Welcome back ! Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R vs Bridgestone Potenza RE-71RS

Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R vs Bridgestone Potenza RE-71RS: We have been covering a lot lately about the semi slick race track tires especially with Bridgestone’s newest Potenza Race which predominantly covers 19-21″ tire sizes with cars like Lamborghini Huracán STO and SEAT Leon Cupra in focus. What if you have your typical BMW M3 car which is not a Lamborghini? Then you will be glad to hear that one of the best extreme performance summer tires is back in business.

Introducing the brand new Potenza RE-71RS! It covers a big range of tire sizes from 195/50R16 all the way till 295/35R18. This allows you to fit your mid range track cars like BMW M3 or your reliable Volkswagen GTI for a pleasant day on the track. We would like to show you the improvements made by the new product by doing a head to head comparison of Potenza RE-71RS against its predecessor Potenza RE-71R.

Results

Results below were taken from a Tire Rack’s independent test. The graph below shows the comparison between Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R vs Bridgestone Potenza RE-71RS based on the relevant performance category. The Bridgestone Potenza RE-71R being the predecessor was set as a reference hence at the 100% mark.

As both tires are mainly focused on track performances, the dry performance naturally takes dominance over the wet. However as this is a street legal tire, it is also crucial to know how your wet performance is as you never know when you need it. The tire size of interest is a 245/40 R18 which is a common size for Audi A4 & Mercedes-Benz C 200 Amg Line. You can check out our latest tire size table for more information. The testing vehicle of choice was the rear wheel driven 2020 BMW 430i Gran Coupe (F36)

Dry

When it comes down to track day performance tires, you immediately connect to a picture of a “racing car” driving at the limit on a race track. This is exactly what these tires are all about, they are trying to optimize their dry track performances while balancing the wet legal trade off. We will take a look into handling first as this is the performance every track day users want. Only 0.01 seconds separated them apart when it comes to dry slalom hence indicating there are no clear improvement gains in this area.

However when it came to dry handling lap times, Potenza RE-71RS was 0.3 seconds averagely faster than Potenza RE-71R. The small lap time number could be attributed to the short test track as it only took them about 28 seconds to complete a lap. We would expect this number to be bigger as the test track is longer. Subjectively the old Potenza RE-71R was preferred as the “steering was less precise and didn’t offer the feedback of its predecessor “. The new Potenza RE-71RS was able to generate a much higher lateral force with a 1.0g compared to the 0.97 of the old product.

On the other hand, Potenza RE-71RS showed its clear advantage in dry braking as it out brakes the Potenza RE-71R by 3 feet (0.9m) from a speed of 50mph down to 0. It is clear to us that the new Potenza RE-71RS has better objective numbers but just lacks the subjective feeling of the predecessor.

Potenza RE-71RS:

• +0.2% Dry Slalom
• +1%  Dry Handling (Average Lap Time)
• +3.1% Dry Lateral g’s
• +4.1% Dry Braking

Wet

The friction of coefficient of the tire/road dramatically decreases in wet roads compared to dry roads. Hence it is more likely to get into a road accident during wet conditions rather than on a sunny day. It was so important that the EU label has wet braking as one of its three criteria. With regards to our comparison, Potenza RE-71RS took a big leap against its predecessor by having a 5.6 feet shorted wet braking distance compared to Potenza RE-71R.

Things were moving in a positive direction in wet handling as well, as Potenza RE-71RS was 0.89 seconds faster in lap time. However the feedback on subjective rating still favors Potenza RE-71R. Despite a much better wet braking capability and faster lap times, the driver finds it hard to control these tires as the mix match balance of the front & rear makes the driver struggle for control.

Ultimately, Potenza RE-71RS show clearly better wet objective performances but still lacking the subjective feeling of the old Potenza RE-71R.

Potenza RE-71RS:

• +0.4% Wet Slalom
• +2.8% Wet Handling (Average Lap Time)
• +3.6% Wet Lateral g’s
• +5.3% Wet Braking

Wear

As Tire Rack did not test wear, we had to get the tread wear test results from Bridgestone’s own website. Based on the marketing material, the wear of Potenza RE-71RS was 5% better than Potenza RE-71R. This 5% increase was not observable in the UTQG tread wear rating as both the tires scored a 200 rating for UTQG Tread Wear. Nonetheless we do expect a slight improvement in wear for the new Potenza RE-71RS successor product.

Brand	Tireline	Size	Tread Wear	Traction	Temperature
Bridgestone	Potenza RE-71R	All	200	A	A
Bridgestone	Potenza RE-71RS	All	200	A	A

For more in depth information about UTQG, please check out this article here. We even have a free download on the latest UTQG values from the leading tire manufacturers.

Price

As Bridgestone has halted the Potenza RE-71R for almost a year, there were no concrete pricing for it.

Tire size: 245/40 R18

Potenza RE-71RS:  $263

Summary

Overall, Potenza RE-71RS clearly was a step forward in the right direction with improvements in objective wet/dry & wear. There is however some drawback in terms of subjective wet & dry handling. Having said that, if you are looking to blaze around the track as fast as you can, this tire is definitely worth looking into !

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