Best Performance Summer Tire in 2026? I Tested 8 Tires for Driving Enjoyment

This tyre test is for those of us who really enjoy driving. I have eight of potentially the best subjective handling tyres on the market. Not only do I have some of the current favourites such as the Continental Sport Contact 7 and Goodyear Eagle F1 Supersport, not the Asymmetric 6 but the Supersport, I also have the updated Bridgestone Potenza Sport Evo. The Potenza Sport was always one of the best steering tyres. Two tyres from Hankook and Falken I've not tested before, which are both designed for driving enjoyment. I have the brand new Pirelli P0R, which has been quietly helping all sorts of brands, including Porsche, get Nürburgring lap records. So there's a lot of promise in this tyre. And I've even included the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 to see what a tyre with more of a track focus brings in the dry and where it falls back in the wet. I am going to focus heavily on subjective handling and driving enjoyment on this one. It might be a long video, but if you want the very best tyre for subjective fun and driving engagement and steering reaction, this is the test that's going to tell you. Let's get on with the testing. This test might be about the joy of driving, but these are still street tyres, road tyres. So we're going to start with wet handling, and that is still critically important for this category of tyre. Now, the day was relatively warm, around 18 degrees centigrade, so probably a little bit warmer than you'll find in the real world. And I'm telling you this for a reason we'll get on to in a minute. But the first up, the King Boss. I mean, I picked this tyre based on its name and its price. It was incredibly cheap, the second cheapest tyre I could buy in this size. And the name is just awesome, King Boss. And it behaved like not a king and not a boss. It behaved like a cheap tyre. Subjectively, this Golf GTI, it's a Mark 8.5, and I don't know if they've updated the rear axle, but this car flatters bad tyres. And it's just, its rear end is so planted. But you ended up with just terminal understeer. And surprise breaking, it's the only time I've ever outbraked myself off this track. I thought I'd braked with plenty of time, but apparently I didn't. The tyre had other ideas. So there we are, King Boss. Oh, and of course, 12 seconds a lap slow. I can't quite remember times at the moment. But there's that. Anyway, moving on. The next pair of tyres was the Falcon Zenith RS 820 and the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2. How are these two together in the wet when considering the Cup 2 is, in theory, a lot more dry focused? Well, firstly, the Cup 2 isn't actually as dry focused as people give it credit for. It is designed to be a streetable track tyre. So its wet performance is good for its category. And that's shown here. And secondly, the temperature will certainly be playing a factor. At 18 degrees in the wet, it's probably unrealistically warm. Whereas if you think about the real temperature, you'd be using these in the UK in the winter when it's actually wet a lot, it would be a lot cooler. And there I am absolutely positive the Falcon would have an advantage. But in this test, they both had the same time. They did deliver it quite differently. The Cup 2, as you would expect, had the nicest steering of the bunch of all the tyres. But by the smaller margin I expected. But it was definitely granular and direct. And it just felt nice. Where it struggled was the deeper parts of the water. So when it was in contact with the surface, it was very grippy, it was good. But as soon as you got into some of the standing water on this track, you did lift up. And that meant the rear axle was a bit flighty. And I think the rear axle was affected by temperature more than any other tyres. Which again, makes sense for the Cup 2. I just struggled to get the rear to really sit nicely in this car. And I've said the Golf deceives. But with this Cup 2, the rear axle was a bit interesting, we shall say. The Falcon, well that was probably the least sporty feeling of all the tyres. It didn't feel unsporty. It just wasn't quite as direct and as sharp as the rest of the bunch, ignoring the King Boss from here on out. But it just, it broke into understeer fairly early. Perhaps wasn't the grippiest in the wet overall, as reflected by the lap time. But I'm not saying this is a bad tyre, it's still a good tyre. It's just, this is a very, very tough group of tyres. Next up was Hankook and Continental. Now, these tyres actually felt quite similar overall. They didn't quite have the front axle bite of the very fastest of this group. But they were remarkably lovely to drive. And again, the steering wasn't a 10 out of 10 in terms of responsiveness. But it'd be like a 9, 9.5. I enjoyed driving both of these tyres a lot. And if you drove them without driving the faster tyres of the group, you'd probably think, how can tyres get any better in the