– Luckily i do have the pace to back up the mock plates haha.
With the car back together and ready to go i got a new alignment sorted and headed out to the Used & Abused track day held at Wakefield Park last Monday. I was excited as this would be the first time using the new RE71-R tyres and putting them to the test.
So the day itself. It was forecast to be a hot one with temps over 30 degrees at midday and paired with having to be back in Sydney by 6pm to start work i knew i had to get right into things in the morning sessions to try and get the best out of the car and the tyres. The guys from Used and Abused ran an excellent day. Groups were sorted well and being in the fast group meant less cars, more track room and good etiquette. They also had photographers on standby and provided plenty of quality photos used in this post.
And the tyres. They’re amazing!
After swapping from the Hankook RS3 to the Yokohama A050 and experiencing the level of grip the A050 had i was a bit worried going back to a 200TW street tyre. All those worries and doubts went away in the first session out on track. The grip levels of the RE71-R are far beyond that of its 200TW competition (RS3, AD08R), they’re phenomenal.
First session out was basically just a refresher and set up session. I came in a few times and adjusted tyre pressures and tested certain corners to see how they responded. I ended up setting the tyres at 30PSI hot and was happy how they performed there.
Second session came around early morning and it was warming up so i figured this would be my best session to get a decent time. Straight away i knew my PB was falling that session as the first couple corners felt really really good. Being out on track the car felt really quick and reacted very similar to how it did on the A050. As i crossed the line on my second hot lap the screen showed a 1:08.58. WOW! Coming back in and checking the data my thoughts were proved correct. My corner speeds were very close to those of my A050 laps from months ago. Street tyres that corner as fast as top level semis. How crazy is that!
Still i knew there was more in the car so next session i just went out and tried to clean up sections and just push that little harder. It worked and i was able to drop my time down to a 1:08.39. I tried to do another lap after this one and was actually up on time for the first half but the car became prone to understeer as the lap progressed and i eventually did a 1:08.7. Still back to back 1:08s isn’t bad.
It was midday by this stage so the air and the track were both really hot and the tyres weren’t really liking it. I will say that the RE71-R performs very much like the A050 where you have a short window to get the most out of them. I was getting 2 hot laps out of them per session before they started going off and unlike the A050, when the RE71-R go off, that’s it. Although with the A050 i would find that i needed two warm up laps to get them gripping really well whereas the RE71-R were good to go straight away.
– Mowing the track lawns. If you’re not going off, you’re not pushing hard enough right?
I went out for one more session and had a fun battle with my friend in his K swap EG. I didn’t set racechrono or my GoPro up for this session as i wasn’t even thinking about lap times at this stage. Surprisingly i ended up doing a 1:08.5 somehow. Content with what i had done and the heat/work factors, this is where i called it a day.
– The two fastest cars on the day and the only cars to go into the 1:08s. Marcus and i had a bunch of fun battles throughout the day. In the end he did a great lap and beat me in the times by .01. I will have to get my revenge at SMSP next time
So the verdict on the RE71-R.
They’re amazing! I beat my street tyre (RS3) PB by 1.5 seconds and was only .5 off my A050 PB. There’s still plenty of time in them too as you’ll see in the video below. So if you’re looking for a pure outright lap time tyre, this is the tyre for you. It will be interesting to see how they heat cycle and how long they last as this will be a big determining factor for them. With a 1:07.xx lap achievable, they are as fast as A050 and coming in at half the cost they are a solid track day tyre choice.
Track built S2000 