To find out if the new PZ5 is as good as Pirelli claim, I have tested it against all the tyres mentioned above, and the Falken Azenis FK520 and a budget tyre. I’ve put all seven sets of tyres through dry and wet testing, and I’ve looked into the noise, comfort and rolling resistance levels of each set of tyres to ensure you have all the information needed to make the correct purchase decision. 

Wet

While you might not personally think wet grip is your highest priority, that’s why you can go to the tyre reviews website to change the final score weighting to get the best tyre for you, wet performance is key to both safety, and winning tests, which is why tyre manufacturers focus a lot of their effort on it.

Well, at least most tyre manufacturers, The budget brand in this test named itself sunny, and I can only assume it’s because they only care about sunny days, because you don’t have any grip when it’s raining. The sunny was in no way sporty, the only tyre to give me scare myself levels of oversteer in this mk8 gti, which generally never wants to oversteer anymore (sad face) and the steering was rubbish and elasticity.

The rest of the tyres, given the group, you should know were good. In fact, I’d argue the rest of the tyres were great, but some more great than others.

Michelin and goodyear were paired up, just half a second apart. The Michelin, as usual, didn’t feel overly sporty and you could watch your delta time bleed away in the long corners due to the understeer in the tyre, but otherwise it was stable and safe. This is now the oldest of the group, and it shows, I’m excited to get the next version to aftermarket, whenever that will be, as I know they’re improving it greatly.

The Goodyear once again worked very well with the GTI, but surprisingly, like the Michelin, you could feel the step down in grip compared to the best of the test. Also like the Michelin it is one of the older tyres in the test, so while the goodyear was still fun, it’s no longer the very best.

Then you had what I’m calling a double surprise, the Falken and Continental. Since driving, I’ve looked at other tests of the FK520 it’s not been this good in the wet, but today it very much was, verified by a second driver who I asked to run the field. The Falken wasn’t the most sporty but it was incredibly grippy, incredibly stable and very easy to drive fast. Excellent job on the 520, a big step up from the 510 it replaces.

The Continental was great as usual, fast, but I found a little bit too much understeer to really attack compared to the best. A very nice tyre as always, but there’s some new boys in town.

The newest tyre in this test, the Pirelli P Zero PZ5 was fantastic. It felt like the big brother of the Goodyear, which is a tyre I always loved the handling ok. Great steering, lovely balance, noticeably more grip than all the tyres behind it, where I was bleeding time to reference with the Michelin I was gaining it with the Pirelli, honestly it felt like no tyre could be faster or better suited to the car, it was a fantastic experience.

That was, until I drove the Potenza Sport. In all my years of tyre testing I have never had an experience like that. It felt like I was playing a computer game, suddenly everything was digital and the fact the track was wet meant nothing, I could take massive liberties I could only dream of before. If a tyre company ever put a full wet race compound into a road tyre, this is what I imagine it would feel like.

Dry

For the budget Sunny tyre, I can be brief – it wasn’t good. With significant understeer, poor rear stability, and slow lap times, let’s move on to tyres you might actually consider.

The Falken FK520 felt solid in sublimit situations like lane changes, making it predictable and safe but not particularly exciting. It delivered good grip with a nice safe balance, just without the sporty character some drivers might want.

The Michelin Pilot Sport 4S and Goodyear Eagle F1 Asymmetric 6 were both excellent. The Michelin featured slightly lighter steering than the Goodyear, especially in sublimit handling, with everything happening predictably. In this size, it performed very well with only a small desire for more front axle bite. The Goodyear, one of my favorites, did everything well. While perhaps slightly behind the Michelin in sublimit scenarios, at the limit it felt connected – you were truly one with the vehicle, with every expected behavior materializing exactly as anticipated.

The final three tyres – Continental SportContact 7, Bridgestone Potenza Sport, and Pirelli P Zero PZ5 – were the best of the test, all wonderful but with subtle differences. The Continental offered monumental grip and precise steering in sublimit driving, but lacked a touch of stability when really pushing in corners. The Bridgestone had incredible grip and steering response, but its drawback was slightly reduced feedback at corner entry and mid-corner when modulating throttle to tuck the nose. The Pirelli felt a bit light in the steering sublimit, but once into the corner, it dug in beautifully with predictable, lovely handling characteristics.

The lap times between these top three were virtually identical – the first laps of the Pirelli and Bridgestone were identical, though the Bridgestone lost slightly more time on the second lap. The gap is so small that subjective preference becomes more important than timing differences. All three were amazing in their own ways, with slightly different personalities but equivalent overall performance.

The quality of modern performance tyres is simply outstanding – there’s never been a better time to be a tyre enthusiast with such high performance across the board.

Comfort

The quietest tyre on test was the Goodyear, very closely followed by the Falken. Then Pirelli and Continental did well, Bridgestone was fine and the Michelin and Sunny finished just over 2db louder than the Goodyear. Not insignificant, but also not huge considering this is an external noise measurement. I didn’t notice anything in the car.