Your tyres are the only grip and contact between your car and the road. They should also provide a comfortable ride, yet be as robust and hard-wearing as possible, maintaining safe and controlled manoeuvrability for your vehicle.
To achieve this, tyres need to be carefully constructed from a combination of different ingredients. As many as 200 separate raw materials can be used in the construction of one tyre.
To see the tyre construction in more detail, click here.
The tread is the grooved outer layer that is in direct contact with the road. The rubber compound is designed to grip the road, resist general wear and tear and cope with high temperatures generated by friction.
The grooves and tread sipes on the shoulder of the tyre are specially designed to channel water away from the surface of the tyre, maintaining maximum wet grip.
Different rubber compounds are used for tyres to make them suitable for different vehicle’s and driving conditions. For example, racing cars have tyres that can work at very high temperature ranges with optimum grip, enabling prolonged usage at high speeds on the track. These tyres wear more rapidly than typical road tyres which are balanced to provide optimum steering, braking, road holding and wear capabilities.
