The only thing more noticeable at San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium than the sound of tires being shredded to bits or the smell of red hot burning brakes a few weeks ago was the silly grin I had beaming from ear to ear in anticipation of running at my first ever autocross event.
As I was prepping my 2011 Ford Fiesta five-door hatchback for tech inspection by removing all loose items and the spare tire and jack, I couldn’t help but notice that I was drawing quite a few long stares, puzzled looks, and even pictures- I guess that is what happens when you take a car a year away from release to an event full of gearheads.
Aside from yanking all of the loose objects and dead weight from the car, I also had the benefit of swapping out the stock 16 inch wheels and Pirelli tires for some 17 inch OZ Racing wheels and a brand new set of Yokohama S.drive tires. Yokohama was nice enough to send the tires out for me to use (Didn’t think Ford would be too keen on me destroying their tires at the autocross event I didn’t ask permission to attend – oops), and they simply asked that I provide an honest review and feedback in return. Fair enough.
Hitting the road
So, full disclosure handled, I must say that I was and still am very thrilled with these S.drive tires. The first thing that impressed me was how incredibly whisper quiet they were, especially for a performance tire. I previously had a set of Kumho Ecsta MX tires on my personal 2006 Ford Focus, and switching from those to the Yokohama S.drive tires dropped the noise level in the cabin from “it’s so darn loud in here I couldn’t even consider using a cell phone if my life depended on it,†(handsfree only, of course!) to a “speakerphone friendly, I can’t believe I what I was missing†level.
The tires track very straight and true on the freeway and still provide excellent, predictable traction when on the track. One thing that commonly plagues street performance tires is that when they do finally break loose during hard driving they do so in a dangerous manner. With the S.drive tires, I always felt in control and never worried that I would lose control in my sixteen runs on the track.
From the research I have personally gathered on this tire and others, the groove in groove tread technology featured on the new S.drive tire plays a key role in providing predictable traction and traction loss, as well as helping combat irregular tire wear. Yokohama also claims that the S.drive features a new advanced micro-flexible compound which at a molecular level adds 10-15 percent more contact with the same tire size by being able to work into nooks and crannies in the road. Considering how radical the tread design is with fairly significant voids in the tread pattern, I would have to say this must be true considering the amount of grip the tire maintained.
Fiesta track time
As well-balanced as the Fiesta is on-road, I noticed the expected front-wheel-drive heavy front end feel and occasional plowing through turns when entering too fast, but overall I really couldn’t be happier with a stock b-segment car not tuned or touted as a “sport†model. In fact, by the end of my heat I managed to run just one second shy of a Lotus Elise and a Honda Civic Si Coupe . Of course, I realize that those two cars are faster and should have done better, but at the very least it shows that the Fiesta is a very capable car when it comes to spirited driving.
Words and photos by Mark Kleis.
Don’t forget to check out our past installments of Mark Kleis’ Fiesta Notebook. They’re located here, here, here and here. You can find more Fiesta content on Mark’s website.
