The CEAT SportDrive tyres ensure that you never have to go looking for performance again. With technology developed and tested in Europe, the SportDrive tyres ensure that you have the confidence to drive your powerful new luxury car with the attention it deserves, and feel safe while doing it. However good a car might be, if the tyres don’t suit it, there is no saving the experience. CEAT has listened to the concerns, and the new CEAT SportDrive range is specifically made with a sophisticated design which is required for these much faster and heavier cars.
The CEAT SportDrive tyres feature an asymmetric tread design with MRC tread technology that provides good stability while cornering. The shoulder blocks are stiffer and that allows for precise steering control. They also get an advanced tread pitch design for a more comfortable ride, along with a dual-ply sidewall to protect the wheel and tyres from impacts from potholes and bumps on our roads. The CEAT SportDrive tyres have already been on sale in Europe for five years, which means they have already proven their mettle and although designed in Germany, have been modified for all Indian road conditions, weather and temperature, so you’ll be sure they’ll hold up to the worst that you can put them through.
To find out how they perform, we put the CEAT SportDrive tyres through a series of three tests on our long-term test Audi A4. The first test was a simple 0-100kmph acceleration test while the second was a 100-0kmph braking test. Our third test is a little more subjective, as we head to some of our favourite driving roads in and around Pune, and give the car a good thrashing with the car on the CEAT SportDrive tyres to get a seat-of-the-pants feel of what these tyres are like in real world driving conditions.
For all the performance tests, we made sure to keep the tyre pressures to the recommended levels and validated our test results with the Racelogic Performance Box Touch datalogger.
In the acceleration test, the traction from the tyres is vital to get a good 0-100kmph time. The SportDrive tyres posted a very impressive time of 7.35 seconds. This just goes to show how much of a positive difference purpose-made tyres can make to the dynamic ability of a car, and why it is necessary to invest in tyres as the first major upgrade that you make to your car. When braking, your car’s systems work to the limits of your tyres which means a 100-0kmph brake test is an easy way to judge how well a tyre grips. In addition to the dual-silica compound, the CEAT SportDrive also gets better sidewalls. The CEAT SportDrive tyres are indeed an instrument of safety as much as they are meant for performance.
ACCELERATION (0 - 100kmph)
CEAT SportDrive : 7.35 seconds
BRAKING (100-0kmph)
CEAT SportDrive : 2.98s @ 40.85m
We brought the CEAT SportDrive tyres to one of our favourite driving roads in Pune, the iconic route up to Lavasa. The quick-changing corners are a good test of how well the tyre can handle the demands placed on it by the powerful and heavy cars that they are meant to be used on. The CEAT delivers that control and reassurance you need, which it does with the amount of grip it has around corners. It does not understeer, and gives you more confidence under braking for sharper corners. There is very little tyre squeal, and in fact, road noise is also very well contained. These tyres are not only up to the job during spirited drives, but also accentuate the comfort of your luxury sedan.
So what have we learned after spending some time with the CEAT SportDrive tyres? The sensations they deliver while driving are reassuring, providing good amounts of grip and stability. Most importantly, they allow you to enjoy your expensive car’s performance properly. Indian tyre manufacturers have stepped up their game in terms of providing exactly what a car needs, pushing the limits of research they conduct and the quality products they bring to the market. CEAT is certainly at the top and leading the charge.