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Ten Second Reviewword count: 34

Continental's SportContact 7 performance tyre aims to offer significantly improved dry and wet performance, on the street and on the track. And it's the first ever tyre tailor-made for every vehicle class and weight.

Backgroundword count: 74

If you've invested in a high performance car, it's a safe bet you know something about motorsport. And if you know anything about motorsport, you'll know that there are times when everything depends on the tyres. And if everything depends on the tyres, can you afford for them not to be optimum? So what's the industry's optimum high performance tyre right now? Well here, we're testing a strong contender - the Continental SportContact 7.

Driving Experienceword count: 221

So what makes this circle of rubber different from the others campaigning in this section of the performance tyre market? Let's start with this Continental model's adaptive pattern. It has a footprint that ends at the widest part of the groove, enabling the highest possible water dispersion. That means optimum grip in the wet when braking and accelerating. We put this to the test at Continental tyres' test track, the Contidrom near Hannover in northern Germany. This facility boasts one of the finest wet handling tracks in Europe and for our test, Continental had fitted SportContact 7s to a Porsche 911 Carrera S and a BMW M3. At speed on the circuit, the promised extra wet weather grip and traction was immediately obvious (we had another 911 on other-brand rubber for comparison). What was also obvious when we ventured out onto the track with experienced Continental subjective evaluation engineer Joachim Blass was a total lack of high-speed cornering micro aquaplaning; namely that loss of control you can get when hitting a patch of water at high speed. This, he explained, is due to the SportContact 7's unique pattern design. The lateral grooves of the tyre remain open, even when cornering, enabling water dispersion through those grooves. An engineering difference that could just save an expensive accident. Or perhaps even your life.

Design and Buildword count: 133

Let's start with some basics; it's impossible for one type of tyre to properly serve every weight of vehicle. Heavy vehicles have different performance requirements from light ones. So it's encouraging to find that the SportContact 7's specification is adapted to different vehicle classes and weights - light, medium or heavy; they're all different. As will your SportContact 7's spec be. The next design key lies in the tyre compound. Continental defines its tyre compounds with various colour-branded kinds of 'chili'. The SportContact 7 has what the company calls harmonised 'blackchili', specially developed to solve the target conflicts between pattern and compound in an optimal balance. The 'blackchili' compound combines with Continental's latest generation of resins and is refined with a new plasticiser to create an ultra-sticky compound. Hence the exceptional cornering grip.

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