think and it shows you the power of tires out there. This can also explainyou know, if you see a car that's let's say 50 grand; it's kind of heavy, it doesn't have that much powerbut it's posting lap times like Ferraris on tracks, a lot of it is probably going to come down to the tiresand, if you look at the tires, you'll probably notice a difference between whatever that car isand whatever the Ferrari is running and you'll notice that they've probably got a stickier compoundand that's how they're able to do it. The same thing could apply to autocrossIf you've got really nice tires on your autocross car and there are more powerful,lighter weight cars out there, you'll be able to kind of hang with them, depending on their tiresIf they've got crappy tires and a really nice car, and you've got a crappy car with reallynice tires, you'll be posting dramatically similar timesThat's one of the really cool things about tires. It's one of the most important upgrades you couldever do to make your car faster on a trackNow, yes, this requires corners so in a straight line, you're not really going to gain any benefitUnless, you know, you're traction limited because you have so much powerNow, one assumption that is made in doing the math of this is that when you are cornering, you're doingthat at a constant speed. So, you have a constant speed based on your lateral g'sand then, you accelerate once you get to the point where you've straightened outthen you get to a point when you start braking, and you remain back at that constant speedthat you can handle that corner and then you accelerate, brake, corner at constant speed and so onSo, really you know the fastest lap time you're going to be trail braking into thatand then accelerating out but essentially, the time won't be a huge differenceThe other benefit, which isn't included in this, is that a car with better tires is going to havebetter braking. So, this braking number would improve and this time would actually be betterthan shown here because it would be able to brake later as a result of having better tiresSo, what are our conclusions? Well, based on this track, this track right here, tires are 10 timesas effective as adding power. So, it's not to say that you shouldn't add power - you definitelyshould, it makes cars tons of fun - but you should think about tires initiallyThat's a great first modification and it's really going to improve how the car handlesand how quickly it can cornerAdditionally, as mentioned, our braking is going to improve so it would actually be a better timethan I've shown here and you know one thing to think about is the more cornersa track has, the tighter a track it is, the better times you're going to be able to post simplywith better tires rather than having more powerBasically, the lesson here to learn is, it's not necessary to go super fastyou just don't want to go super slow and the way you avoid going super slowis maintaining a high speed by keeping a high speed in your cornersSo, if you can maintain a high speed throughout the duration of the track rather thanslowing down a lot and then accelerating a lot, you're going to be able to post a better lap timeSo, thank you all for watching and if you have any questions or comments, feelfree to leave them below\n"