P Zero Silver – Pirelli’s first F1 derived road tyre
Pirelli has launched its first Formula 1-derived UHP road tyre. This latest offering from the Italian tyre maker, the P Zero Silver, sits alongside the P Zero in Pirelli’s product portfolio and is intended to increase the company’s premium range and cater to the ever more differentiated needs of Pirelli’s top market segment – a segment that Pirelli aims to grow in all geographic areas. The P Zero Silver was officially unveiled in September at an event attended by, amongst others, Pirelli chairman and CEO Marco Tronchetti Provera, Pirelli Tyre CEO Francesco Gori, Team Ferrari technical director Stefano Domenicali and Team McLaren driver Jenson Button.
One particular way in which Formula One aided the new tyre’s development is in reducing the time involved in the process. Pirelli reports that modelling and relative data gathered during each F1 race enabled development time to be cut from the usual two years to only a few months. This development process, it adds, is shared with all Pirelli Formula One tyres and is a process by which the tyre is “conceived and developed with the aid of sophisticated mathematical models which enable the prediction of performance and reactions in all conditions.” In applying this process to the new P Zero Silver road tyre, Pirelli says its researchers were able to develop a tyre capable of meeting the demands of premium road cars, namely to deliver top performance even after long journeys.
Another quality the P Zero Silver shares with F1 tyres is the construction technique employed and the technology used to develop and produce the tyre’s compounds. The new tyre will be manufactured using an evolution of Mirs technology, the robotised system developed by Pirelli. The entire P Zero Silver production cycle will take place in Pirelli’s Settimo Torinese facility in Italy, where all compounds for Formula One are produced.
Pirelli notes that in Formula One the ‘P Zero Silver’ name indicates a durable, hard compound tyre. In the road tyre, Pirelli says it has employed “an innovative solution” to bring together the characteristics of harder compounds with those of the softer ones, thus simultaneously offering high performance, safety and greater durability – all of which, the Italian company states, “confirms Pirelli’s place in the avant-garde of product innovation.” Specific qualities highlighted by Pirelli include precision when entering a curve, braking distances typical of the P Zero range and greater durability compared with other same-category tyres. Emphasising the P Zero Silver’s environmental credentials, Pirelli says its structure, compounds and tread are designed to reduce rolling resistance.
Sales of the P Zero Silver will begin “in a limited edition” in the spring of 2012.
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