wet? Considering this is a long two-minute lap. It's a wet surface. There's standing water. This is a relatively quick vehicle. And not the quickest in the world, but it is a hot hatch. And everything was just so easy to get round. And there was no aquaplaning issues. And the rear was planted, yet the front had good bite. They were lovely to drive. However, it does get more lovely still somehow. And next up was the Bridgestone Potenza Sport. Last time I drove a Golf GTI with summer tyres, at this very track actually, the Bridgestone Potenza Sport turned up and just knocked two and a half, three seconds or so off everyone. And that wasn't an 18-inch size, and this is 19-inch. But this Potenza Sport Evo revision is still remarkable. The front end, like I said, the bite is great. It felt very classic Bridgestone Potenza Sport. And that is, it had probably the quickest steering reaction off centre. It still felt very good around centre. And the rear was still super stable. And it was still super grippy. And there was very little aquaplaning. And you're like, I drove this tyre, I think it was the second or third tyre I drove. And I was like, Bridgestone's turned up and done it again. I drove it after the Continental. I was like, this is more direct again. This is significantly faster, like another couple of seconds a lap faster than the Continental. And wow, Bridgestone, great job. Even with this Evo edition that's meant to address some of the problems with the previous edition, it's still an incredible tyre in the wet. However, there was a faster tyre, and that was the Pirelli PZero R. Not the PZ5, the R version, which is meant to be more dry-optimised, more focused on driving enjoyment, which is what this test is all about. And I'm absolutely fine with the tyre giving up a little bit in the wet to get that ultimate dry. And that's what Pirelli, that's what the R should be in theory. But I did speak to Pirelli before this test, and I did say, do you think I should have the PZ5 in just in case the R is too dry-focused? And they were like, nope. Trust us, the R is plenty good enough in the wet. And holy smoke, it was another two seconds on from the Bridgestone, and it just seemed to have unlimited front grip. Like I thought a Bridgestone had unlimited, but this had more unlimited, not that that makes sense from a logic point of view. But the thing would just turn, and then you could turn it more mid-corner, and then you could get on the power earlier and harder than anything else. But the rear was absolutely rock solid. There was no hint of the rear wanting to fight you, as there might've been a hint in some of the other tyres. It was just perfection. And the steering was quick. But I marked both the Bridgestone and Pirelli in terms of like steering reaction and speed and feedback and enjoyment. I marked them both the highest score out of all of them. It was the Bridgestone and Pirelli. I think with hindsight, now I've stopped and thought about it a bit more, I think maybe the Bridgestone was just slightly more reactive and slightly more granular, but I don't think anyone in the real world would notice the difference. Both of these tyres are very nice in the wet, but the Pirelli just has this extra level of grip that none of the other tyres could get close to, which is crazy. Continental managed to just beat Pirelli in wet braking with the Bridgestone close behind. The Pilot Sport Cup 2 did impressively well considering its low starting tread depth, but it couldn't match the more road-focused tyres. Straight aquaplaning was closer than expected, given the differing nature of the products. Hankook was the best, with Continental once again right at the sharp end, but the Pirelli and Michelin were very close overall. It's likely curved aquaplaning would have separated all these tyres further. Okay, how are they in the dry on track? Now, full disclosure, I didn't test blind this time because I wanted them in a certain order. You'll see why in a minute, but the first tyre I went out on was the King Boss. I always try and start with the rubbish one if I'm setting the order and I did this time. So for every tyre, I did soft handling, which is on the way to the lap lane changes to really sort of judge how good the front rear phase is, how good the initial steering is, how good the tyre is around centre. And then I did a couple of laps to really dig in and I had planned to do more laps to talk about track wear, but sadly, you'll be able to see on some of the shots, there are storms coming. We've had to swap some days around. It's been a busy, difficult week. But anyway, the King Boss in isolation, I got back to the garage and I was writing my notes. I was like, what can I say that's bad about this tyre? Not a whole lot. It's turning sub-limit, so its steering reaction was fine. Its grip seemed in isolation, plenty good enough. I'd want a little bit more on the brakes and there was a bit too much understeer. Ideally, I couldn't really tell if it was the tyre