Authored by: Tractor tyre expert | 30 May 2025
You have invested in a powerful tractor, convinced that engine power will be enough to guarantee your productivity and your rapidity. Yet you regularly note that your tractor has trouble transmitting this energy smoothly to the ground. Why is there such a loss of efficiency despite the high-performance engine? The reason is simple: power alone is not enough to ensure optimal traction. In reality, an element that is often underestimated plays a major role: the tyre.
The agricultural tyre is not just a simple piece of basic equipment: it’s the direct link between your tractor and the ground, the only way of transforming engine power into a real tractive effort. With unsuitable tyres, you will lose a lot of the power available. To really improve your traction capacity, it is indispensable to take an interest in the intrinsic characteristics of your tyres: size suited to the load, innovative technology, optimised inflation pressure and lug profile. These technical elements are all levers that can be used to maximise traction.
In this article, you will discover how you can improve efficiency simply by choosing your tyres better. The practical advice given will help you adopt an efficient tyre strategy which can boost your tractor performance considerably.
The choice of profile for your agricultural tyres is essential if you are looking to optimise traction and work efficiency. It’s not only a question of dimensions, but also the design of the tread and of the lugs as well as the tyre technology.
The lugs, or studs, are what allow your tyres to grip the ground and limit slip, which can lead to loss of adherence. Their design and the position of the angles in relation to the wheel axis play a fundamental role in your tractor’s traction capacity.
An optimised lug design, such as the Dual Angle design, uses different angles:
It is crucial to opt for new generation agricultural tyres which offer a tread profile with curved or multiple angles.
These designs are engineered to establish the ideal compromise between maximum self-cleaning and optimal tractive effort. A poor self-cleaning capacity, often with discount tyres and badly designed angles, leads to excessive slip.
This ends up slowing down your campaign due to wheel slip as well as extra fuel consumption, premature wear and the sealing of the furrow bottom.
The number of lugs on the surface of the tyre is vital; there must be enough lugs to increase the number of gripping points in contact with the ground thus offering better traction, but not too many either.
Adequate spacing between the lugs with the lugs pointing in a specific direction ensure a good contact between the tyre and the ground, allowing for optimal grip and encouraging efficient self-cleaning.
This avoids the earth getting stuck between the lugs, which guarantees constant performance levels, even in difficult weather conditions.
Au-delà des barrettes individuelles, la qualité de la bande de roulement dans son ensemble est un facteur déterminant.
Beyond the number of individual lugs, the quality of the tread as a whole is a decisive factor. A specific tread design aims to maximise the tyre’s contact patch with the ground.
A larger contact area with the ground means that the load is spread more evenly and, consequently, means a better capacity to transmit engine torque to the ground.
The overall construction of the casing also has an important role to play. The internal structure must include stabilising plies just under the tread to improve handling, which is essential for maintaining efficient traction in the fields, but also during travel by road.
Without lessening performance levels for work in the fields, your tractor must effectively handle safely on the road, ensuring stability and driving comfort.
Tyre technology plays a major role in optimising your tractor’s traction. Technological advances have brought solutions that can transform your machine’s performance levels, in particular tyres made using IF technology.
IF (Improved Flexion) tyres represent a significant breakthrough in improving the use of your tractor. Their innovative design gives them a 20% higher load capacity (for the same tyre size) compared to standard tyres, with the same inflation pressure. Alternatively, they allow you to work at a reduced inflation pressure with the same load, which is a major bonus.
This advantage leads directly to an improvement in traction and reduced slip. By offering a longer, larger soil footprint with a better distribution of weight, IF tyres effectively maximise the contact between the lugs and the earth.
To improve traction, it is necessary to equip both the front and the rear of your tractor with this same tyre technology. Harmony between front and rear tyres ensures a more balanced transmission of power and better overall tractor adherence.
With IF technology and reduced pressure, more lugs can work together simultaneously. The vertical compaction is transformed with a longer, larger footprint, obtaining a better distribution of the load. This balanced spreading of the weight makes it possible to transfer torque more horizontally, to get a better grip on the ground.
This represents a difference of 0.2 bar, which makes it possible to extend the soil footprint and improve traction.
The difference is even more significant with 0.3 bar, which makes it possible to improve traction.
These examples show clearly how IF technology makes it possible to work at a lower inflation pressure while carrying heavy loads.
This is a significant step towards optimising traction while protecting your soil.
When you use powerful tractors with heavy implements and large areas to cover, optimising traction and protecting your soil become a major challenge.
While standard tyres reach their limits rapidly in terms of pressure and compaction, twinning offers a very efficient solution.
There are several decisive advantages to twinning:
Twinning is the ideal traction solution, and in addition you save precious time on each campaign. Fuel consumption decreases, your soil is protected and overall performance levels improve, even in wet conditions
The correct use of twinning must take account of the extent of tyre wear. It is highly recommended to fit the tyres which are more worn on the outside. This helps to limit mechanical strain.
Are you looking for performance from your tractor?
Firestone’s MAXI TRACTION IF tyres offer you a complete and multipurpose solution. They draw on key innovations to optimise traction, protect your soil and improve farm profitability.
This premium tyre capitalises on IF technology, making it possible to work at a very limited inflation pressure, as low as 0.8 bar. The more lugs that grip onto the ground simultaneously, the better the traction.
In addition, you can transport heavy loads without having to overinflate your tyres, thus avoiding soil compaction.
At the same time, the tyre’s design gives it a higher load capacity than a standard tyre, which results in greater flexibility in your work.
The tread has been developed for traction, with its Dual Angle lugs, a specific design that increases the tyres’ gripping surface area on the ground.
Not only does this intelligent design optimise your tractor’s traction, it also improves the wheels’ self-cleaning capacity.
Lastly, the robust casing and flexible sidewalls of the MAXI TRACTION IF tyre are designed to optimise traction, and contribute to better shock absorption. This results in improved driving comfort and longer wear life.
To maximise your tractor traction, don’t forget that it doesn’t only depend on the engine.
The choice of tyre profile, adopting innovative technologies such as IF technology, and the option of twinning are essential levers. By optimising these aspects, you will save time, reduce fuel consumption and protect your soil.
To be sure of choosing the most suitable tyre for your farm, contact an expert or use Firestone’s online selection tool.
With Firestone, you have the guarantee of tractor tyres that deliver a real advantage, and that in choosing our brand, you can work worry-free.
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