Bridgestone Potenza Race: Equally adept on track and on the street?

Family history often dictates individual personality traits–it’s true with humans, cars and tires. Bridgestone has a long and storied history in motorsports with major successes from the grassroots level all the way up to F1. 

However, major tiremakers derive most of their revenue from OE fitments for road cars, not aftermarket replacement or specialty products for racing. Occasionally all three line up, like when a tire model is developed for a special vehicle–in this case, the Lamborghini Huracán STO.

Supercars have an extremely wide performance envelope and must have tires to match all uses. First and foremost, they must deliver an excellent on-road experience, since that’s how most owners will use these cars. Ride quality and noise are key traits, as are steering response and control authority. 

A supercar like the STO is likely to see track usage as well, so its tires must also perform well at the limit. Predictability and consistency under heavy loading are just as important as basic grip–the latter needed in heavy doses for a 630-horsepower rocket ship. In short, it needs a trackable street tire.

By contrast, aftermarket replacement tires aimed directly at motorsports use can take some liberties with streetability. Owners value track performance way more than street manners. In fact, some drivers wear a stiff and noisy road ride as a badge of courage, reminding them daily of their car’s track prowess. Think of these as streetable track tires.

Both approaches qualify to wear the Potenza moniker, Bridgestone’s trademark for high-performance tires. At the pointy end of each field sits the Potenza Race and the Potenza RE-71RS.

While we have lots of hands-on experience with the latter, the Potenza Race was originally just a blip on the radar since it was strictly OE-only for the track-focused Lambo back in 2021. A year later, we went to full alert with the news that Bridgestone would leverage its development into a full range of sizes for the replacement market. And now, we’ve finally put eyes on the target and can directly compare the performance each approach delivers.

We tapped our Triple Threat ND-chassis Miata project car as the test mule and selected 225/45R17 as the best fitment between the two lines of tires. The Potenza Race targets larger, more powerful applications, while the RE-71RS tends toward smaller fitments: The two lines overlap the most with 17- and 18-inch diameters. 

Our test tires were mounted on 17x9-inch Kogeki wheels from Flyin’ Miata, and each was given an initial heat cycle with a round trip to the track plus six laps at an ever-increasing pace. 

We added a third contender to our test plan, a larger set of RE-71RS tires in a 245/40R17 size left over from a previous project. This would give us a familiar combination for both baseline and bracket sessions as well as another sizing data point. 

Our street sessions provided a chance to compare each tire’s road personality. The Potenza Race was simply a delight in this regime. Very linear steering response gave a sporty feel, while the softer carcass and sidewalls were taut without being harsh. Perhaps its greatest attribute was simply how quiet it was for a 200tw track-oriented tire. 

By contrast, the RE-71RS provided a more progressive steering response with a strong on-center feel. Its stiff carcass transmitted every bump, though the softer compound soaked up the more minor irregularities. The blocky tread design traded top-of-the-line cornering performance for a constant highway drone that only got worse as the tread wore.

Test day at the track dawned hot and only got hotter, with ambient temps ranging from 85° to 95° across the half day of testing. Full sun also quickly warmed the Harris Hill Raceway track surface. 

Our break-in prep sessions had revealed some significant heat soak challenges that we attempted to mitigate on test day by keeping our two test subjects cooling in our motor home until called into action.

Alone on the track as it went green, we spent 20 minutes on the 245s, cleaning up the overnight dustiness until lap times stabilized into familiar territory. After short break for the tires to cool off, we began our test.

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