All 12 tires were mounted on identical Konig Beyond wheels measuring 18x9.5 inches and weighing 23.70 pounds. This is the latest design from Konig, which combines five-spoke style with a totally modern look.
Pirelli PZero Corsa
To learn more about the Pirelli PZero Corsa tires, we turned to Peter Tyson, vice president of public relations and motorsports with Pirelli Tire North America. Tyson says, "When the PZero Corsa tires were designed, one defining feature, unlike a lot of other track tires, is that they retain a sensible amount of wet grip. The Corsa tires have a tread pattern that is asymmetric and directional, so you need four specific tires for the car. The payback is in wet handling.
"There are directional cuts to move water away from the center of the tires to prevent aquaplaning and improve wet braking. That's what gives it an advantage over other competition tires. The amount of water that the tread can move is a function of the depth of the tread because it carries the water, so if it's half as deep, it can carry half as much water.
"The target audience can be split into track-day people who want to use the same car on the road and those who want to build an extreme road car. There is maximum grip, even for road use, yet the tires can withstand shocks and bumps in the road, which is something to consider. Some track tires aren't designed to deal with unevenness such as potholes and the different forces and cornering loads. Under extreme cornering loads there has to be resistance to deformation, but you also need shock absorption in the structure of the tire, and these are two completely different problems to tackle."
Primedia Associate Editor Scott "YP" Parker turned over the keys to his lightly modified '99 GT so we could have a second car to work the tires on. It has great balance, but it could have used a bit more power to get off the corners quicker.
Preventing distortion is important because you don't want the tire to fold under the wheel in a turn, so a specially constructed sidewall is used and blended to the tread surface, which must have a compound that provides grip and that can maintain compliance over all types of imperfections in the road or track surface.
Tyson also made us aware of the slightly different version of the PZero Corsa called the PZero Corsa System that is and was used as the OE tire on some of the world's hottest supercars, including the Ferrari 360 Challenge model, certain Lamborghinis, the Porsche GT-3, and the Maserati MC-12.
"The PZero Corsa System is the OE version of the track day tire, but it has even more wet grip, which is required by the manufacturers," Tyson says. "But even with the PZero Corsa, you can drive to a track day, race all day, and drive home quite comfortably. It is also quite good in the wet."
Our testing began on a clear but cool mid-November day, with the temperature hovering in the 50s. The chill meant we needed a few extra laps to get each set of tires into the operating range and to knock the "new" off the rubber. With this break-in complete, we returned to the pits and set the PZero Corsa tires to 27 psi in the front and 28 in the rear and began hot-lapping. Initially, the Cobra felt loose, but after building up the heat, the tires came in nicely. We could feel the added performance over the standard street rubber, especially on entry to the tight corners.
At 285/30x18 inches the PZeros were the widest of the bunch (they were the closest to the P275/35s that Pirelli had available), but they fit without rubbing at any point. The low profile gave us excellent steering response and overall grip, but we did find the limit, at which point the car would oversteer, causing us to reel it in a bit. Our staff has made hundreds of laps on the course, and right off the bat we knew we had something special. The grippy tires allowed us to go very deep and carry speed like never before--almost to the point where things got scary-fast.