Page 42 - Paddock Life Issue 13 ADRENALINE

noticed a drop of about 5 miles per gallon on the trip, and my top speed was certainly clipped. The Range Rover is very capable of jogging along all day at a comfortable 130mph, but on this rubber 120 was starting to become a white knuckle ride and pushing through to higher speeds was not an option, just too much rolling resistance.
Most manufacturers have an affiliation with a tyre brand, on the performance cars they may have developed certain tyres for either extreme road performance or simply the size and fit. We all watch the motor racing on TV where tyre changes are crucial, tyre manufacturers are probably the number one sponsor of any motorsport series. For the last few seasons Formula One has been the domain of Italian tyre giant Pirelli, which in terms of outright brand awareness must be tops, but in terms of
what translates to our road cars Pirelli’s supply of rubber to the SRO Blancpain GT series is a direct testing ground for our road cars.
When this season kicked off in Misano with the opening round of the GT Sprint Cup, Pirelli bought along some 2000 of the new P Zero DHD and 629 of the P Zero DH to cater for a provisional grid of 34 GT3 cars 24 GT4 and GT sports club cars. This is a grid of race homologated cars from Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston Martin, Mercedes, Bentley and McLaren, so a lot of the manufacturers already have relations with the tyre brand. Each team has four sets for qualifying and four to race. In the Sprint Cup there is an hour long qualifying race, which at Misano’s opening round took place on Saturday evening in the dark, followed by Sunday afternoons main race of one hour. The Misano circuit offered Pirelli a
great opening race as the as 4.2km circuit has 16 turns, including three hairpin bends and some very high curbs all placing some extreme demands on the new generation P Zeros.
The consistency and drivability of these new tyres has allowed drivers to push hard from start to finish and with tyre and driver changes in each race Pirelli has created a tyre that has given us great racing through the season, with action on the hot Italian circuits of Monza and Misano balanced with Britain’s more unpredictable Silverstone and Brands Hatch races.
The pinnacle of development for the brand was the infamous Total 24 Hours of Spa, probably the most demanding motorsport event in the calendar. Pirelli brings its unique tyre fitting village, the biggest of the season, housing around 13,000 tyres, 24 trucks and 112 personnel for the Blancpain GT Series, at Paddock Bleu. As this race event runs form Tuesday to Sunday, with the main 24 hour race starting Saturday afternoon, the tyre giant also has all the support racers to shod. The Lamborghini Super Trofeo and Blancpain GT Sports Club races require an additional 3,000 tyres, three trucks and 10 personnel.
For this race Pirelli brought its P Zero DHD tyre for the Blancpain GT grid of 63 cars and Blancpain GT Sports Club grid of 24 cars. Whist the Lamborghini Super Trofeo grid used the P Zero DH, specifically designed for the series. With the WH tyre available should conditions be wet, which is always likely at this circuit.
As Pirelli’s circuit activity manager, Matteo Braga said “Spa is the ultimate challenge in GT racing: 24 hours on the most demanding circuit on the calendar, with a strong possibility of changeable weather conditions. From our perspective, it showcases the adaptability of the P Zero tyre, which is able to provide the right compromise between performance and
42