With three days
to go before the first round of motorsport’s premier racing series,
Pirelli’s season comes to life with the presentation the 2015 Formula One
tyres, marking the Italian firm’s fifth consecutive year in the sport. This
underlines Pirelli’s strategy of expansion in the world of motorsport, where
the company is already the world leader thanks to more than 300
championships in over 40 countries: half of which are in open tyre
competition.
State-of-the-art performance, frequent overtaking and exciting races with at
least two pit stops per car: these are Pirelli’s objectives with its latest
range of Formula One tyres. On top of that, Pirelli consolidates its
relationship with World Superbikes – which are using the Italian rubber for
the 11th consecutive year – and grows its presence on the Asian motorsport
scene, especially within the most prestigious single-make series including
those from Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati. Pirelli’s rally activities are
expanding all over the world, as well as tyre supply agreements derived from
production tyres, such as the German GT championship that features sports
cars from prestige makes such as Audi and Porsche. Pirelli is pleased to
support new championships such as Formula 4 and promote the careers of young
drivers through specific initiatives designed to bring up-and-coming talent
to the fore.
The venue for Pirelli’s presentation of products for its championships on
both two and four wheels is the historic centre of Melbourne: a focus of
motorsport for the world and the Asia-Pacific region in particular this
weekend with Formula One, as well as hosting the first round of the World
Superbike Championship at Philip Island three weeks ago.
Presenting Pirelli’s 2015 innovations are the company’s two sport directors:
Paul Hembery for cars and Giorgio Barbier for motorbikes. They oversee
departments that create 175 new tyre designs per year involving 500 people –
including 200 researchers – six worldwide centres for research and
development (with two in Italy for compounds and structures, plus one in
Brazil), five factories (Turkey, Romania, Germany, Argentina, and Brazil
with accompanying research centres) a logistics centre in Great Britain, and
a total production per year of 570,000 tyres. These tyres are all recycled
to the highest standards of sustainability at the end of every race, and if
they were all piled up on top each other, they would reach a height of 180
kilometres. If lined up alongside each other, they would stretch for
approximately 400 kilometres.
WHAT’S NEW IN FORMULA ONE THIS YEAR: The tyres have all been evolved
from 2014 to meet the requirements of the latest cars. The 2015 cars could
be up to two seconds per lap faster than previously, with the
latest-specification hybrid power units delivering higher average speeds.
There’s a new rear construction for the entire P Zero range, designed to
distribute heat and forces more evenly, leading to more consistent
performance. One of the key evolutions on all the tyres this year has been
optimisation of the footprint pressure and temperature distribution. This
presents a more even contact with the asphalt, improving grip and handling.
An all-new supersoft compound introduced for 2015 is designed to guard
against blistering and graining. This development work that has been taking
place throughout the off-season underlines once more Pirelli’s continual
evolution and philosophy of improvement, as demonstrated since the company
entered Formula One back in 2011.
PIRELLI ON TWO WHEELS: The Italian tyre company will once again be
official exclusive tyre supplier for all classes of the FIM Superbike World
Championship this year, in an agreement that runs to 2018. This partnership
started in 2004, making it the most enduring tyre supply in the history of
international motorsport. Pirelli also has a firm commitment to the FIM
Motocross World Championship, having already achieved 62 world titles, as
well as the FIM Endurance World Championship, which consists of four rounds
this year. Pirelli is official motorcycle tyre sponsor of AMA Supercross –
an FIM World Championship (for 2014-2016) – as well as being the tyre
supplier to different riders. Pirelli is prominent in many other control and
open tyre national championships, including the BSB (British Superbike
Championship), CIV (Italian National Championship), IDM (German National
Championship) and FSBK (French Superbike Championship). In the Asia Pacific
region, as well as being exclusive official supplier of the Superbike series
in Malaysia and the Philippines, Pirelli will be title sponsor of the
Malaysian round of the Superbike World Championship. For the first time the
championship will also go to Thailand this year, where Pirelli will also
race in the FIM Motocross World Championship. The Pirelli Cup 600 Challenge
Series has been launched in Japan to promote the growth of young talent in
the country. This year Pirelli will also open its fourth factory for the
production of motorcycle tyres, in Indonesia.
