Do Flat Tyres Make Your Car FASTER? | For Science 

Those flat tyres were sketchy!! What would you like us to test next?? Don't forget to subscribe!

Use a car with power where the tires matter more, and launch control to eliminate the driver variable

Would love to see how those tire pressures handle a corner close up and braking/lap time.

The ideal pressure depends on the size of the tire (and of course on the car it is fitted to and especially its weight). It doesn't really make sense to compare tirepressures between tires of different sizes or between different cars.

Experiment would have been better with a vehicle that actually had enough horsepower to spin the tires.

I should have known Brit's measure heat in relation to tea.

Hamilton is typing...

@6:40 not sure the gains are even real. you had to try twice. i think rolling resistance is just as important for such a low power car when doing this, and high pressure has the advantage there, even with only the rear tires being pumped. pump all four tires to 50 psi and you'd have your best time, specially in 1/4 mile or longer runs.

I had a MR2 with ultra low profiles and got a flat rear tire, the sidewall was so stiff that I couldn't even feel the flat below 30mph! Drove all the way to the local asda and shredded the sidewall! 🤣🤣

Would be super interesting to see how these pressures would affect a laptime or cornering ability

I hope you let the tyres cool down in between. Temps of the tyers also has an effect.

the driver is also a key factor here.....you have different reaction times and also sometimes you wheelspin more.....you need to repeat this test with an automatic car so all settings are default in each run

one aspect you might have missed about Drag tires, and Big drag tires at that is that they act as a clutch and take the initial shock of the driveline locking up and slowly transfer it to the ground to avoid spinning.

I loved seeing the tire wrinkle at 5 PSI! That was awesome!

You'd need to do that with a car which can spin the tires up to 3rd gear. Otherwise, you're within the margin of error, because 2 seconds into the run, you can't spin the tires anymore.

Loving the series idea. I wonder what a 2nd run at 30 would have given since that time ended up being a noticeable outlier. Is there something you can do (in a hatch/estate) with ballast to see how moving the weight distribution around affects the car? Maybe 100kg (water tank?) in the passenger seat, boot and somehow strapped out the front like an Audi engine! ☺

After their 15psi, you can see the wheel hub spinning before the rubber does which means the rubber is slipping.

instead of acceleration you could test tyre pressure vs cornering speed or lateral 💫G-force

You should have kept the tyre pressure in the front constant. Lower pressure in the front will just increase drag. The lower pressure might actually have been better if it was just the rear wheels.

MASSIVE thumbs up for this youtuber that goes straight into action within 30s of video instead of warbling aroung

You should maybe do more runs for 1 tyre pressure to take some stats and draw a graf. Would be very interesting. Beside that, very nice video again. Keep it up 👌

Brilliant video bar one thing. You should have done 3 races for each tyre pressure as launches can vary so an average would have been better. Class video tho!

On cold road tires there's very little change in traction with higher pressure, they aren't so sensitive. Was interesting to see lowering pressure did give quite a result.

Thank you for your show, I really enjoy them. Perhaps you could make one about track conditions and tyre pressures? Thanks again

For the next video, maybe you guys can test which is faster around the track - understeery car or oversteery car. I know every driver is different but would be a cool test.

Contact patch decreases when either over inflated or under inflated, ideal traction would be whatever pressure gives full contact for the weight on the tire.

I experimented a bit with this during my hillclimb/sprint days. Not specifically for launches but for overall handling. Too low pressure and there was a risk the tyre could come off the rim during heavy cornering. Sweet spot for the 13" tyres I used was around 23/24 psi

It seemed like you were getting the launch nailed as you did more iterations; I would have liked to have seen a run at 30 psi after doing all the other runs to see if that 10.6 had come down any

Perfect timing. Drove to the shop on flats (thanks neighbors for throwing metal scrap in the driveway). Made it with no rim damage even tho tire was tore all around at the edge of the rim

The lower the tires pressure, the higher the rolling resistance. So yes, you might get a better launch out of it (as seen in the video), however on the long run too low of a pressure will cost you time since the rolling resistance is drastically increased. On a 5000+ hp Dragster that won't be a problem since the centrifugal force pushes the tires outwards thereby creating a smooth surface with less rolling resistance. However actual dragslicks aren't even real tires. They're more like plastic bags (atleast that's what they feel like). They feel like the foil you use to build a nature pool. Normal tires on a normal car will never be able to eleminate the rolling resistance effect and thereby running low pressure is useless and outright dangerous (especially at medium to high cornering speeds)

