New Product ! Bridgestone Potenza Race vs Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect

Bridgestone Potenza Race vs Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect: Bridgestone recently announced their first ever dedicated semi slick tire for the replacement market. Introducing the Bridgestone Potenza Race ! It was designed with one main focus in mind, to be extremely good on a dry track. It currently serves 13 sizes which mostly covers the popular hatchbacks and sportscars most commonly found in the race track. With a dedicated segment tire, Potenza Race entered a crowded semi slick track day market with products such as Goodyear Eagle F1 Supersport R and Pirelli P Zero Trofeo. But one tire seems to be the best among daily track usage and it is none other than Michelin’s Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect. In this article we will pit the Bridgestone Potenza Race vs Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 head to head to see who comes out on top !

Pattern comparison

Before we dive deep into the results section, I would like to take a moment to look at the patterns of both tires. If you just have only a 1 second peak, you might easily deduce both of them look really similar. In fact both of them have an extremely huge shoulder block (only the outside) as having a huge outer shoulder block without any void helps to stiffen up the block which indirectly provides a better handling response. You can observe this from all semi slick tires and this is quite a common knowledge in the industry.

As you would also want to maximize the contact area, the pattern design has to have minimal grooves. The small amount of void generated by the circumferential grooves are only for wet related performance and it is kept to a minimum. Both of them have a track 3 circumferential grooves while having minimal siping. The sipes for Bridgestone looks to be open ended while Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect has also chosen open ended siping but from 2 different block edges on the opposite sides. Sipes are mainly geared towards improving wet performances and is a trade off against dry.

Results

Results below were taken from the press release of Potenza Race. Word of caution as the results were provided by Bridgestone and it should be taken with a pinch of salt. Ideally we will get independent results rather than relying on the tire manufacturer itself. We will update the article with more test data once the tires are fully tested independently

The graph below shows the comparison between Bridgestone Potenza Race vs Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect based on the relevant performance category. The new launch Bridgestone Potenza Race was set as a reference hence at the 100% mark.

As both of the tires are semi slick track day tires, the main focus would be on dry track performances. The tire size of interest is 245/35 R19 which is a common tire size for Mercedes-Benz C 350 E Avantgarde and BMW M2 Competition Dct. You can check out our latest tire size table for more information. The testing vehicle is a Mercedes AMG A45s and testing was done on the Nardo circuit.

Dry

With a semi slick track day focus segment, it is clear that the main requirement would be dry track performances. With the 6.2 km Nardo handling circuit at their mercy, both tires undergo a grueling 3 laps and an average was taken out of these. Potenza Race came out on top with a stunning lap time of 155.39 seconds while Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect could only muster a slower lap time with a 2.48 seconds deficit.

It was also a similar direction in dry braking as Potenza Race had a stopping distance of 32.3 meters while Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect was braking later by 0.5 meters. The braking distance was evaluated from 110km/h down to 0 for both tires. Overall, Potenza Race has shown that they mean business on track day performances and were better than the Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect.

Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect :

• -1.5% in dry braking
• -1.6% in dry handling (+2.48 seconds)

Wear (UTQG rating)

As disclosed on the Potenza Race’s press day, it had claimed that Potenza Race has a 40% advantage in track longevity compared to Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect at the Nardo circuit. This however seems contradicting to the UTQG tread wear rating. Potenza Race has a tread wear rating of 200 while the Pilot Sport Cup 2 has 240. It is advisable not to compare the UTQG tread wear ratings for different competitors, but we can’t help taking a peak. Also the traction (wet) of Pilot Sport Cup 2 is ranked AA while Potenza Sport is ranked A. From this, we do expect better wet performances for Pilot Sport Cup 2. Below are the UTQG values of both of the tirelines.

Brand	Tireline	Size	Tread Wear	Traction	Temperature
Bridgestone	Potenza Race	All	200	A	A
Michelin	Pilot Sport Cup 2 (240)	All	240	AA	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

Being the undisputed technology leader, we would expect Michelin to command the highest priced tire in the market. However we were proven wrong. The exciting new Potenza Race was proven to be much more expensive than Pilot Sport Cup 2.

Tire size: 245/30 ZR20

Potenza Race: €398.39

Pilot Sport Cup 2: €328.29

Difference: -21% more cheaper for Pilot Sport Cup 2.

Summary

Overall, Potenza Race showed better dry performances against the Pilot Sport Cup 2 with shorter dry braking distances & lap times. However there is some conflicting hints about the track mileage and this would need to be sorted out in a independent test.