PIRELLI’S REACH: INCREASINGLY GLOBAL: Pirelli’s policy of expansion
in the Asia-Pacific region is set to continue, reinforcing technology
transfer between the racetrack and the road as a key objective. Pirelli is
additionally involved in a vast number of other motorsport series within the
Asia-Pacific territory, which are as diverse as the Ferrari Challenge (which
takes in seven rounds from Sepang to Abu Dhabi), Lamborghini Trofeo,
Australian GT Championship and Chinese Rally Championship. On the business
side Pirelli expects an average annual growth in the Asia-Pacific region of
around 16% in the next couple of years, making it the Italian tyre firm’s
fastest-growing market worldwide. In particular, there is a growing demand
for premium products, thanks to burgeoning car sales within China in
particular. This upsurge demonstrates Pirelli’s increasing globalisation,
with Formula One – which is the only truly worldwide championship in
existence – providing a perfect shop window for Pirelli’s technology and
know-how.
PUTTING THE ACCENT ON YOUTH: A priority for Pirelli has always been
promotion of young talent, seen in the past through the Pirelli Star Driver
scheme and WRC Academy, and now in its continued support of the GP2 and GP3
championships, which go from strength to strength in 2015. This year, these
important feeder championships are joined by Formula 4: designed to bridge
the gap between karting and more advanced single-seater categories. Pirelli
has supported this new championship from its inception, which currently runs
in several countries all over the world with different engine, chassis and
tyre manufacturers.
NEWS FROM
GERMANY: In Germany, Pirelli takes over as exclusive supplier of the
German GT championship this year, which is based on race-prepared
equivalents of the prestige and supercars that Pirelli supplies with
original equipment for the road. Once more, this latest initiative
reinforces the vital link between competition and the everyday road user: a
hallmark of all Pirelli products. The German GT championship is an important
breeding ground for endurance champions of the future, as well as a key
market for the automotive industry as a whole. Pirelli naturally continues
its relationship with the Blancpain GT series, which has proved to be
extremely successful, featuring classic events such as the Spa 24 Hours.
PRESENCE
CONSOLIDATED IN AMERICA: In the Americas – which hosts four rounds of
the Formula One world championship this year – Pirelli is once again
reinforcing its presence. This territory is the biggest global market for
Pirelli, with two of its most significant motorsport championships being the
Pirelli World Challenge (for a wide variety of competition cars ranging from
MINIs to Porsches, on the most prestigious circuits in America) and the
Brazilian stock car championship, contested by legends of the sport such as
Rubens Barrichello, who won the title last year.
Pirelli’s motorsport director Paul Hembery, launching the company’s latest
motorsport programmes in Melbourne, said: “It’s a real privilege for us to
get the Formula One season underway here, and present our plans for the
season ahead in such a vital territory for Pirelli. The Asia-Pacific region
is really where Pirelli’s motorsport history originally started, thanks to
victory in the 1907 Peking to Paris road race, and this year we actually
celebrate 90 years since Pirelli won its first grand prix championship in
1925. While tyre technology has changed unrecognisably since then,
competition remains firmly coded into our DNA, as the foremost means of
developing innovations that will one day be seen on the road, benefitting
road safety as well as pure performance. This season, we’re looking forward
to understanding how exactly the teams have evolved their cars, as this
changes the interaction between the tyre and the circuit, and we have a new
race in Mexico: another country where we have a factory and a strong
presence. We are also expanding our global activities outside Formula One,
consolidating Pirelli’s reputation as the tyre manufacturer most heavily
involved in motorsport throughout the world. Pre-season Formula One testing
in Spain showed that the performance of our latest tyres is in line with
what we expected, with the improvements that we have made delivering the
results we intended with this latest generation of cars up to now.”
Pirelli Moto racing activities director Giorgio Barbier added:
“Collaboration and a constructive approach towards developers,
manufacturers, teams and riders have always been the ingredients of our
success. The work we do in the top championship for production-based bikes,
as well as in all the series in which we participate, is fundamental for the
development of our racing tyres, which are the same as those sold to
customers. With increasing motorbike sales in the region, Asia-Pacific, is
becoming a very interesting market for us, where we will invest even more
over the next few years.”
|