High pressure tires can lower the rolling fiction, positively improving acceleration until traction becomes the limiting factor. 65r sidewall are an intelligent balance of rotating mass, comfort and traction for normal road use.. even as consumers and manufacturers aspire to 40 inch rims with 10mm sidewall lol

YOU GUYS NEED MORE SUBS! THANKS FOR THE INFORMATIONAL VIDEO :))

So often you see people run on 10psi without noticing a thing. It baffles me. I once had one tire go down to 25psi where the rest was around 35 and I immediately noticed one corner of the car becoming wallowy over bumps. Interesting test!

need to mess with tire pressures on driven vs driven wheels, now. Low pressure on driven wheels (maybe start at 10, which seemed to be the fastest time you had) for traction, and high pressure on the non-driven wheels (50, 70, etc) to reduce rolling resistance.

On a car with minimal power like that, I can imagine the drag at speed could cancel out the gains at initial launch.

great channel and fun test

Very entertaining science, I'd use an automatic car since it's more consistent to see if there's really any benefit!

“you alright scott?” subtle but heartwarming

Dragster tyres are bolted so are directly connected to the rim. On the Mazda the rim and tyre will slip as you are relying on the bead.

Yes I totally agree and that’s exactly what I was thinking as well. It’s not convenient to lower the tire pressure to 15-20 psi if the car doesn’t have enough power to grip well to the ground. So the times are not really going to differ. If this was a 500-700hp car you can probably conclude that the tire pressure being lower is actually better

Haven't finished the video but so far, no trap speeds? Might get worse launch but maybe a power limited car such as is used in the video, can gain it back in the remainder of the eight?

Sweeeeet. Scott from Driver61 channel. Awesome awesome Guy. Learned a lot from him about Sim-Racing. I give him ALL the credit for the strides I've made. How quick I am. All do to him. Cheers Scott.

Should have checked the temperature of the tires in between runs...the more the car runs, the more friction the more heat equals sticker tires

2:40 on some cars u can see when they do burnout to warm up the tires they expand a little from the heat, also they give some flex on the launch so the power isnt too snappy since that will cause the axel to snap. so there is lots that is happening with low pressure but most simple answer is: more grip

Great video but you should try the same on a more powerful car than this, because the mx-5 just doesn't have enough power.

At very low pressure the extra friction kills the performance as the engine has only so much power, but if you run huge horsepower numbers, the loss from friction is pointless on the front of the traction gains.

I have said this many times watching drag races. Letting tyre pressure out made sense decades ago. Cross ply tyres would increase their contact patch when run low. Radial tires we use now not only bulge at the side wall which increases rolling resistance and lateral wash. The tread section collapses inwards reducing the contact patch, limiting grip. Now there is a point to be made that pressure is measured cold and then tires are spun up to make the rubber sticky. This addition of heat will cause the pressure to rise. Which will cause the tread section to bulge ( reduce contact reduce grip ) but this will only account for a couple psi. not dropping 15-25 as I have seen some people doin, surely.

I think the recommended tyre pressure for the Esprit S3 at the front (on 195/60s) is just 22psi. With 205/50 Toyos I used them between 20 and 22psi, so low pressures aren't out of the question. The lower you went with the Esprit, the more pointy the car became. Not so much as it had implications for the rear but I felt you lost some of the gentle subtlety of its beautifully weighted steering. Unfortunately I never did this with the original Goodyear tyres (which aren't made any more) as they were a far better place to start from. I can tell you, though, that Tyrrell raced the 021 and 022 at 17psi, which was lower than most people went back then. That was on Goodyears.

This video fulfils a weird childhood dream or nightmare I had, influenced by my parents watching some film where some guy kept ramming their car into something until the logo thing in the middle of the wheel popped off and the tyre went flat.

Could be that the lower pressure allows better traction off the line but higher rolling resistance once moving hense the sweet spot. After that test I wouldn't use those tyres again.

I used to let the tyres down on my front wheel drive Montego Turbo, it works, it stopped it from wheel spinning and i got more traction.. my mate told me to do it and I thought he was joking, I was so surprised it worked!

two competing forces. for the launch you want traction and more surface area on the tarmac. Once moving, the higher pressure and smaller contact patch cause less friction and therefore more efficient acceleration. The different pressures will produce different advantages and disadvantages at different stages of the 1/8.

