Brand new performance tyres don’t come along every day. Or week. Or year. Or, for that matter, every decade, at least where Bridgestone is involved. It’s been eleven years since the RE003 debuted in Australia and it was so successful, it was never replaced, at least here, in the form of the RE004.

But things have changed, obviously. The rise of the Michelin Pilot Sport has been inexorable, finding its way on to hot hatches, sports cars, speedy sedans and wagons and, heck, even on to Mustangs.

The Pirelli P-Zero has also found homes on the rims of performance cars everywhere.

And then there’s the splintering of those two very famous names into OEM-stamped tyres for cars as diverse as the i30N and the Aston Martin Vanquish.

And that’s not to discount spirited competition from Continental, Yokohama and Kumho in the performance tyre space, and that’s just from memory. All of these companies produce impressive fast road/occasional track rubber that I’ve had the great privilege of trying on both road and track.

But eleven years is a long time, even for an excellent tyre like the RE003. So much has changed. Cars are faster and heavier than they were 11 years ago. Hot hatches are as quick as M cars were back then. M cars now are as fast as supercars were back then. As we got richer, track days became a thing.

So it was time for Bridgestone, on the back of a renewed push into motorsport, to reboot its flagship road tyre. The RE003 is gone, the Potenza Adrenalin RE005 is here.

Words: Peter Anderson

Where does the RE005 fit in?

I’ve already mentioned the rivals, but Bridgestone has an even higher performance tyre in the RE-71, which is being relaunched later this year to go after Pilot Sport Cup-level tyres.

The company expects to see the RE005 fitted by OEMs as well as by enthusiasts as replacement tyres. They’re even expecting to see them on EVs given how so many of them are high performance but in some cases arrive here on substandard rubber.

Basically, they’re aimed squarely at folks like me and most likely you if you’re keen enough to read about a new tyre. Because, as we all know, hardly anyone gives a toss about tyres until they’re forced to.

The tyre is available in 50 sizes in Australia (48 in New Zealand), from 15 to 20-inch and 195/55 R15 to 275/30 R20. That ought to cover a few bases.

Bridgestone reckons that means anything from an 86 (foreshadowing) or an MX-5 through Mitsubishi Evos, BMWs and fun stuff like the Mustang (could the RE005 end the post-Cars and Coffee carnage?) and Kia Stinger.

What’s different?

A lot of effort has gone into the wet performance of the RE005. Bridgestone says wet grip is up by 12 percent. If you look closely at the tyre there’s a wild-looking pulse groove that clears the water.

The outside of the tyre has big chunky blocks that look almost like a semi-slick, so the skidpad section of the launch was going to be interesting.

Dry grip is up by seven percent as well, but the RE003 was hardly lacking there.

Interestingly – and this goes back to earlier reference to EVs – rolling resistance is down by 25 percent and wear is improved by 4 percent. That second number might not sound like much but a few hundred more kilometres on expensive tyres will always be welcome. And the first number means lower fuel or energy usage on everything.

Weight is also down by 7 percent. Any reduction in unsprung weight is welcome and has an outsized effect.

How do you launch a tyre?

I’ve been to two (2) tyre launches. One was a lunch at the top of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney, so there wasn’t a lot of driving there. The second was the RE005.

For this event, Bridgestone took us up to the Gold Coast and to Paul Morris’s Norwell Motorplex. Interestingly, this was the site of my first-ever car launch, the Peugeot 208 GTI. How time flies. And resolution improves.

Anyway, as you can see from the image, it’s a technical little track with all kinds of corners. That one on the left of the screen is fearsome and you take in fourth gear in an 86, which isn’t hanging about.

You can also see a skid pan there, which was drenched and a cone track set up for our amusement.

The skidpan

The most powerful car on the day was reserved for the lowest grip conditions, obviously. This wasn’t a “go sideways” moment, but a tricky little course set up in the 4mm or so of water to show the grip levels available on the RE005.

We were being timed, so we weren’t to dawdle. In my head, I have a very strong impression of how grippy is the Pilot Sport 5 in these conditions, so I was looking forward to seeing the difference.

More importantly, I had an impression taken from the near-identical platform of a BMW M140i. So out in the M240i we went.

I’ve driven on a lot of junk this year or, at best, mid-level tyres in a lot of rainy weather and I wish more cars had grip like this, including my own.

I also have relatively recent experience of super-wet conditions on P-Zero so have plenty of experience to draw on.

