Many of you ask me a feedback about the Volante tires.
I drove ETS Volante 3 times: ADAC Race in Nurburgring (indoor not permanent) – ARENA33 (indoor permanent)- ETS Wien (Indoor not permanent)
First time I was scared as hell.. grip was not coming, switching additive was marginally better (MR33-2 was used, then we go over CS-C6400), still not a nice tire to drive.
Lot of "IN" in the very first part of the turn, then the rear might follow easily or... loose abruptly.
But at Nring the carpet was staying "green" for a lot of time... almost the whole 3 days. I managed to be happier with the car using the gear diff... better feeling, but far away from a 5 minutes comfortable car...
At Arena33 the carpet was very nice, grip was there, but also the nasty behaviour was there. Way less than Nring, but the feeling is that the rear have traction but not side bite.
So you can push from standing still better than Ride, but you cannot push while turning.
But, nevertheless Matteo and me come away from the Arena with better feelings than from Nring.
Wien...
Still the same as Nring. Carpet was the Nring one cleaned, used by foam drivers the first day, the same sensation: Tires were not building a complete comfortable driving situation. Traction is there, side grip is... somewhere, especially at the "IN" and "OUT" of the turn.
But probably I got an answer... Let me explain.
On the radio: steering 80% - brake 60% (Brake has to be set down due the mandatory Scorpion ESC that have a strong brake - Steering has to be reduced to have a less crazy behaviour).
Compared with RIDE, the tire shoulder (side wall) is way less tall, so they side wall flexion is way less... (of course)
This means that there is less flexion to use to let the car slide.
This strange idea comes to my mind during the last ETS and I force myself to drive more gently (say less stupidly) during the last main.
With the RIDE, I was used to reach the point, leave gas, brake-turn, go-on-gas... this driving style lead into sudden "front pivoting of the car and 90° slide".
So I force myself to let the car "roll" into the turn, leaving the gas w/o braking, say more "tourist" way.
Surprise! Lap times were roughly the same with less pivoting experience.