The new flagship will take over in seventh generation from a highly approved and popular summer tyre. Since its start six years ago, the SportContact series has become test winner and received the highest possible recommendations in several journal tests – among others sport auto and AutoBild sportscars. Leading European vehicle manufacturers mount tyres of the SportContact family ex works.
Clever technology modules
The SportContact 7 from Continental offers a total of three new technical tyre details: According to information from the manufacturer, its adjustable tread design is able to adapt to dry and wet roads, the size-specific layout of the tread is to offer maximum driving pleasure, and the BlackChili rubber compound of the tread has been precisely adapted to the tread to provide maximum grip.
“Producing the best sportive summer tyre for every vehicle class in the market was at the centre of our development activities”, reports Prof. Dr. Burkhard Wies, Head of Research and Development Passenger Car Tyres for International Replacement Business at Continental. “This includes achieving a considerably better driving behaviour on dry and wet roads or racetracks combined with an extremely high mileage surpassing the predecessor model by 17 per cent. Concerning the outstanding fuel efficiency, we will provide a good contribution to the topic of sustainability with the EU label value ‘C’.”
Tread design
The new SportContact 7 will be able to adapt to dry and wet roads with the asymmetrical, adaptive tread design. Thus, its driving characteristics will also remain at a constantly high and safe level even when driving at higher speed. “A tyre can as well experience stress when demanding high performance”, says Wies. “The new, adaptive tread will provide safety and driving confidence in those situations together with a highly precise bending stability on wet and dry roads”. This is enabled by the tread construction. ”When driving on straight roads the “tyre footprint” finishes at the highest water drainage in the tread in order to offer excellent grip when braking, accelerating, and bending on wet roads. New “locking elements” in the external shoulder, which allow only a limited movement of the tread, are responsible for this especially high stability.
Different driving concepts
Traditional sports tyres react according to weight, size, and motorization of the vehicles in different ways. “Thus, our new SportContact 7 is the first product in the ultra-high performance tyre segment being tailor-made for every vehicle type”, explains Burkhard Wies. Heavy vehicles need tyre solutions different from light passenger cars. As a consequence, the specifications of the SportContact 7 are adapted to every vehicle class. “Thus, new technologies, among others for motor racing, are developed based on the tyre size so that the typical driving behaviour of the SportContact family will be maintained for every vehicle. This includes having a tailor-made construction for different vehicle classes. Moreover, we are able to adapt stability of the side walls, grip under certain loading conditions as well as high-speed capability, handling, and design of the carcasses to every vehicle class”, says Wies.
BlackChili rubber compound
The special BlackChili rubber compound stands for the third technology module. This soft compound exactly fits the very stiff and low-profiled tyre design and is to enable excellent driving characteristics, and additionally, a considerable increase in mileage. Thus, the tyre engineers and the chemists at Continental had to balance different conflicting targets. According to company information, the result of this work is a compound technology, which together with the design enables highly improved driving characteristics.
Market coverage
“The new SportContact generation will help us to make an offer to sporty car drivers looking for very safe, handling-oriented, and mileage-focused driving”, explains Enno Straten, Head of Strategies, Analytics and Marketing Tyre Replacement Business EMEA at Continental. Suitable vehicle models will be for example Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio as well as the RS series from Audi and BMW models of the M GmbH. Moreover, compact cars, like the Ford Focus III RS or the Mini Cooper S Clubman are among them. Suitable sizes will be available for Porsche 4 S GT, vehicles from AMG, Lamborghini, and McLaren. Further dimensions of the SportContact 7 are planned for refined cars like the Brabus S 65 Rocket 900 Coupé.
