Bridgestone Potenza Sport
Long-awaited replacement already making its presence felt
IT’S BEEN A LONG TIME COMING, BUT Bridgestone has finally launched its replacement for the venerable Potenza S001. It’s called the Potenza Sport and the all-new UHP (Ultra High Performance) tyre is available in almost 100 sizes, from 17 to 22 inches in diameter, so will fit high-performance cars, luxury cars and on-road SUVS. Significantly it is original equipment (OE) on a couple of particularly evo-centric models: the new Maserati MC20 supercar and Lamborghini’s hardcore, road-racer Huracán STO.
The Potenza Sport has been on sale in the UK and Europe since February and has already picked up a number of accolades. It beat the usual suspects from Michelin, Continental and Goodyear in a tyre test conducted by German magazine Auto Bild, which tested the 265/35 R20 size on a Ford Mustang 5.0. Meanwhile, in Sport Auto’s test of UHP and UUHP summer tyres, tested on the BMW Z4 and Toyota Supra with asymetric front/rear sizes, the Potenza Sport placed a very creditable second overall behind Michelin and ahead of Goodyear, Continental and Pirelli.
As well as the usual claims of innovation in tread pattern and design, compound and construction, Bridgestone says that the Potenza Sport was created using its new virtual tyre development technology, which it says allows it 1 to very accurately predict a tyre’s performance without physically producing and driving it. This obviously saves valuable development time and resources, and if the Potenza Sport is proof of the process, Bridgestone will become more competitive in other sectors, too, as it replaces its older tyres.
As well as class-competitive wet and dry performance, Bridgestone claims that the Sport is also ten per cent more economical than the outgoing S001. It also appears to be competitively priced. We’ll include the Potenza Sport in our own tyre test later this year, which as always will blend subjective assessments of steering feel, handling precision, ride quality and noise with objective data for wet and dry braking and straight and curved aquaplaning, giving us a complete picture of how it stacks up against its rivals.