Michelin launches world's fastest road tyre

French tyre manufacturer Michelin has unveiled the world's fastest ever road tyre ahead of its appearance on the Ferrari 458 Italia and 599 GTO supercars and the next generation Porsche 911 and BMW M5 – but the technology will eventually make its way onto everyday road cars.

The company says the Pilot Super Sport is "a direct descendant" of the tyres that drove the brand to 13 consecutive LeMans victories and is just one step below track-biased semi-slick tyres.

Speaking at the launch of the tyre in Dubai at the weekend, Florent Menegaux, president passenger car and light truck tyres worldwide, said the new tyre provided more grip, shorter stopping distances and up to 50 per cent longer wear.

He said it was a sign of things to come in the next generation of Michelin tyres for regular passenger cars.

"To combine these three things, this is our proudest achievement in a road tyre so far," said Menegaux. "It's not just the fastest and safest tyre we've brought to market, it shows where we are heading in everyday cars."

The company developed its latest tyre with the help of Ferrari, Porsche and BMW – and as well as more than 250,000km of road driving, did 100,000km of track testing, including 1000 hours at speeds in excess of 300km/h.

The tyre was subsequently tested by Tüev Süed, an independent engineering auditing firm based in Germany. When the Michelin was benchmarked against premium tyres from other brands, the auditors found it was either as good or better than its premium performance tyre rivals in key areas.

The Carsales Network sampled the Pilot Super Sport during a series of exercises on wet and dry pavement, which compared cornering grip and braking distances between the Michelin and its rivals.

During a braking exercise at 90km/h the Michelin was only 0.8 metre better in the dry and 0.2 metre better in the wet compared to the latest Pirelli P Zero in identical cars (BMW M3).

During a cornering excerise in the wet, driving identical Audi TT sportscars, the Michelin appeared to have similar levels of grip to the rival Continental, but gave better feedback.

However, the differences were more stark on the track test. A back-to-back drive of a trio of Porsche 911s showed that the Dunlop and Bridgestone tyres did not have the longevity, grip or stability of the Pilot Super Sport.

"We don't claim to be the best in every single aspect," Michelin Vice President of Technical Communications, Pascal Couasnon, told the Carsales Network at the Dubai Motordrome. "We are on par with other premium performance tyres on some factors, and better in others. We will never allow one performance to supersede the overall balance of the tyre. We favour every type of condition for everyday use."

The Pilot Super Sport's internal casing uses a fabric called Twaron, a heat-resistance synthetic fibre used in military and aerospace applications, and which prevents the tyre from "bloating" from centrifugal forces at high speeds. This enables the full width of the tyre to keep better contact with the road. Michelin says it used this technology in the tyres used by the past three LeMans winners.

The Pilot Super Sport also has two compounds of rubber across the tread. The outer edge (one-fifth of the tread width) is a dry compound while the rest of the tread (four-fifths of the width) is a softer compound better suited to wet weather grip.

The outer edge does most of the work in corners, while the cross section of tread does most of the work during wet braking or cornering.

Michelin says, to its knowledge, it is the only company to use two tread compounds on road tyres.

The Pilot Super Sport goes on sale in January next year in 19 sizes. Prices are yet to be announced.

Ferrari is the first car maker to equip the new tyres to its vehicles, to be followed by BMW (M5, late 2011) and Porsche (911, early 2012).

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