or the car because obviously it was the first tyre I drove and it sub-limit again, absolutely fine. Turns out, it was about four seconds a lap down on the fastest, which is a lot of time in the drive, maybe even five seconds. And of course, you do have the issue with the King Boss as if your track day turned wet, it would be horrific, absolutely horrific, because it has no grip. The next couple of tyres in order of best to worst lap times was the Hankook and the Falcon. Now, coming from the King Boss to the Falcon, you're like, oh, this is a big step up in engineering, in steering reaction, steering precision. And while the Falcon's steering turn to lock was perhaps a little bit slower than I'd ideally want, it was beautifully weighted, it built up nicely and I was very happy with the Falcon. Put in a good lap time, it was consistent over its two laps. I really like this tyre coming from the King Boss, but it does get better. The Hankook, well, it wasn't quite as direct as the Falcon initially on initial steering, and it had that ever so slight, and this is very small differences. I've described it before as like, turn once and the car turns twice. So you turn the steering, and then as the front builds up and the rear builds up, they do it at slightly different speeds, so you kind of get two lots of turning. But otherwise, very, very good tyre. A little bit faster was the Continental. Now, there was a bit of a duality about the Sport Contact 7. I've noticed before, more recently on a Golf, around centre sub-limit, there's just a bit of elasticity to the steering. It's not my favourite, but you cannot deny that when you're turning in the corner and when you're really pushing on, the steering does come alive and it turns quick and hard, and it's a very stable tyre. And actually this week, I've used a different set of Sport Contact 7s as a training set for another track and filming laps, and the tyre wear on track has been incredible. I've been very impressed with how the Sport Contact 7 has worn. Although I can't tell you that information about the other tyres, I can about the Sport Contact 7, and it's been really good on tracks and good work on that Continental. If your on-centre steering could just be a little bit sharper, it would be a really good sports tyre, but I think a lot of people will appreciate that kind of duality there. If you're on your motorway drive or you're just driving to work, the steering is almost relaxed, but then once you get on it and really tuck in, that's when things come alive. The next tyre I drove, and the next fastest tyre, was the Goodyear Eagle F1 Super Sport. Now I'm really happy I have this tyre in this test, I've probably already said this, I've recommended this tyre a lot as a road tyre that works really well on track, and it does once again. Its steering is definitely a step up from the Hankook Falcon and Continental in terms of steering speed and directness, and its grip was a little bit of a step up once you're really pushing on. A tyre I really liked, but in this group, compared to the very best, there is one negative point about it, and it just didn't quite have the feedback of the limit, it just felt a little bit numb, especially on its first lap before it was really warm, but it was one of the few tyres that got faster on its second lap, which means the compound likes being warm, which is good for a track tyre. So once again, I'm absolutely thrilled, the Goodyear Eagle F1 Super Sport is a very good road and track tyre, it continues to be, and even after all these years, I'm still recommending it, and I still think it's fabulous. But then I went to the Bridgestone Potenza Sport, and once again, the Bridgestone Potenza Sport is doing what I can only describe as Bridgestone's things, and I'm just feeling a little bit crazy, if I'm perfectly honest. Its steering reaction, the Potenza race is the same, it's a non-linear ramp up, so is it ideal? No, because you turn, and then suddenly you're turning faster and faster and faster without any extra steering input, but what that gives you is this really sporty, fun feel, and even sub-limit, you're like, oh, I like this, this is good fun, and it is an excellent fun tyre sub-limit. So on the road, again, the steering isn't super intuitive, again, small differences, but the way it turns at the front end, it is really exciting. On the lap, more Bridgestone Potenza Sport things, it was so fast, it was turning fast and hard, and it was just a rewarding, thrilling, exciting tyre to drive, and for that, I love the Bridgestone Potenza Sport, I always have, and if they fix the track wear in this newer version, I don't know if they have, because I'm not having time to test it, as I described, thank you weather, but if they fix the track wear, it's a great tyre, I love this tyre. However, then I ran the new Pirelli P-Zero R, it's good, it continues to be good, after the wet handling test, I was like, there's no way this tyre is going to work that well in wet and that well