Turn-in was very impressive, but I think the way it held the car steady in the longer turns was even more so. It held on very nicely and there wasn’t much clonking and bonking from the traction control, suggesting good grip under acceleration.

Braking was also super-predictable and it stopped in the box no problem on both of my runs. I’m not Captain Full Send – a couple of other folks were – but getting the RE005 to unstick on the pan proved difficult.

The Slalom

Here’s where things got interesting. The fleet of 86s present were fitted with the new RE005. One might expect some RE003s but instead Bridgestone swung for the fence with a lone Pilot Sport 5 booted 86.

The slalom had two parts – the lower speed first section that we fired into from a rolling start and then into the faster slalom along the top straight. The first run was reasonably sedate and then the second was into the PS5 shod car. That gave me a baseline for a quicker run and then it was back in the RE005-ed 86.

Immediately I could feel the difference. Where the Pilot Sport 5 has a lot more movement as you swing the car between the cones, there’s a far more planted feel for the Bridgestone.

When you look at the outside of the tyres, they’re very different, with Michelin going for a higher number of smaller tread blocks, which I’m going to suggest is where the movement comes from. It’s not bad or unnerving, but the RE005 felt a step ahead of the PS5.

And that lack of shimmy in the faster section meant I felt I could carry more speed.

I don’t mind a bit of movement – for me it helps me understand where the tyre is at and what I can get away with – but the difference was interesting and the impact it had on my slalom runs was easy to understand: I felt more confident to throw the car around at both lower and higher speeds.

Full track laps

Another of the claimed improvements is communication. Norwell is a small, tight course, but a legion of household names from V8 Supercars has cut their teeth here under the tutelage of Morris and his team of coaches (side note – if you want to learn to drive quickly, come here and have a 1:1 session with these guys).

So as they would do, we were let loose on the track with a coach. My first run was in an auto 86, partly because that one had the GoPro but it just happened that I wanted to get reacquaint myself with the track while listening to coaching without having to worry about changing gears.

It’s been a while and I’m rusty. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Again, having had the underserved privilege of driving fast cars around racetracks (and once, inexplicably, a Nissan Altima around Philip Island), I feel like I can offer some decent insight.

I have, of course, driven the 86 many times and always enjoyed myself, so much so my wife groans when there’s one in the calendar.

Norwell’s mix of surfaces – track owner Morris made a point in the briefing that the track is never fully resurfaced – and combination of different radius hairpins, fast and slow corners all conspire to give a tyre a workout.

Granted, the 86 is never going to unstick a tyre like this, but having driven an 86 on premium rubber towards the end of its first life, I know what you can do with it.

On track, the tyre felt epic. Again, the grip in the fast corners had my patient coaches telling me to keep it pinned through the fast right-hander and when in the manual, go up to fourth.

The tyre is very chatty, sending lots of good stuff up the steering column and making plenty of noise as it approached the limit – which I knew I’d found when the stability control intervened.

Again, it’s rock solid even after a few quick (for me) laps. The change of direction in the 86 is so crisp you could break your teeth on it.

The slow speed corners also felt really good. Honestly, my head was accounting for P Zero or PS4, but the RE005 felt a step ahead.

It also took a lot of pounding, with very small gaps between runs. And at the end of the day – which included me sitting in the passenger seat while the coaches raced each other – the tyres looked like they have plenty of life left.

What did I learn?

The new Bridgestone Adrenalin RE005 is an excellent tyre. And it’s obvious an excellent tyre for the lightweight street fighter that is the 86.

It has terrific grip in the wet and in the dry feels rock-solid on track.

We haven’t driven it on the road or in heavier applications like, say, a BMW M5. But we have driven it back to back against its likely arch rival. And that’s key. Because for a long time the Pilot Sport 4 and 5 have been the go-to, not only for OEMs, but for enthusiasts who care about tyres.

We want tyres that handle the daily crash and bash of the commute, aren’t too noisy on the highway, don’t go through a set in 10,000km and aren’t grumpy when cold. That’s where the RE005 is pitched.

But it’s also pitched at folks with cars that can do a lot more than the commute and the highway drone. Sometimes we’re on the highway to get to that back road we love and know like the back of our hands and puts a smile on our face.

And when we get there, we want a tyre that can take the punishment and then get us home again with just a quick pressure check at the first servo. The RE005 feels like it can do that whether it’s hot or chucking it down.

It’s good to see Bridgestone back in the fight and with a tyre this good, expect it to be a very entertaining one.

The Bridgestone Adrenalin RE005 is available now.

Also, here’s an RE003 for you to look at: