Handling/Tyres
Introduction
Tyres are the most important factor in the handling of your car. You can have all the suspension upgrades, lowering, shock absorbers, sway bars, you name it, if your tyres aren't right you simply won't have enough grip. Generally, on a dry surface, bigger (wider) tyres are always better. On a wet surface tyres that are too big might cause your car to start aquaplaning ("floating" on the water and therefore not having any contact with the road surface) at a lower speed than it normally would. The solution to this is simple: drive slower. Also wider tyres do of course create more drag and will make your car less fuel-efficient and also slightly decrease your top speed and acceleration. If you want to install wider tyres you should of course also make sure that they will fit, also with full steering movements.Extreme performance tyres
Most tyre manufacturers have different ranges of tyres, all designed for different purposes. While tyre grip is always an important factor because of vehicle safety, a tradeoff is always made between several factors such as comfort, tyre noise, lifespan/wearing, fuel mileage, wet/ice condition performance, etc. From factory, your car will probably have mid range tyres which give you a nice fuel mileage, don't wear out very fast, and are quiet and comfortable while giving a reasonable amount of grip in all weather conditions.What's best for you depends mostly on driving conditions. If the car is only used on a track, you should go for slick or semi-slick tyres, these provide the biggest contact surface with the road.
If you do have to drive on anything else than perfectly flat and dry tarmac, you should go for extreme performance tyres, these provide the second best available performance in dry conditions and also allow you to drive in other weather conditions.
A slick (ventus), a semi-slick (yokohama), and an extreme performance summer tyre (Pirelli)
What do I miss out on if I get extreme performance tyres?
Almost everything that is also tyre related, performance tyres will be less comfortable, more noisy, wear out faster, and give you poorer mileage. If that is the price you are willing to pay (and because you are visiting this website, I assume you are) then you can get the best performing tyres out there. If not, you might want to shift the tradeoff a bit more towards performance, but not all the way.
Two high performance tyres, the Michelin Pilot Sport and the Bridgestone Potenza
A lot of tyre manufacturers also have "high performance tyres" which are not the best you can get in terms of grip but provide a lot better performance while giving away less other factors. They wear out just a little bit more than normal tyres, don't cause much more noise or fuel consumption and aren't noticeably less comfortable. Another important thing to consider is wet and/or cold weather conditions, while extreme performance tyres do handle these conditions better than slicks or semi-slicks, they were still designed mostly for performance on dry surface. Depending on the road quality and weather conditions in your location, high performance tyres might be a better choice. They will still outperform normal tyres by a mile with none of the drawbacks.
More high performance tyres, the BFGoodrich g-Force and the Firestone Wide Oval
