Writing about the
Hankook Ventus RS4 given
94% (265-35-18-)
Driving on
a combination of roads for 8500
spirited miles
I initially purchased a set of these tires years ago when I just started HPDE. Soon afterwards I decided to try other tires to see how they compared, including the Yokohoma Advan AD08R, Federal RS-RR, Hankook RS3, and Sailun R01.
From experience the Hankook RS4s outperform all of them. Turn in response is very fast, but also very sensitive so it can be slightly difficult for new inexperienced drivers to place the car. Once gotten used to however it becomes very predictable and this no longer becomes and issue. The tires have high lateral grip and the car remains very composed when on the limit, especially during high speed corners. The edge of grip is also quite easy to find and allows you to easily push it without any issues.
Wet grip is surprisingly amazing for an Extreme performance 200TW tire. Dont expect it to grip like PS4s but they exceed the wet grip levels of the other tires in this catagory.
Theres one thing that cannot be argued and its that these tires wear like iron. They are far better than the old Hankook RS3s, which were already great. They havent show any signs of overheating during spirited drives or track driving and grip does not fall off as they wear, so they make for an amazing HPDE/Endurance racing tire where you would be doing several sessions. Reviews by other users support this claim and rave about their wear characteristics.
Unless theres another tire out there that has the same handling characteristics, along with extremely low wear, I will be staying with these tires. This tire dominated the Time Attack event here in NSW Australia, with the majority using them over the Federal RSRR and AD08R. The winner, also using RS4s was only half a second off his best time, which was done on Advan A050 Semislicks (60TW)