Today in my physics class we did a lab which proved that the area of contact is all that matters when optimizing the coefficient of friction. Just for the record, all 10 groups got the same results proving the same thing, and the other class got the same results, in fact the teacher has never had a group that found otherwise. Although, what did increase the coefficient of friction was the amount of weight. These results applied to both static and sliding friction. My question is...why the hell would any car benefit from wider tires?! It is obvious that they do, i'm not in any way shape or form trying to deny that every crew cheif and developer in F1, F3, WRC, NDRA, Nascar, SCCA has been wrong, actually it's quite the opposite, but how is it that more friction can be obtained if the contact patch doesn't matter?