Kumho Revels in Le Mans and F3 Successes

Kumho’s European motorsport division has enjoyed considerable success across a range of motorsport series in 2007. Perhaps the highlight of the year was the success of the Le Mans LMP2 class-winning Lola Zytek of Binnie Motorsports. As the car was shod with Kumho Tyres, Binnie’s success represented an historic achievement for the Korean tyre manufacturer, competing at Le Mans for only the third time.

Kumho supported both the Binnie Motorsports entry, comprised of Bill Binnie (US), Allen Timpany (GB) and Chris Buncombe (GB), and the Kruse Motorsport Pescarolo Judd of Tony Burgess (Can), Jean de Pourtales (Fr) and Norbert Siedler (Aut). The Binnie Car won LMP2 outright and finished 18th overall. Sadly the Kruse car did not survive the full 24 hours.

Said Bill Binnie: “We experienced just about every type of weather during the race from dry/warm conditions to torrential rain and used Kumho’s full arsenal of tyres as a result. They all performed admirably and were a key element of our victory.”

Euro F3 – another future F1 driver is spawned

Kumho is the official tyre supplier to the 20 race F3 Euro Series. This year’s championship winner, Frenchman Romain Grosjean, drove for the ASM team, who can now boast a total of four wins in the Series, not least with Lewis Hamilton at the helm in 2005. Grosjean hopes to emulate Hamilton’s rise to the pinnacle of motorsport by moving up to GP2 in 2008 and then on to F1.

Among the reminders of the many drivers that have risen to stardom on Kumho tyres, is a pair of Lewis Hamilton’s overalls, that were presented to the tyre manufacturer by the Hamilton family and are now displayed at the company’s museum in Gwangju, Korea.

Masters of F3

The annual blue riband meeting for F3 is the ‘Zandvoort Masters of F3’ – this year held at Zolder in Belgium. Kumho has been the official tyre supplier to the Masters since 2002 and is contracted to remain so until at least 2011. Kumho hosted some 400 European tyre dealers from 16 countries at the event, for which they specially manufactured in excess of 800 ECSTA wet and dry tyres, which were fitted by a 13-strong team of highly trained Kumho technicians.

This year’s ‘Masters of F3’ event was won by Nico Hulkenberg of Germany from Yann Clairay of France. A total of 36 drivers competed from no less than 23 countries.

Kumho is also the title sponsor of the MSA British Rallycross Championship, having signed a three-year agreement at the start of 2007. The deal included the provision of a control tyre for the first time in the history of the Series – the Kumho S700 Rallycross. The popular Championship is contested over eight rounds, at circuits in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland. This year, final honours went to Irishman Ollie O’Donovan after a titanic battle with Andrew Jordan of Lichfield. Fellow Irishman Dermot Carnegie was third.