PIRELLI DROPS THE OTHER SHOE
The Pirelli P7000 Summer Tire

"Power is nothing without control." Pirelli's slogan crossed my mind as we slid wildly back and forth from one side of the watered down track to the other, threatening but never quite touching any of the hundreds of red and yellow cones that marked our twisted route. The power came from one of Subaru's 1995 World Rally Champion team cars, 300 (wink, wink..more like 350+) turbo-boosted fire-belching horses in a lightweight, strengthened Impreza. The control? Start with all-wheel drive. No question, it makes a difference, particularly to an experienced driver. The guy sitting next to me certainly qualified, two-time World Rally Champion Miki Biasion. How calm he was as we lurched forward out of one corner toward another, feet dancing on the pedals, his hands almost a blur, yet, somehow, never rushed, shifting, steering, a quick pull on the E-brake to throw us sideways on braking - momentarily pointing us the OPPOSITE way from the next turn, then enough counter-steering to pendulum the rear end around the other way as we slid into the turn, now staring at the apex, full-lock, throttle open, yanked out onto the next short straight just inches from the cones. Control. Masterful control.

MONZA
We were at history-steeped Monza for the world introduction of Pirelli's "summer" version of the Z-rated (149+mph) ultra-high performance P7000 line. [Note: our story on the all-season version P7000 Supersport is reprinted here for reference with permission from the CompuServe Motor Racing Forum] Our 1.1-mile "Subaru rally stage" on Monza's main straightaway wasn't intended only as a fun ride for journalists, but to call attention to Pirelli's World Rally Championship, the lineage of P7000, and significantly, the critical importance of tires when it comes to the area of control. All motor sports demand precision and skill, but rallying in particular requires a type and degree of car control that is absolutely unique.

MAURO BALDI
With us at Monza that day was 1994 Le Mans-winner Mauro Baldi. With four years of Formula One, a championship with Mercedes in 1990 in World Sports Prototypes, and IMSA success in the Ferrari 333SP, for which he was the development driver at Ferrari, Baldi is not easily impressed by someone else's driving. Well, score one for the rally guys. After finally giving in to our pleas to ride with Biasion, Baldi came back with a huge grin and a new appreciation of car control. Biasion's "look, no hands" slide through the final hairpin, steering only with the throttle, was the clincher for Baldi. "Unbelievable!" he kept saying - for the next two days.

MIKI BIASION
Miki Biasion gave us our own special bonus, an unscheduled ride around the same wet course in his 500 hp World Championship Lancia Delta Integrale, capped off by an impromptu series of 360-degree spins coming down pit lane. As Baldi says, incredible. This day, both the Lancia and Subaru were shod with new P7000s, a fact pointed out by the 38-year old two-time champion. But in competition, both used full-out racing Pirellis. Interestingly, the strong link between the Pirelli "intermediate" rally tire used on the Impreza and the P7000 is due in great part to a 1995 rule change that banned racing slicks and unlimited tire changes in World Championship Rallys. The tread design and construction of both the Supersport and summer P7000 are derived directly from that "intermediate" rally tire, which, like street tires, had to perform on any surface, wet or dry.

DESIGNED FOR THE U.S
The all-weather P7000 Supersport was designed specifically for the U.S., where drivers are much less apt to have separate sets of tires for summer and winter conditions, as do many Europeans who buy this kind of tire. Conseqently, the Supersport's tread compound, while quite stable and heat-resistant in normal or hot weather high-performance driving, is formulated specifically to extend performance into cold temperature conditions. It is a testament to Pirelli's mastery of modern tire compound technology that so little is lost in doing this, but inevitably, some compromises in normal-to-hot weather performance, i.e, high-temperature loading, had to be made. What Pirelli is offering in the P7000 summer tire is the same uncompromising high-performance available to Europeans. Now, enthusiasts in parts of the U.S. that don't have to deal with snow and sleet can have access to P7000 technology in its purest form.

