ContiSportContact 2 Vmax NEW HIGH SPEED TYRE

This is the new tyre released by Continental that is rated safe up to 225 MPH

The ContiSportContact 2 Vmax is Continental's Max Performance Summer tire that was designed to be the fastest "off-the-shelf" tire in the world. Intended for ultra-fast, high-end customized sport cars and performance sedans, the ContiSportContact 2 Vmax is the first road tire certified by Continental for speeds of up to 225 mph (360 km/h), a speed at which the tires must withstand revolving approximately 50 times every second while they carry the vehicle 330 feet (100 meters) down the road.

The main challenge for the ContiSportContact 2 Vmax is to master the extreme centrifugal forces on the tire surface and dissipate the heat. As tires roll faster, centrifugal forces and tire temperatures grow. With several tons of weight per square inch stressing the tread at high speeds, tire temperatures can heat up beyond 200-degrees Fahrenheit.

An additional challenge of high-speed tires is that standing waves may develop in the tread area and sidewall. A radial tire's tread flattens and its sidewalls bulge where it comes into contact with the road. At low speeds, it's easy for the tire to transition between the tire's loaded shape and its relaxed shape before returning to its loaded shape as the tire contacts with the road again. However at high speeds, this process occurs so rapidly that the tire may not be able to switch between shapes before the tire's next contact with the road, causing a ripple in the tread area and sidewall. The tire's structure must provide the control required to avoid the destructive heat generated during this transformation at high speeds.

On the outside, ContiSportContact 2 Vmax tires feature a tread compound molded into the familiar ContiSportContact 2 asymmetric tread design with several important design differences to help keep temperatures down. The tread ribs have been modified by enlarging the existing grooves and adding circumferential cooling grooves and lateral notches to reduce the rubber volume while increasing hydroplaning resistance on wet roads. Sipes in the tread pattern make the tread more supple, and beginning tread depths have been reduced by about 15 percent (molded at only 7/32- to 9/32-inch compared to the typical 9/32- to 10/32-inch) to cut heat generation by about one half.

On the inside, the ContiSportContact 2 Vmax have exceptionally strong steel belts, nylon belt reinforcement and a multi-radii tread contour to distribute the forces on the belt more uniformly and reduce the stress on the belt edges to ensure that the tire can withstand high speeds. The ContiSportContact 2 Vmax has been designed with a reinforced sidewall and the number of wires in the bead core has been increased from 25 to 36, thus guaranteeing the tire resists standing waves and holds the rim firmly.

Continental ContiSportContact 2 Vmax tires feature black sidewall styling with subtle black letters reversed out of a circumferential serrated band. They are Z-speed rated and available in selected 35-, 30- and 25-series sizes for 19" wheel diameters.

Whats the highest Tyre speed/rating other than that?

(ZR), 300 km/h (186 mph).

Quite a big jump up. Are you gonna get some for yours Chris?

possibly.. but my rears will cost me £275 each

Dont know if the £50 each one is worth it reall as I dont often venture above 200 mph

Mmmmm, hope they are better than the sport contacts that I had on the Zed. Suffered 3 wall failures out of 4 Put me off them, apparently the side wall thickness is very thin compared to others??

I can safely say that the Contis Im running are easily the BEST tyre Ive ever used and Ive been through a list of the best!

The contis have amazing grip, wet or dry and they dont wear as fast as a lot of very soft compount tyres Ive used before...

I've run ContiSports before, they were very good. Not quite as good as the Eagle F1s in the wet though. One of my rears had a manufacturing defect though that meant it was totally out of balance and it had to be sent back to Continental for them to look at. The replacement one was fine but it makes you wonder at the quality control.

Is this the tyre that new M5 had on - which started peeling?

It's the tyre used by the 9ff Porsche to lap Nardo in the EVO/Continental Tyer test.

The 9ff Porsche has a top speed of about 244mph I believe...

They should be good...but other manufacturers make similarly rated rubber...they just haven't seen the need to release it to the general public, because only the dealers need to buy it for Mac F1's, XJ220's, F40's etc lets face it with normal 200mph cars you don't take it to Tyre's-R-Us to get some new boots...

Conti launched this tyre at Nardo last year - June I think it was. From the press pack, I vaguely remember it looking like a bit of a compromise in terms of being capable of dealing with those kinds of speeds. Performed well on the day, but I wouldn't bother with it for daily use.

Bobbeh, the M5 tyre that got destroyed is actually a special compound SportContact which has been designed specifically for the M5. Doesn't mean it's indestructible though...