Pirelli raises £6,386 for Children’s Hospital

Pirelli has donated items to a charity auction and held a donation-based simulator experience on its stand at Silverstone’s British Grand Prix, raising £6,386 for the Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity. The auction was held on Wednesday 6 July at the F1 Party held at London’s Natural History Museum for the hospital’s Heart and Lung Centre, and Pirelli donated, among other things, a wind tunnel tyre signed by Britain’s last two Formula One World Champions: Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton. Red Bull principal Christian Horner, BBC F1 presenter Jake Humphrey and man about town Vernon Kay were among those in attendance.

Wind tunnel tyres are 50 per cent scale replicas of the tyres used by all the Formula One teams this year; the teams use them in testing to evaluate aerodynamics in their wind tunnels and are not available to the general public. The tyre, signed the McLaren teammates at the European Grand Prix in Valencia last month before being placed in a bespoke display frame was bought for £3,200. During the grand prix weekend at Silverstone, Pirelli’s activation area hosted a Formula One simulator, a pit stop challenge simulator and a reactions game, which raised £1,886 between them.

Pirelli UK’s managing director, Dominic Sandivasci, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to have raised this money for Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, which carries out such brilliant work for the benefit of so many sick children. We firmly believe that our involvement in motorsport should also benefit the wider community, which is why all of our staff have been completely behind this fund-raising effort at one of the key sporting events for Pirelli in the UK. We look forward to seeing this money used to continue the fantastic legacy of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity, which is a real British institution that benefits the entire world.”

The Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity in London specialises in care for sick children and was founded in 1852. It is now a vital research and training institute as well as a hospital with 323 beds, including 32 intensive care beds, making it the best-known paediatric centre in the United Kingdom.

A Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity spokesperson said: “We are absolutely thrilled to have Pirelli as a supporter of the hospital, in particular our relationship with the Formula One community. We are delighted at the success of the fundraising thanks to Pirelli both at the party and the British Grand Prix weekend; these are vital funds that will go towards the hospital’s new Heart and Lung Centre and help sick children from across the UK.”