DRY HANDLING
We tested the all-weather P7000 Supersport extensively last year and were, quite frankly, impressed. So it was with specific interest that we set about to see if Pirelli's claims of even better grip, wet and dry, for the new summer P7000 were justified. Our first test session was for dry handling. Last year, we did hundreds of miles on Sicily's Targa Florio route and at Vizzola, Pirelli's test track, in Mustangs and Probes. This time, our testing would be done at Monza, home of the Italian Grand Prix. For dry handling, our course was a 3.8-mile loop beginning about half-way down the main straightaway and including the first chicane, the flat-out Curva Grande, the second chicane, the Lesmo corners, then back up to the Ascari curves before cutting across to our starting point.

We were a bit disappointed to find that our mounts would not be the nifty tuner versions of various European makers shown to us on arrival, and for which, after all, the high-performance P7000s were designed, but rather, more sedate and modestly-powered Mercedes, BMW, Alfa Romeo, Toyota, Subaru, and Volkswagen sedans. Perfectly good cars, the lot, but to really evaluate a designated ultra-high performance tire, one needs to have enough performance to reach and indeed exceed the limits of adhesion. Regardless, in the few places we could momentarily challenge the tires each lap, the P7000s did not disappoint.

Turn-in was crisp and precise, perhaps even more so than with the impressive Supersports, but hard to quantify without a reference or instrumented data. Grip, both straight-line (braking) and lateral, was excellent, again, if memory served us, seemingly even more tenacious than the all-season tires. But of equal importance, much of the Supersport tire's confidence-inspiring feel and predictability was retained with that increased grip. Mind, these observations were made approaching and negotiating low-speed corners and made us want all the more to experience the tires more accurately at higher speeds than we could reach in the faster corners. Eighty-five to ninety mph through the Curva Grande or even the two Lesmos is no challenge to the P7000 or any performance tire. Control is nothing without power!

WET HANDLING
A "wet handling test" laid out on an 800-meter tight slalom course on the notorius Paribolica turn that exits onto Monza's main straight turned out to be a no-practice, two-pass competition in Alfa Romeo sedans. Modesty prohibits us from devulging the name of the journalist who made the fastest pass, but, alas, one tipped cone, defective no doubt, relegated the individual to second. The real wet testing would be done the following day at a more familiar venue, Pirelli's excellent state-of-the-art Vizzola Test Grounds outside Milan.

Like most of our colleagues from the U.S. and Canada who test and evaluate tires, we prefer direct comparisons with competing brands whenever possible. If the test criteria are relevant (replicating a variety of real driving conditions) and the test methodology sound (specific and repeatable tasks to compare), it is simply the quickest way to measure strengths and weaknesses which can in turn be conveyed clearly to consumers, particularly when backed up by recorded data. For the P7000 Supersport, for instance, many of the tests at Vizzola were conducted against competing tires from Michelin and Goodyear. This time, however, no competing brands were supplied and our only reference was the all-weather tire. Not ideal, but workable in view of our prior tests with that product. There was, however, another complication.

The cars on which our P7000s, both summer and all-weather versions, were fitted were European-spec 328 i BMWs, an excellent choice if tests are to be conducted with a single make. These cars, however, were provided by the Siegfried Stohr Driving School and all our tests were to be conducted with one of their instructors aboard, perfect for the dealers expected at Vizzola after us, but a bit, uh, unusual for a test program.

As we had expected, just a few laps on a short dry-handling course with the two tires back to back confirmed our impression at Monza of the P7000 summer tire's crisper turn-in and increased grip. Obviously, the unbroken central rib designed to give slick-like dry performance to both tires has benefited from the summer tire's new compounding. Comparitive testing at Vizzola did give us a clearer picture of the difference in feel between the two tires. At the limits of adhesion, both tires give ample warning and both are admirably controllable. But with the slightly more-grippy P7000 summer tire, the warning comes a bit later and the progression to loss of adhesion is less gradual.

