Dunlop Extends its MotoGP Involvement

Team d’Antin MotoGP has announced that it will use Dunlop tyres in 2005. The team will enter Roby Rolfo on a Ducati Desmosedici GP04. The 2005 MotoGP World Championship starts in Jerez on 10 April.

Team owner Luis d’Antin and Roby Rolfo recently visited Dunlop Motorsport’s European R&D headquarters in Birmingham. “We are delighted that Dunlop has decided to support our programme,” confirmed Luis d’Antin “it will be a very interesting challenge for our team to help Dunlop move forward with their MotoGP tyre development.”

Roby Rolfo was especially interested in the amount of analytical resources and software modelling packages dedicated to MotoGP that Dunlop has at its disposal both in Europe and Japan. “Tyres play an absolutely vital role in racing,” he said. “And I have always tried to give the Dunlop tyre engineers the maximum amount of information that I can as a rider. I was therefore particularly impressed to see the degree to which Dunlop is now also using the analytical tools, like tyre modelling, to accelerate the development of their tyres for MotoGP. I already have a good relationship with Dunlop’s trackside engineers from my years in 250ccGP, and am really looking forward to the challenge of MotoGP.”

Dunlop and Team d’Antin MotoGP will start their MotoGP test programme at Sepang, Malaysia on 11 February.