Upcoming Metzeler Race Tyre to Benefit from Interact Technology

When you’re in the business of race tyres, fast is good. That is why Metzeler operates what it calls the ‘Pure Laptime’ project’ – regardless of a rider’s skill, the tyre should reduce not only his best lap times, but also overall race times, thanks to a constant performance to the very end. Metzeler says that its newest race tyre advances this quest one step further.

In spring Metzeler will release the latest incarnation of its Racetec tyre onto the UK market. Full details of the tyre will be made available closer to its launch date, however pre-release information made public at last October’s Intermot show in Cologne indicate that the new Racetec will be available in four compound variants, three for race and one for street usage, with a total of four front wheel and nine rear wheel sizes available.

As part of this, the new tyre adopts ‘Interact’ technology, as seen on the Roadtec Z6. The technology behind Interact includes the latest evolution of Metzeler’s patented 0° steel belt, combined with a new compound mixing process. To explain the benefits of Interact, Metzler notes the fundamental fact that a tyre is a complex of different structure materials, most notably steel and textile, and tread compound. Making improvements to a tyre therefore involves reaching a new equilibrium in the complex. Placing an emphasis upon just one part of the complex, such as tread compound, causes performances problems, including irregular wear, irregular shape or decay in performance in dry and warm conditions. However, Metzeler claims that its engineers have found an interesting dependence of tyre performance upon the applied belt winding tension in each position of the tyre shape, and in doing so found a new complex equilibrium able to “smooth” and react in a different way to the input of the new generation of supersport motorcycles.

Interact is, says Metzeler, based upon the perfect interaction between all the elements of the tyre, a modulated structure stress distribution and the highly efficient mixing compound technology. The tyre maker states that the modular string winding tension of the 0° steel belt guarantees a progressive pressure distribution, thus offering tailored solutions to the different needs of every lean angle without any discontinuity in terms of performance.

As for the new Racetec, Metzeler reports that the rear tyre features a tread pattern design that is both tremendously effective and cool to look at. The availability of four tread compounds, each precisely tuned for specific weather and surface conditions, ensures that the user can find the best solution to the prevailing riding environment.

When it arrives early in 2009 the Racetec will join a line-up that covers numerous categories and applications, ranging from the Me 7 Teen, a tyre Metzeler describes as ‘a low section scooter tyre developed for daily commuting in the urban jungle’, through to the Roadtec Z6 Interact for the sport touring class and the Sportec M3, the latest generation of supersport tyre developed for sport riders and racetrack use.