this post was submitted on 08 Jan 2024
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Cars on race tracks use bald tyres for more contact with the road, which gives better grip. The tread is there to guide water out so the car doesn't slide in the wet.
Unfortunately it looks like the image is of a car with bald tyres in the wet (I'm assuming that's why it's shiny).
I think the car might have been parked overnight because it looks like there's a layer of ice coating the tire. Talk about hard mode, now every street is an ice level!
Also worth noting though that the main reason race cars are able to get more grip with slick tires is because the tires are made to have a very low melting (?) point. So they heat up very quickly and also don’t last very long as a result. But that heating up allows them to literally stick to the ground. Normal car tires ain’t doing that for sure.
Man I just went down a rabbit hole and no one can agree on car tyres. It seems you're right about special racing tyres that melt and attach to the road (after warm up laps), but no one can agree on whether bald car tyres in the dry have more grip than treaded ones (in ideal conditions). For sure, wet, snow, sand, gravel, etc. You want the tread, which is pretty much every public road since they are not swept perfectly clean and smooth. But I could not find an answer to whether bald tyres grip the road better. People say they don't, which is why racing cars use slicks, but that's not proof, even if bald tyres grip better they would still use soft tyres for even better grip.
I found reddit threads with engineers saying one thing and other engineers saying they are wrong. Racing forums with non-engineers saying the soft slicks are the reason for grip and bald regular car tyres have less grip. No one can back up their claims.
It's obvious that it's a bad idea to drive on bald tyres because the road is always an imperfect surface, but I can't even find a hypothetical answer to the question with any confidence.
Welcome to cars. Combination of advice that's valid, advice that used to be valid but isn't anymore, and advice that was never valid. Very few ways to verify anything, because the knowledge is held by manufacturers and racing teams who have reasons to keep secrets.
I ended up here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tire_model
I guess we don't really know the answer, that would explain why it's so hard to find 😆
We're also looking for a very generic answer to a (probably) more nuanced problem
Using f1 as an example (Because every series will use a different tyre) across the five different compounds used 100-110°c seems to be the range for optimal grip.
If you could get a normal road tyre to that temp it would just fall apart.
Oooo learn somethin new every day, thanks for sharing your knowledge ❤️