Vredestein Sportrac 2

Fitted the Vredestein sporttrack2's after a terrible time with the factory fit Michelin Pilot Exalto's. I was looking for a tire that provided predictable, reponsive behavior in both wet and dry conditions without sacrificing too much in terms of tire life.

The ST2s ticked most boxes and are generally a superb tire, living up to the hype of professional tire testing.

Wet grip is the best I've tried. High speed motorway running in severe conditions (traffic permitting) resulted in a rock solid straight line performace, with good feel and never aquaplaning unit hitting some serious standing water. Running in the truck ruts of the inside lane of most British motorways at 70mph in moderate rain was never an issue. On back roads, good feedback and excellent lateral grip resulted in cornering speeds far higher than I had thought possible, and only a little slower than possible in the dry. When limits were broached, the breakaway point was easy to feel and progressive.

No 'non-snow' tire is that good in the white stuff, but for a summer tire, I never got suck in upto 6" of the stuff & the progressive breakaway is great fun! ;-)

Dry handling was good, but the open tread pattern that is so good in the wet robs the tire of outright grip in the dry, probably the reason for such little difference in wet and dry cornering. (also consider the ZR is setup to understeer like mad probably does not help this).

The ST2s weak point is comfort and noise. The side wall is stiff, resulting in great feedback but an uncomfortable ride. The ST2 is also notable noiser than the pervious Michelin, Perelli, BFGoodrich and Dunlops used.

Tire life of 30,000 isn't bad considering 50% of this has been some very spirited B road driving. This compares to 47,000 for the OE fit Michelins.

Would I recommend them, yes but now the ST3 is out it is probably better bet. I'm moving onto the Ultrac in search of better dry cornering & someting quieter.