Goodyear Dunlop moves two to Dunlop Motorsport, Birmingham

Dunlop Motorsport at Birmingham’s Fort Dunlop is described as one of the best design centres in the business, with the flexibility to produce prototypes in days and manufacture short runs of tyres specifically for the various circuits visited by the tyre supplier every year. Goodyear Dunlop has recently made two new appointments at the facility; Vincent Van Goor moves from the Luxembourg-based Innovation Centre to take up the role of senior design engineer for car, while John Astbury makes a shorter hop from Wolverhampton to his new role as QTech Manager UK.

Van Goor moves to Dunlop Motorsport from the role of tread & cavity design engineer at the Goodyear Innovation Centre in Luxembourg, where he was responsible for the tuning of tread and cavity for original equipment accounts. The new role will cover the introduction of new advanced engineering tools from Luxembourg to Birmingham, as well as enhancing the use of finite element analysis to predict a wide range of tyre performance.

Van Goor joined the company in Luxembourg in 2009 as an engineer mechanic, supporting tyre designers with FEA. Before this, he studied Motorsport Engineering at Oxford Brookes University with his dissertation on development tyre testing of the Goodyear Dunlop sponsored formula student competition tyres.

Sebastien Montet, manager for Race Design and Development Motorsport UK, stated: “It is with great pleasure that we welcome Vincent Van Goor. Vincent has strong experience in car tyre design for consumers, backed up with a strong modelling background and a very strong passion for Motorsport. Vincent also went to Oxford Brookes University, where he was on the same course as some of our already very successful car tyre designers.”

“He has started his career in one of the best Innovation Centres in the world, and is now joining one of the best Motorsport Design Centres. He will be first in charge of implementing some of the modelling techniques existing in our industry, and applying them to an ever growing and fast changing arena. I am very confident Vincent has what it takes to take up this challenge.”

Astbury’s “vast experience”

John Astbury has been with Goodyear Dunlop for 24 years, and previously worked in Wolverhampton as technology manager, where he was in charge of mixing process and new compound development. His new job role makes him responsible for the quality and technology in the Wolverhampton mixing centre and retread plant, and also in the Birmingham based Motorsport centre of excellence. He has experience in all areas of the QTech process, including seven years experience in the mix centre and four years experience working on tyre uniformity improvement.

Dave Brookes, operations manager in Motorsport Manufacturing, says: “John’s appointment to Motorsport will provide a vast experience in compounding and tyre uniformity to maintain the continuous improvements being made in Motorsport. John is a tremendous leader and also a very valuable new team member to the Motorsport family.”

Dunlop manufactures 250,000 specialist racing tyres a year for championships such as Moto2, British Touring Car Championship and the FIA World Endurance Championship. Dunlop was the tyre choice of champions in both the American and European Le Mans Championships in 2011, and teams using tyres produced at Dunlop Motorsport have taken leads in both championships this year.