in dry, but it does, its steering sub-limit was as exciting and as direct as the Bridgestone, but it had a linear ramp up, perhaps it wasn't quite as like manic and once you started turning, because it was more linear, but it was still very sporty, I'd say it's the best so far, in terms of front end steering and then on the lap, oh my gosh, the braking initially, I've had this cone here, that I start the lap at and then I accelerate really hard and brake at the 50 meter mark and then on the Pirelli, I was like, oh, that's the first time I've really had to roll off the brakes and then go back on, because I was just stopping more than I expected, I was stopping too quickly and that grip continued around the lap, it was fabulous, it was sporty like the Bridgestone, but it was a second faster, so I don't know what Pirelli have been cooking recently, because they've been on a massive roll, but once again, the P0R in wet was unbelievable and in dry, it's unbelievable, it's by far the fastest of the tyres so far and has the best steering, so amazing work Pirelli, I'm starting to wonder why you'd buy a PZ5 at this point, but maybe I'm gonna have to ask that to Pirelli and put it in the conclusion, but there is one more tyre and that is the Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2 and yes, this is a little bit out of place in this group, especially in the wet, because it is kind of a road semi-slick more than the other tyres for sure and it feels so good sub-limit, you like the Michelin, the front end steering reaction is the sharpest of the bunch, by small margins over the Pirelli and Bridgestone, but it's the sharpest, once you're in the corner, you feel that granularity coming through the front axle, which track tyres give you and it is a really exciting tyre to drive, however, however, let me just describe how the process works here, on the outlap, it's a kind of drive to the track, so that's why I'm doing my soft sub-limit handling and it's about 30, 45 seconds and I'm building up some heat in the tyres and every single tyre has been absolutely fine when I've got to lap one, turn one, I won the Michelin, lap one, turn one, I turned in the front bit hard, fabulous and then a split second later, oh dear, the rear is coming around, so I had to collect it and then the second corner, which is very quickly after the first corner, it's a right-hander, had exactly the same, so I lost about two seconds in the first corner to the Pirelli, so it was the only tyre I gave a third lap, so I was like okay, it is a track tyre, let's really try and make it the fastest here because it's meant to be, I'll put some more heat into it, I'll discard the first lap and on average laps two and three, which is already an advantage to the Michelin, could I make it faster than the Pirelli? I couldn't, I actually, because I knew I was running them back to back, I left the Pirelli best lap on the V-Box so I could see where I was gaining and losing time and there was only one corner where I was making up time on the cup two over the Pirelli and that was a really high speed, high load corner where I could feel that front left, it was the right-hand corner, like digging in and just giving me that little bit of extra bite but everywhere else on the lap, braking, low speed corners, traction zones, I was bleeding just a little bit of time in every kind of possible scenario and sector and although I honestly, I tried really hard, this is why you shouldn't test knowing what tyres you're on, you should test blind, although I would have known it was the Michelin from the subjective soft limit but I was trying really hard to make it faster and I just couldn't so I don't know what Pirelli have cooked with this new P-Zero R, it's incredible in both wet and dry and again, like I said, I don't know why you would buy the PZ5 right now because the PZR seems to be the new best tyre in the world for the enthusiast driver but I guess there's more to this test to talk about so we'll go on and talk about it now. Dry braking was very closely aligned with dry handling which always makes me happy. That also means the P-Zero R was once again the best with the cup two second best, Bridgestone third and Continental fourth. To me, the rolling resistance of this category of tyre is less important than maybe your premium touring tyre but as these tyres are intended for everyday use other than maybe the cup two, the rolling resistance is still a factor so I have tested it. The Continental and the King Bosch, yay, were joint tied for best rolling resistance with surprisingly the cup two in third place. That's not what you would imagine when thinking about the cup two and its category of tyres, it's so track focused so why would Michelin care about rolling resistance during development? Well, interestingly, for me at least, rolling resistance is quite aligned with tread depth and void ratio and the cup two has the lowest starting tread depth of the group and the least tread pattern so that makes