Brake pads Textar or Hawk Performance

Depending on the track the factory pads may be adequate for your first day, but a more aggressive and higher temp pad would be my recommendation because nothing will up the "pucker factor" like your brake pedal going to the floor. A pad like the Hawk HPS 5.0 is what I'd consider to be minimally acceptable for street tires on an average track. I'm a big fan of GLOC pads and I can confirm their R8 compound on all 4 corners works great on the GTI/R/A3/S3 for street tires.

At the shop I run, we use textar pads on Zimmerman rotors. For some reason textar on textar always make noise on BMWs ( we elevated our complaints all the way to Textar, and they sent a rep to finally shrug). Pagid pads are ok, but I find they wear out more quickly.

My go to brake pad is Textar. Why? Less problems. Since I own a shop, any warranty issue is wasted time. I will not charge a client to make it right. I do not have time to do the job a second time.

Hawk makes the DTC series for the 718 base. Can't go wrong with the DTC-30 for a pad that you can drive back and forth to the track and will perform very well on track. The dust is nasty and corrosive though, so I'd recommend cleaning the wheels and changing the pads out for street duty.

I had Hawk HP+. They were extremely noisy and dusty, very strong bite though. I now have the standard Hawk HP pads, no noise and far less dust. Not as much initial bite, but still really great performance. I wouldn’t swap back to the HP+ after having both.

Have used these for a while now and will be getting them again to pair up with some DBA t3 rotors

Hawk (no, not that Hawk) pads work well, bedding in process is straightforward, and they only squeaked for a first few hundred miles or so when coming to a dead stop.

I autocross mine. With whatever pads the last guy used and old fluid, I could put the brake pedal to the floor without activating ABS. I swapped out pads for hawk hps 5.0 and put on new standard rotors and now I can stop almost instantly. I very highly recommend the hps 5.0.

I used up 40% of brand-new Hawk HPS pad in the front in 1 track day, so I only have 1 or 2 more track days left in them.

so much dust with textar pads on Zimmerman rotors.  3 weeks later my alloys are black.