Top Gear Test Track - most realistic tire compound?

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Hey guys, need some help. At work for the moment so I can't try out myself. Tomorrow I'm having my friends for visit and I'm planning a Top Gear-event with some timed laps in a reasonably priced car ;) So far I've chosen the CR-Z '10 as the vehicle and the question is which tire compound will be most realistic for the competition? The ideal situation would be a lap time of around the Kia Cee'd in the show. Please share your experiences and ideas!
 
Remember that the times in the show aren't driven with running start. Proper tires would propably be some of the comfort tires...
 
I know that, we will stop before the finish line and start from there. And I kind of knew the comfort was the way to go, but which one? I reckon some of my fellow GTP'eers have done some research ;) Please keep coming with your tips and ideas!
 
I would say comfort hard or medium as economy tires put on most cars from the dealership are meant to last thousands of miles.
 
I thought the soft compound would be too fast or is it just minor differences in laptime between soft and medium? And would hard or medium be too sluggish? Unrealistically sliding like Elise in Top Gear event? Anoyone tested a car like CR-Z or Vitz/Golf IV GTI/ALFA 147/Swift?
 
I know this is a bit off topic but the CR-Z is NOT reasonably priced car.... And about the tires am my Corsa(real life car) has Dunlop sportmaxx gt's on it and their like the comfort soft tires featured in the game, sport tires would be Toyo proxeses 888 (or something like that) and other semi-slick road legal sport tires.
 
sport tires i think, if my cars in real life have the confort tires of the game, maybe i have a lot of crashes everyday, even a cheap tires, feels more grip-y compared to the confort tires lol
 
Yeah, I feel so as well, but if I am to produce realistic laptimes around the test track I know they are too fast. Would be cool to compete against Simon Cowell, Usain Bolt etc. And then we NEED comfort. The question is which comfort compound and will it be comparable with lap times IRL?
 
Id say the CR-Z as stock has the equivalent of comfort hard's (its a hybrid dont forget they use non sticky tires for better fuel efficinecy..... with less roll drag), am if your not sure thers always arcade mode and it tells you the stock tires of the car when you select it.
 
Spodnjasaska
Id say the CR-Z as stock has the equivalent of comfort hard's (its a hybrid dont forget they use non sticky tires for better fuel efficinecy..... with less roll drag), am if your not sure thers always arcade mode and it tells you the stock tires of the car when you select it.
Click to expand...
This.
 
The answer's an ambiguous one; it varies from car to car.

A Zonda's tyres will be of a much better (and therefore grippier) spec per cm2 than those on a Saab 95 Aero. I suppose you need to range between Comfort:Soft and Sport:Soft depending on the quality of the car.
 
I understand. And you know what? I forgot the CR-Z being a hybrid, I reckon that eliminates this car in the competition :) So I have to do some runs tonight and test some cars then.

TenEighyOne: Thanks for your input, but it doesn't help much, since it isn't relevant in this particular case.

I now imagine VITZ RS 1.5 '07 is the other car closest to the Cee'd, performance-wise. I need a premium car, since the driving will be in cockpit-view. Anyone else done this compared to real-life laptimes with lowpowered car?
 
A bit off topic but why there isn't a one lap time trial mode with a standing start for the top gear track I will never know.

As for your question best thing to is give it a go before hand and which ever tyres give you a lap time of around 1.45 - 1.48 you know you are almost there.

And another thing does anybody else when they finish a race on the top gear track say to themselves as they cross the line "and across the line" in a Clarkson type voice!
 
Did some testing now and even with comfort:hard, the laptimes in a CR-Z and Swift is much faster than the Cee'd. Haven't tried the Yaris, but that should be slower than the other two. Not by much, but should be the most equal premium car to the Cee'd. Other cars you guys have tried which is really close to it's real life models' test track laptime? Long and complicated sentence there ;)
 
Just had a look at the car list, the only premium cars that could be an option is the fiat 500 or a Nissan march (micra). Other than that not sure, its times like this when prologue with its quick tuning menu comes in handy.
 
Ended up with 307 CC, on hard comfort. I am sure I can push it to 1,42-high (did high 1,44 first try manual shift), but that would have to be good for now. The 500 and March are too small. It is slooow, but so are my friends ;) then I will let them try 787B afterwards :)
 
For a comparison I did recently between my own times around Top Gear test track, I used Comfort Medium.

Firstly, look at the tread pattern of the comforts. This is want you find on a normal road going tyre. The Sports tyre is a track-day type tyre (think amateur/enthusiat weekend drivers), whereas the Racing tyre is a specialist slick (Touring Cars, F1 etc.).

My own car has Bridgestone Potenza rubber, so I would equate this to Comfort Medium. Hard to me would be a budget tyre, and I know there are stickier road tyres than my own that do less miles, which I would say are the Comfort Soft.

That said, my lap in GT5 was about 7 seconds quicker than my RL time, and was quicker than the Stig's actual 350Z lap! Something wrong somewhere! I would expect a true to life being about 3-4 seconds off Stig over a one and a half minute lap: actually beating Stig's time in game says there is something amiss. Exact same car, manual clutch, TC on and dry track. Either the track is too short in game, the car is too fast in game, or the tyres are giving too much grip. The grip feels about right though with Comfort Mediums, as with Hards there is little to no grip at all (not true to life).

I wonder if this is why PD left out the "reasonably priced cars", given lap times in GT5 would most likely not compare closely to RL. Just guessing.

The track itself is accurate though and I enjoy driving it! :-)
 
Just to add a further point, I can provide raw data taken from the track showing cornering speeds on my used, warm Potenzas.

If you were so inclined, these figures could be compared to the data-logger in game against various compounds to find the best match.
 

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