A netizen asked: For cars, which is more important—good tires or a good engine?
Netizen Alpha responded: For a car, the engine and tires are like the brain and hands of a person—they are both extremely important and indispensable.
Without context, this question isn't really a question because most people would answer: both are important.
However, in special circumstances, such as in racing, the engine is important, but the tires are even more important. In fact, the importance of tires often exceeds that of the engine by a large margin.
There was once an interview where many professional drivers were asked: If you had two cars in front of you, one with an engine that had an absolute advantage, and the other with tires that had an absolute advantage, which one would you choose?
Surprisingly, the vast majority of drivers chose the car with the tire advantage without hesitation.
The main reason for this is that the engine is responsible for generating horsepower, but it is the tires that actually transfer that power to the ground. If the tires are poor, you can't push the gas pedal fully while turning, which affects cornering speed. Since a racetrack typically has at least a dozen corners, the speed at which you take those turns directly impacts race results.
In other words, no matter how good your engine is, if your car doesn't have good tires, the engine's power cannot be fully utilized.
This is particularly true in events like the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where tires are required to have high durability and endurance. F1 racing places even higher demands on tire performance.
WRC rally racing focuses even more on a tire's ability to adapt to various road conditions such as snow, asphalt, dirt, and sand, while the engine doesn't have as high a priority.
Because no matter how good your engine is, it is still limited by the tires. Therefore, improving tire quality directly improves race performance!
Of course, if you're driving normally in a city, the importance of both is equal. The engine affects your car's power and fuel consumption, while the tires affect your car's handling and safety.
So, when buying, using, and maintaining a car, we should view the car as a whole and not prioritize one over the other!