Man I love all these new serieses for science. Like and subscribe 👍🏻

Championship driver calls his F1 Champion dad for advice. :D I really like this channel. And you could run 70 PSI in those road tires no prob for a few runs, I imagine that burst pressure for a tire like that would be well over 150 psi. Wouldn't do it in hot weather on hot pavement of course.

Tyre grip is also heavily affected by heat as well. To make this a fair test, the tyres should have been given a significant amount of time to cool down after each run.

test 2 off road vehicles. One with big fat wide tyres versus tall skinny tyres. Which one is faster over mud, sand, snow? A lot of off roaders fit big fat wide tyres but most of the time, a tall skinny tyre is actually better over most surfaces but they don't look as cool.

Would be cool to check the difference between heavier and lighter wheels. Suppose the higher rotational mass would be slower, but by how much?

I picked up a bolt once on my back right that made it go flat, couldn't feel it no idea how long I was driving on a flat but eventually I started smelling burning rubber at a couple stop lights that made me check my tires and sure enough it was flat and the side walls were shredded, good thing I had a donut to swap, I keep seeing all these new cars coming with fix-a-kits instead of a spare, and that would have left me stranded.

most of the difference between 30, 50 and 70 psi is your ability to properly drag-race it: the moment of shifting, speed of the shifts. those matter more than the minimal difference in tire response at fully inflated and over.

What do you guys think about the air that gets between the tire and the drangstrip...

Def need to collab with @Tyre Reviews

Have you considered the long-term damage you have done to the tyre structure with those heat inputs? Don't be amazed if they let go when you're motorway cruising or, worse still, pushing the car hard through some complex bend with a long drop over one side? Sayonara!

You should do multiple runs on the same pressure, because there will be a lot driver related variation from one drive to another

I think the issue here more or less is the low profile tire and lack of power to spin in second and third. on a 32" drag tire, we run about 5 PSI, but it's beadlocked so that it wont spin on the rim, and there's a lot more sidewall to stop the wheel hitting the ground or cutting through the tire at all. this helps us keep wheelspin down when the car comes onto boost in third

To get better traction on rocks or sand, in 4x4 offroad world we sometimes go down to 4-7 PSI pressure.

I air my tires down for more grip while drifting. That way we can chunk the car into the turn faster without spinning out or going off track. I’ve had mine under 10psi. Crazy seeing the entire sidewall worn down at the end of a track day lol

Does the test in a Miata really? I was thinking about good tire pressure for my 600hp sti because it’s tires spin a little more than I’d like and it’s awd.

Try the same experiment with fwd and awd

2:55 Perfect!!

You should do a fun competition with the Donut Media team! Some sort of cross pond rivalry on a fun experiment build like one where the teams can only spend x amount of money and have to meet some performance goal. Keep it up, y’all are doing great!

Drag slicks are bias ply and are specifically designed to run low air pressure, conventional tires will tend to cup upwards in the center reducing the contact patch, making less traction instead of more like a drag slick.

On dragsters they have beadlocks a rim that grips on the inside of the rim to prevent the tire ripping off. Same as rock crawling 4x4 cars

its more about having right amount of spin to dig faster, i think on this low power more psi is better ;D

Lower TIRE pressure increases surface area of the tire. That can be both good and bad. When accelerating, that extra surface area can help but at high speeds it slows you down. The optimal system would be able to change tire pressure on the road between accelerating and increase as speed increases for less friction. Then drop slightly for braking and cornering.

should've done 3 passes at each PSI and taken the average of each. The first pass was probably slower than the higher psi ones because the driver was rusty, Id imagine each launch gets better than the last one for the most part.

In a dragster, the best accelerration is achieved when wheelspin is about 15%. That is certainly related to the tyres air pressure and raw power spinning those tyres. The number (wheelspin %) might be outdated, I learned that many years ago, but the principle is probably still the same, the best acceleration includes also some carefully tuned wheelspinning during the run.

I love how you just wont do the same test more than once, which would be very important cause a lot can change by the driver doing something a bit different

How much of this is affected by tire temperature, track temperature, or clutch temperature?

Explaining how to do like a burn out and so on

Did the tires spin on the rim when you got down to the lower psi?

Haven’t watched the video yet, but I consistently shaved 2 tenths off my quarter mile (13.6 down to 13.4) in a Polo GTI, Michelin PS4 at 14psi

There was once a fifth gear drag race in double decker buses and he said he had a worst start because his door was open Always wondered would a car with windows and windscreen be faster than a car with no windows or windscreen but with ballast to be the same spec. Windscreen is more aero but no windscreen is less surface area

can you guys start to do hyper car reviews that would be so cool, just start with which ever hypercar is available i would love to see a koenigsegg

Dyno test of performance fuels. As well as diesel and before and after service. Also tests. Of an early service dyno

Tires warmer later runs unless you cooled down for a while. That said, I thought the 5 PSI has a full hook, but maybe lost time throughout the run due to wobbles.