We confess to being initially surprised that the summer tire's grip advantage extended into wet performance. Upon further thought, the reason was clear. Both P7000 tires benefit from nearly the same tread pattern and consequently, deal with the dispersion of water the same way. Transverse radial grooves reduce aquaplaning at slow and medium speeds when roads are covered by a relatively deep layer of water. Superimposed over these radial grooves are a series of "sabre-cuts," inclined circumferential grooves which, together with deep circumferential channels on each side of the central rib, address the problem of high-speed aquaplaning. Wet performance was excellent with the all-weather tire. It was, to some degree, even better with the summer tire, almost across the board. With mud and snow no longer a consideration, the new tread compound is the answer.

There was little difference in the straight-line aquaplaning and emergency stop-and-turn tests. The speeds at which the two tires ultimately lost grip over Vizzola's 10-millimeter deep high-speed aquaplaning trough were very close. It was the same with the stop-and-turn test results, though this conclusion was more subjective than scientific, as the measured area got increasingly wet with each pass. In both tests, however, when an advantage was perceived, it invariably favored the summer tire.

Our first runs through the second-gear wet slalom seemed to indicate a small difference, but with repetition and, to the discomfort of one particular driving school instructor, greater speed, the summer tire's advantage became more evident. Again, both were good but ultimately, the summer tire was a bit more precise on turn-in and lateral grip. The net was a higher speed through the slalom.

The difference was most easily seen on Vizzola's longer wet-handling course, where sprinklers keep a variety of turns either slick or flooded. There, once we were able to ignore a silly two-lap maximum and settle into a nice rythm, the wet performance characteristics of both P7000s could be explored more fully. More lock was needed on turn-in when the Supersport was pushed to the limit and there was more oversteer exiting the corners. But there were no surprises and plenty of feedback to the driver. In short, great control. That was what we admired last year about the all-weather tire. It absolutely transformed the Mustang into a responsive, even tossable car, with good grip and excellent ballance. In fact, one magazine editor in our party had gone home from that test and immediately ordered a set of P7000 Supersports for his own Mustang. With a little harder edge on the Supersport's feedback, the P7000 summer is a bit more exacting, but just that much better for the enthusiast. It makes the BMW 328I, already a responsive, good-handling driver's car, even better.

"UNBELIEVABLE!"
Mauro Baldi, who joined us again at Vizzola, seemed to agree. After hot-lapping both versions of the P7000, he promptly announced that he was going to put the new summer version on his Porsche Turbo, which was shod with Pirelli P-Zeros. Why would he consider trading Pirelli's stickiest no-compromise ultra-high performance P-Zeros for the P7000 summer tires? High performance comes at a price, monetary and otherwise. The P7000s, both of them, give a hell of a lot of grip and performance, "Unbelievable!" in Baldi's words, yet they are compliant (ride well), quiet, and comfortable.

RECOMMEND
Would we recommend the P7000 summer tire? Absolutely, if mud, sleet, and snow are not a factor where you drive. If they are, or if you can live with a bit less grip in exchange for even more predictability and feedback, stick with the Supersport. Either P7000 is a great choice for a high-performance European sedan or American muscle car. There's a catch in the case of the latter, though. While the Supersport comes in OE sizes for Corvettes, Camaros, Mustangs, and Probes, the "summer" tire is, at least initially, available primarily in productions sizes for imports, 16", 17", and 18" wheel sizes for various Ferrari, Porsche, BMW, Mercedes, Volvo, and Saab models. If you want to shoe that Mustang, Corvette, or Camaro, for now you'll need to go to a plus-zero (same size wheel, but one size wider tire) or plus-1 (one wheel size greater) fitment. Summer tire or Supersport, the P7000 is the best street tire for high-performance cars that we've tested to date. And Pirelli is right. Power is nothing without control.