In the last 2-3 weekends I had the chance to test the new control tires for the ETS in my local track FRT in Athens, Greece: the Matrix 32 and 36 compound tires.
As the Volante V5 tires are no longer in production, a lot of tire brands have tried to replicate the performance of the V5 which was very good(of course there were some cons e.g. tire blowouts at the end of the straights in the summer with high temperatures…) . Matrix’s lineup has been available for a while but was overlooked until ETS decided to have them as their control tire for the upcoming season.
Testing Details
Air Temperature:15-17oC
Track Temperature:26-30oC
Car: Awesomatix A800MMX
Electronics: Hobbywing, MKS, Sanwa, EZpower
Grip: The grip of the track was getting progressively higher throughout the day with its peak around 5-6p.m..
Class:1/10 EP Touring Modified
Previous track record(short anti-clockwise layout): 17,4
All lap times were counted with a Hudy stopwatch(so no official records, what a pity😅!)
Before I start my short review on the tires, I want to comment that the track conditions were one of the best I have driven in recent years at FRT but it is important to add that in the summer when the track temperature is going to be close to 60oC the tires are probably going to have other handling characteristics and more ‘fade’ during the run. It has been the case with most of the other tires we have raced in Greece so far(degradation, overheating issues…)
The tires weigh approximately around 32 grams and all of them have similar weight. The wheel does not flex a lot and has a tight fit on my hexagon hex. Also the glue is applied very beautifully around the tire’s sidewalls. Additionally, there is a small amount of air gap between the insert and the tire but no so much as the Volante V5 tires, providing good bite on the track but not risking ballooning the tires in the straight with a risk of explosion.
Matrix 32: Firstly, I tried the 32 compound tire which is softer than the 36. The grip it provided was very impressive, had good rotation in the corner and a lot of steering while maintaining good corner speed. My best lap was a 17,5 with an average of around 17,7-17,8. In my second run with the same set of tires I did a best lap of 17,4 with the same average lap like my first run.
Matrix 36: After I gained some experience with the Matrix 32 tires, I ran with the 36 Matrix compound tire. In my first run, I was able to do a 17,13 with an average of 17,6-17,7. The first 5 laps were absolutely amazing but I felt a slight drop-off after. It was not something significant, the car could be driven consistently and fast but I felt that the lap times were a little bit off and that was eventually the case when I saw analytically my run, lap per lap.
Conclusion: As I mentioned before, the track’s grip was progressively improving, hence the difference in lap times between the 32 and 36 compound tires. Overall, both tires have a very good feeling while driving, they are consistent throughout the 5-minute run and are not affected temperature-wise by braking or accelerating hard out of a corner. On the other side, even if there is no obvious difference in the handling of the car during the 5-minute run, the lap times tend to fall of a little bit at the end but nothing too extreme.
In general, it is very difficult to jump into any conclusions quickly, especially on asphalt surfaces as the conditions constantly change. That is the reason I cannot say that the Matrix tires are better than the V5s of Volante but I can assure you they are very fast and consistent. The upcoming weekend, I will try to do some extra battery packs in order to check the longevity of the Matrix tires which is another important factor of a tire which I did not mention on this post.
Lastly, thanks to NtechRc(https://ntechrc.com/en/) that provided us, Greek drivers, with Matrix tires in order to try them out for the upcoming and hopefully Covid-free regional and national races.
See you on the track!
Dimitris Ioannidis RC Racing 