Five countries, 550 miles, in nine hours? That’s a job for Motiva UHP!

Photo Credit: Frozenspeed

There are road trips, and then there are ROAD TRIPS. Envoy ambassador Paul Cowland decided to take a pan-European dash, and he made sure he had the appropriate shoes on…

Anyone that truly enjoys driving will understand the pure, unalloyed joy of a road trip. The allure of the miles beneath your wheels, the fun in planning the destinations, the choice of playlist, and let’s face it… the snacks. There’s nothing quite like it.

Each year, I’m lucky enough to drive to a track day with DN Events at the fabled Nürburgring in Germany. If you’re not familiar with this historic race circuit, it was created by the Germans in the late 1920s, as the ultimate test of man and machine (and it was mostly just men in those days). And, at some 12.9 miles PER LAP, with 33 left turns and 40 right turns, it’s widely considered to be the most challenging and dangerous circuit in the world. So much so in fact, that it was christened “The Green Hell,” by F1 ace Jackie Stewart after his 1968 victory there in heavy rain and fog. I don’t think he was in a rush to go back…

Because of this fearsome reputation, challenging curves and huge elevation changes, it’s also used by almost every automotive – and tyre – manufacturer to shake down their latest offerings. One mile here is considered to be equivalent to 10 miles on the road, simply due to the extreme forces placed on cars, drivers and tyres. So if you’re looking to prove what you’ve created, there is no finer place on the planet.

But first you have to get there. For this wonderful task, I chose a car that I had taken here many times before; my 2012 Subaru BRZ. A superb, lightweight sportscar that’s fantastically involving on the road, and even better on track. The route from my home in Nottingham to the circuit is quite the distance. The first leg would see me driving to Dover, before jumping on a ferry to Calais, and then dashing across France, Belgium, Holland and Germany to end up at my destination. Door to door, it’s around 9 hours or so, with 550 miles to cover. But, with the right podcast and coffee, it’s a doddle.

But that meant I also needed the right tyres, too. A tyre that could munch up the 1,100 miles to get there and back, plus a few cheeky laps of the track, plus the all-important excursions for lunch and dinner each day! Just like with ski-ing, the socialising around the main activity itself is half the fun! ‘Après Track’, if you will. Being an Envoy ambassador made this a simple decision, of course, and the super-efficient warehouse team quickly dispatched a set of Motiva UHPs to my local depot, We Sell Tyres, in Colwick, to be fitted and balanced by the talented team at Allumy Motorsport, nestled within Donington Park Circuit.

This proved to be a good call, all round. A glance at the weather forecast before I left showed that my dash across Europe was to be in heavy rain, and my time at the track was going to be damp, at the very least. But seeing as the Motiva is a ‘A’ labelled wet-weather tyre, I really wasn’t too worried. The Envoy boffins created this tyre precisely for a bit of spirited road driving, with an advanced silica compound and a carcass construction that’s optimised for speed, responsiveness and handling when you need it most. And when you think that my drive through Germany would also include unrestricted sections of the Autobahn, where the only speed limit is your bravery level, then this all seemed very promising. Getting legally overtaken at 125 mph is always hilarious.

As I arrived in Calais, it turned out that the weather report was spot on. It began raining, then got heavier, and then turned into an absolute deluge. We’re talking biblical levels of downpour and standing water. But here’s where the Motiva has a trick up its neatly moulded sleeve…

The tyre features four wide circumferential grooves, their fundamental role being to shift water, which stops the car from aquaplaning, or being ‘lifted’ by the sheer amount of water beneath it, breaking traction and making the car feel nervous. Even through literal streams and rivers of motorway water, the little Subaru stayed straight and true, driving beautifully through conditions that even the wipers were struggling to cope with at full tilt.

Arriving at the track thankfully revealed better weather, and after a good night’s sleep, we were ready to take a few exploratory laps and see what the tyres could do. The 550 miles to get here did a superb job of ‘scrubbing in’ the top surface of the tyre, which is always advisable before you take any brand new tyre into a high performance situation. Think of it as a ‘bedding-in’ process.

If you’ve never seen a map of the Nürburgring, it’s probably worth a quick squint at one, at this point. The track is so big, there are literally whole towns, villages, farms and road networks within it – and this means you can enjoy several different weather conditions on just one lap. You can start in pouring rain, drive through brilliant sunshine – and then end the lap in hail and snow. I kid you not! That happened to me once – and in April!

This time though, we just had a little rain, and a slightly greasy track. All good fun and very much part of a normal working day for the Motiva. Lap after lap I simply got predictable grip, great feedback and plenty of fun!

And, after 20 reasonably quick laps, the tyres were still in fantastic shape. It’s hard to create a tyre that grips, shifts water and wears well, but somehow, those research & development boffins have managed it. They looked like I’d simply spun the car around the block and were clearly ready for a safe journey back.

After two fun-filled days it was time to drive the 550 miles home, which again, we did in one go, just for the challenge. With kinder weather, a fair dose of cruise control, and plenty of ‘90s club tunes on rotation, you can imagine it was a very pleasant experience indeed.

So I would say that was a successful field test, complete! I rated the Motivas before I left, but now? I have a whole new level of respect for them. The good news is, you don’t need to go to the world’s most challenging and dangerous track to enjoy them on your own sporty car. If you simply love a brisk ‘B’ road blast, or you’re just looking for the ultimate in motorway safety on our rainy little Isle, they’re absolutely the rubber to fit, and well, if you do happen to wander onto a damp track by mistake, it looks like we’ve got you covered there, too!

For more information about the Motiva UHP, contact your local Envoy dealer. You can also check out my vlog about the trip below.