sense. The rest of the tyres were in a little group of their own which is just, it's not going to make a huge amount of difference at the pumps in the real world across the life of the tyre other than maybe the Goodyear Eagle F1 Supersport which is showing its age at 10.4 kilograms a ton. As always, I also ran subjective noise and comfort on a road route this time and quite a long one at that at least for what I was doing. Unfortunately, it started raining during the test so I couldn't do subjective noise across all of the sets so I've just put that to one side. However, there were three of us in the car doing the comfort testing and to all of us, it was pretty clear that the Goodyear Continental and even maybe the Bridgestone were very good in comfort. The Falken, Hankook and Pirelli were just a little bit firmer and the cup two, well, it wasn't a huge amount firmer, it just wasn't quite as well damped as the rest so that was the least comfortable. Like rolling resistance, if you're like me, you probably don't care that much about comfort. You are willing to sacrifice it to get the best handling possible. Anyway, during the road drive, I also did the steering response testing on the road and in this case, I mean, it was very close again but the Goodyear was my favorite by the tiny margin but again, Bridgestone, Michelin and Pirelli were excellent. I haven't scored this in this test as I didn't think it was that strong a data but I thought it was worth mentioning for all of us enthusiasts. The external noise testing had the Michelin best again which again, it's counterintuitive, right? But noise is also a factor of tread depth and void so there we go. The Falcon was next best and all of them were just split by 3.3%. Onto the final results, as this is a test about a tire that works well on road and on track and I am focusing heavily on the joy of driving, I have used a more drive focus score weighting than I ordinarily have in the past and I've put the subjective scoring I've made at a higher percentage overall. If you don't agree with that, that's fine as always, you can go over to the tire reviews website, linked in the description, to set whatever score weighting you would like for your own driving needs. It's really good functionality now and while you're there, please review your tires, it really does help the site and this YouTube channel survive which with the advent of AI is getting a little bit questionable. Also, because it's more about subjectiveness than outright grip, this summary of the results is going to feel more like me rambling about my emotions for the tires so if you skip straight here, it's definitely worth going back and looking at all the subjective notes I've made in the video especially for the tires you're interested. And if you want to view all the data in one place, well again, that's on the tire reviews website, the goldmine of the resource for everything that powers this channel. In last place was, of course, the King Boss G866. I don't really have much to say about this. If you're an enthusiast, don't fit this tire. Come to think of it, if you're a regular person, don't fit it either. It's just bad in the wet. Next up was the Falcon and the Hankook. Of the two, the Hankook did finish slightly higher overall. It was the best in the deeper water of the aquaplaning test and it was slightly ahead of the Falcon in the wet test. But honestly, as I said, it's hard for me to try and justify how the tires that came sixth and seventh place overall in a test of just eight tires are still fine tires, good tires, but they're absolutely fine. They're just perhaps not stunningly great tires which the rest of the group are. And compared to the Sharp, and like I said, dynamically during the steering, they're not focused on giving that razor edge handling. So if you're looking for that, they are not the tires to fit. Then we had the Goodyear Eagle F1 Supersport. As I keep saying, I'm so glad I had this tire back in my test. I really enjoyed driving it and it's reconfirmed the fact I've recommended this tire to a lot of people, a lot of times. It's a fast road track duality tire and every single person that's used it has been very happy with my recommendation. I think it's now starting to show its age. It couldn't quite match the best in the dry and like I said, its rolling resistance is very high, but it is still a good tire. It was strong in the wet, stronger than last time I tested it all those years ago. I assume it's going to be priced very well for its track longevity. My gut tells me this will be the best wearing tire on track here, but I don't really have any data to back that up, so ignore me. Then we had the Cup 2. Now, I think this result for the Cup 2 is going to surprise a lot of people. It certainly surprised me. It wasn't the fastest in the dry. Who would have thought that? And I'm a little bit surprised that the King Boss, although it is a budget tire, got thoroughly beaten by the Cup 2 in the wet, even given