So in drifting, if the car is plowing the front end into the corner, they will increase rear, and lower the front tire pressure. It can be a final tuning aid for sure.

u guys forgot one very important detail in this test: u allways used the same set of tires, wich was losing thread at every launch. I'm sure that if u run the latest tests again on new rubber that could make a difference; surely not much, but u guys know how it goes in racing where every bleep of a second counts. ;) Tc guys and keep up the good work.

The problem is as the pressure gets too low the middle of the tire is lifted from the ground and the side squished to the ground if looking at the wheel from the front or rear not the side you will see the dip in the middle of the tire and the edged raised... its the opposite if too much air the middle will be raised and sides lower, there is a sweet spot and that is the pressure on the sidewall unless its a drag radial

seeing that makes me wish there were a road track racing series that mandates high sidewalls and low pressures

5psi would make a difference off the line, like 60ft maybe. Later it will be restraining the momentum. Impressive 10 sec mule though 👌

for a test with 2 wheels (motorcycle) being how much more of information a human needs to manage/process to slow or stop the vehicle being the front (right hand) and rear brake (right foot)are separate (on most motorcycles) compared to a car where both (front and rear brakes) are managed by one foot...

At the same time could have ran with increasing pressure on front tires to minimize the friction and see how that effects the drag times.

Really cool idea, but FOR SCIENCE I would you to do again with something like an automatic Mustang V8 - widely available, cheap to fool around in, enough power to really challenge traction, repeatable and little weight over the rear wheels.

Those are amazing timing for 1/4 mile from such car, am I missing something?

What you say in 2:10 is a very common misconception on why fast cars have wider tires. Actually, smaller surface touching the road means better grip. Distributing the same weight in smaller area increases the grip, it doesn't lower it. That's why, for example, stilts end on a small surface touching the ground and not in a shoe size area. Bigger area would mean that stilts could slip on the ground easier as they would distribute the same weight in a larger area. If you want something to grip on the ground, generally, you make it pointy. Now the problem with all that, is that cars are powerful beasts, and if you try to maximize the grip by lowering the contact area, that tire would be destroyed in a couple of spins or breaks, as the good grip would mean extremely fast wear. So, it's a balance. You have to make the tires thin enough for better grip and wide enough to avoid super fast wear. And that's why it's super stupid to put wider tires in cars that are not powerful, you actually lose grip for no reason at all (except maybe tires that don't grip and last a century).

On those ultra-low pressures, the rolling resistance will be considerably increased, so any advantage off the lines will be negated by a slower top speed. I should add that (very roughly speaking), the contact area is in inverse proportion to the tyre pressure. Double the pressure and it halves the contact area. That's because, to a rough approximation, the weight carried by the tyre is the internal pressure multiplied by the contact area. So, if the tyre is supporting, say, 500 pounds and there's 50 psi then there's a 10 square inch contact area. At 25 psi it would be 20 square inches. I say it's rough, because that calculation ignores the weight carried by the side walls and tyres are not balloons - they have some compressive strength in the tyre walls through the construction. On this particular set of tests then I doubt it proves too much. That Mazda doesn't exactly have a great deal of excessive power to break the tyres loose under acceleration, and if the tyres are not allowed to cool down between runs (which, being rubber, isn't quick), then there will be some effect from that. It would take several runs at each pressure to eliminate driver variables; even in F1 the drivers aren't completely consistent in their starts, albeit they have a huge excess of power over traction to deal with.

A bit like suspension stiffness i think it s a balance to find between grip and "stability". as the tires are softer, the torsion of the sidewalls adds some coeff of friction, but too soft and the bad "stability" of the tyre makes the power having more difficulties to pass. But yeah tyres are still some black magic. Funny video.

and what about a sideway grip ? What pressure is best ?

I kinda think greater radius is manipulating the odometer and fueling procrastinating depends on weight. 13/7s got the throttle pep but i guess a trunk full of batteries that gearing is a driveshaft maintenance

At launch I am sure you get better traction therefore more speed. I have a 2004 Jeep Wrangler Rubi with ARB lockers 4:56 grears and I run at 4 PSI to rock crawl.