Got inspired by Stefano Casillo to read a book again. Any recommendations ? I am not looking for dry inhuman academic books. For example I have read Paul Haneys "The Racing & High-Performance Tire: Using Tires to Tune for Grip & Balance", it was very good read for me. I am interested in various facts about tires, basically to better understand how they work and all differences in tires, and factors which cause those differences.
Sadly, that's about the only one other than Han Pacejka's "Tire and Vehicle Dynamics". Pacejka might have a more recent one, but I haven't looked lately. Mostly you have to wade through academic papers to find more. There was a lot written about truck tires in the '70s which isn't all that applicable to what we're doing. In terms of historical racing tires, there are several magazine articles about Dunlop racing tires up until they got out of Grand Prix racing. A little bit about Goodyear and Firestone, too, but those are less useful. There's a '55-'57 research paper about developing the Firestone 170-T and some history on developing the Michelin X tire.
The attached document below by Michelin might cover all that you want to know, interesting I've seen cites of it in serious books and papers. You can also read Tyre and Vehicle Dynamics by Pacekja; Tyres, Suspension, and Handling by Dixon; and Gillespie in his book Fundamentals of Vehicle Dynamics also covers extensively the topic. You don't need to worry to much about the math, anyway vehicle dynamics math isn't nothing special. http://docenti.ing.unipi.it/guiggiani-m/Michelin_Tire_Grip.pdf
Not a book and a 2+ hr podcast isn't the best way to present this material, but it is helpful to understand what a tire tester does:
