Pirelli testing tyres year-round in Sweden

Product testing at the Pirelli Sottozero Centre in Lapland, Sweden is now taking place in summer as well as winter. Pirelli says it switched the facility to year-round testing in response to increased demand for product development on both wet and dry roads, particularly for all-season and winter tyres. The team at the Sottozero Centre recently wrapped up its winter test programme for the season and is now beginning the summer programme.

The rate at which new cars come onto the market drives a growing need for tyres adapted to their performance characteristics. Catering to this demand, Pirelli has renewed its entire Cinturato and Scorpion range in just two years, over all three versions (summer, winter, and all-season). While the tyre maker heavily relies upon simulation and virtual reality these days, it still draws upon physical testing to validate performance and this thus remains a plank of Pirelli’s development philosophy.

In addition to the Sottozero Centre in Sweden, Pirelli utilises its well-known Vizzola Ticino facility near Milan, which has specialised in wet handling for more than half a century, as well as the new Circuito Panamericano in Brazil, which is currently the largest circuit complex in all of Latin America.

Circuit, workshops & sauna

Pirelli’s Sottozero Centre proving ground at Flurheden, around 560 miles north of Stockholm, covers an area of 120 hectares, with 250,000 square metres dedicated to circuits and 1,300 square metres of buildings. The centre opened in 2017 and was expanded just a year later. The current layout includes handling circuits, an open test area, and tracks with inclines of up to 20 per cent. Pirelli has built 1,200-metre-long dry handling and wet handling circuits for summer use, and there’s also a 400-metre straight to test both dry and wet braking. The buildings include dedicated spaces for workshops and test personnel, with facilities that – in proper Nordic style – also incorporate a sauna.

According to Pirelli, this diversity of testing facilities at the Sottozero Centre allows it to develop tyres for every different type of car – and now every different season of the year. Furthermore, the presence of a comprehensive on-site charging infrastructure gears the Flurheden proving ground towards developing tyres for the latest generation of plug-in hybrids and full electric cars. Among the manufacturers to have recently tested Pirelli winter products at the Swedish facility is Croatian company Rimac, which tried out new winter tyres for its latest electric hypercar, the Nevera.