The Effect of Tire Air Pressure on Car Handling

In this automotive video you learn about the effect of tire air pressure on car handling.

Male Speaker: This sound is so often drowned off by the noise of the engine and yet it's one of the most important. Legions of engineers run tests and analyses of the circuit to ensure that the air pressure is right. Every bit of their information is important, but why? Ultimately air pressure determines whether you perform well and achieve good lap times and that's what drivers always want to have. Male Speaker: You've got full compact patches from the car's circuit, so let's try and generate much difference as possible. Male Speaker: The rubber compound is key to getting good grip as is the size of the contact patch. The lower the air pressure, the greater the contact with the track; however, that also makes the tire heat up faster within minutes of fine idea, but it mustn't be overdone. Male Speaker: Driver thinking of reducing the air pressure will allow them to be fast, to be faster. In the meantime, if you reduce the air pressure you allow the tire to deflect more vertically and then you may create some 0:01:11 apply fellows. Male Speaker: The conundrum is the excessive heat and inadequate pressure that makes the tires literally rub itself away, that's due to flexing, this deformation goes deep into the tire causing it to heat up far too much, combined with the physical distortion, disaster looms. Male Speaker: What happens first as the tire wear increases significantly. Next due to the increased valve resistance, fuel consumption goes up. The third thing that happens is the tire loses its frigidity making the vehicle's handling sluggish. Male Speaker: Exciting pursuit racers with fast heavy cars as in the DTM put an enormous strain on the tires. If your air pressure is too low, you can lose sideway stability, hence the manufacturer's guidelines. Male Speaker: The tire maker, they recommend -- they recommend a tire pressure, but when you test in and you do a race distance and you see what temperature the tire is coming up, so then you adjust it, so it's an optimum -- optimum pressure where it's not going too high or too low. Male Speaker: It should also be added that the tire pressure provides almost 70% of the tire's rigidity. An air pressure range gets defined the tires and vehicle type, thus enabling the tires to work in a controlled fashion producing grip, extreme straight line and lateral acceleration call for tires that can be driven with low levels of air pressure. Too low or enough firm tires walls help to widen the air pressure range. The gas in which air expands as it heats up, one reason why the tires are preheated because pressure levels can change. Everything is therefore checked, discussed and measured. Talk through, tested, sorted and resorted. Also so for the next stint the teams have the right pressure in their tires and on their rivals.