ryoung

<center><img src="http://pictureposter.audiworld.com/17157/michelinf1_rain.jpg"></center><p>
As many of you know, the tread patterns used in racing rain tires often find their way into high performance street tires.

I believe these Michelin F1 rain tires first appeared at the Melbourne Grand Prix a few weeks ago. The tread pattern is not very exciting, if not a little weird, with those circular sipes in each tread block You can bet your Audi, though, that Michelin does this for performance, not appearance. It's not hard to see how this tread has the advantage of a siped tread in the rain, but without most of the tread block instability that sipes normally produce. Shucks, this might even make a reasonable all-season tire.

Anyone care to guess how long it'll be before this tread pattern shows up in TireRack's warehouse on a Pilot Sport?

4kq

I wonder if they are the upside-down y-sipe too?

Eddie@Tirerack

The Firehawk SZ50EP is a near copy for the CART rain tire, and the Yoko AVS Sport tread design looks exactly like the wet tire used in CART Toyota Atlantic..

You race goers should be on the lookout & see the differences when you stroll the paddocks!