its shallow tread depth and the wet handling circuit I was using had quite a lot of standing water. I do think people give the Cup 2 too much credit as a fully focused track tire and that might be because Michelin officially say it's an 80-20 tractor road tire, which I don't agree with. A lot of the time, it doesn't feel as focused as 80-20, especially compared to the North American 200 threadwear category. I do really enjoy the Cup 2 as a fast road slash track tire. However, I would not recommend it to a UK person for year-round use as I have a video demonstrating that in the cold, wet conditions we get across the winter, the compound really does harden up and that was demonstrated during the wet handling test as well with the rear axle notes, if you remember, so keep that in mind. Some of the other tires in this group might suffer similar consequences when it's freezing outside and wet, but especially during the wet handling test, it was the Cup 2 that was noticeably, in fact, even dry handling test, it was the Cup 2 that took a while to come online. Then we have the Continental SportContact 7 in third place. We know the SportContact 7 from a huge amount of tests. I've tested it a number of times, loads of people have tested it and it's probably won more awards than any other tire for the number of tests it's been. Thankfully, it is consistent with my other test results. It is a very good tire. It has a lot of grip, but you can tell it's more on-road focused than a lot of these tires in this group as it leans heavily into braking and has low rolling resistance and good comfort levels. In this group, its steering response and its handling were just a little bit below where I would want to be for a tire that I would want to use as that duality road and track tire, but you can't argue with the fact that the SportContact 7 is an excellent tire and one I continue to highly recommend. In second place was the new Bridgestone Potenza Sport Evo. Bridgestone say the Evo version of the Potenza Sport was designed to fix its two main drawbacks, which were high rolling resistance and pretty bad wear on track. I mean, really bad wear on track. While retaining what we loved about the Potenza Sport, which was sharp handling and good grip in the dry and wet. It seems like they have done that. I didn't get to do as many laps on the Sport Evo as I planned to due to the weather. I really wanted to hammer it on track to see if the wear had been fixed, but my gut is telling me that the track wear is significantly better than it was on the non-Evo version. As always, I want to see and I want you guys to see more than just my data to form a firm conclusion about the Sport Evo, but in this group, it was a very, very fun tyre and it had excellent grip. It's showing a lot of promise to be a really great enthusiast product. If you do buy it and test it, please let me know, especially its track performance. Leave a review on site. And finally, we have the Pirelli P0R. I don't really know where to begin with this tyre. Best in dry braking, best in dry handling, beating the Cup 2. Best in wet handling, being very close to the best in wet braking. That's crazy. In fact, if you told me at the start of this test that one single tyre would beat the Cup 2 in the dry and the same tyre would beat the Continental in the wet, I wouldn't have believed you. But here we are. It's happened. It certainly was not the most comfort focused tyre and it does not have the lowest rolling resistance, but honestly, I don't care. This tyre is awesome and I would like to fit it to everything I own, which brings me to the biggest issue with the P0R. It's the size range. I think currently at time of filming, there's only three non-OE sizes. So if you are one of the blessed ones, do it, fit it, please do. And if you're not, I have been told there's more sizes coming very soon. Finally, I did say earlier in the video, I'm not sure why anyone would now buy the P0 or the PZ5 when the P0R exists, but there are a lot of good reasons for the PZ5. The PZ5 will last longer. It does have a lower rolling resistance. It does have better noise and comfort levels. And obviously, perhaps the most important thing now, it has a lot more sizes to pick from. And it is, as you know, the best tyre in that category, pretty much. Over the past two years, we've seen Pirelli insert itself at the front of almost every category of tyre test in Europe. And this is just another example of whatever Pirelli are doing, it's working incredibly well. Anyway, that's everything. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below. Please go and review your tyres on the website. As much as I do love AI, it is seriously hurting the traffic to the website, which supports this YouTube channel and everything I do. So anything you can do to help that would be greatly appreciated. And as always, safe motoring. Oh, and if you notice my finger during the handling sections, it's now better. So I guess you don't have to comment about that.