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New fuel solutions can only be optimised with equally new tyre design concepts, according to Dunlop Motorsport, which invited journalists to both witness the unveiling of the latest GreenGT vehicle and learn more about the cutting edge rubber cars like it will be running on.
Falken Drift Team driver Lars Verbraeken has set a new Guinness World Record as the fastest drifter, driving his Falken-shod 503ps BMW E30 at a speed of 111.59 mph, whilst keeping the car at a 45º angle for a distance of over 50 metres.
An additional US$27.3 million will be directed towards expanding Bridgestone’s OTR tyre plant in Bloomington, US. The investment, announced during a press conference at the MINExpo show in Las Vegas, will primarily go towards new machinery for the production of giant loader tyres (GLT). The Bloomington plant currently specialises in producing cross-ply GLT, and therefore Bridgestone considers it the “ideal location” to increase production of these tyres. The expansion will create approximately 47 new jobs.
At this week’s IAA Commercial Vehicles show in Germany, Goodyear is launching its first ever dedicated European-market coach tyres, the Goodyear Marathon Coach and Goodyear Ultra Grip Coach winter drive tyre. Both tyres are available in 295/80R22.5 and 315/80R22.5, with all products to be available on the market by the end of October.
Safety organisation TyreSafe held its annual communications briefing in September, where chairman Stuart Jackson looked back on the organisation's achievements and gave a taste of future initiatives.
He began with a brief history – TyreSafe was formed in 2006, with 14 members and held its first tyre safety month the following year. Since then it has mounted various campaigns, majoring on subjects such as pressure, tread depth, part-worn tyres and winter tyres, to name but a few. These campaigns have been staged across all media – print, TV, radio and online and the organisation's efforts were recognised when it picked up the Prince Michael Road Safety Award.
Pirelli has chosen its Carlisle plant as the research and development centre for a new range of eco tyres. The manufacturer said the experience and expertise at Pirelli Carlisle, operational since the 1960s, was a key factor in its decision to stage the development of the next generation of high technology Pirelli green tyres there. The company was recently awarded £2 million from the UK’s Regional Growth Fund, and since being selected as the recipient of the award, Pirelli has announced a further £11.4m investment in the eco tyres project together with a further £9m in new process machinery for volume production. It is estimated that the total investment will create 37 new jobs. On a recent visit to Pirelli’s Carlisle facility, Tyres & Accessories reported the company’s “100 per cent premium” strategy for the site, while also pointing to the likelihood of subsequent private investment implied by the Regional Growth Fund award’s terms. Now Pirelli has confirmed the increased investment to focus on green tyres in Carlisle.
On the snow-dusted face of it, the UK winter tyre market seems to provide a couple of conundrums for those trying to predict and capitalise on demand for seasonal products. The first issue, and the most obvious in many tyre industry professionals’ minds, must be the Oceanic climate of the country, which, coupled with the warm air of the Gulf stream, provides us with only moderately cold winters. The second, a novelty for 2012 is the start of mandatory tyre labelling, which I will come to later.
With two new winter tyres for 2012, Pirelli is enthusiastically promoting the benefits of fitting specialist cold weather tyres in the UK. Joining the Italian manufacturer’s Sottozero Serie II high performance winter tyre are the recently introduced Winter SnowcontrolSerie 3, designed for smaller cars, and the Scorpion Winter SUV tyre, which was displayed at Reifen 2012, and replaces the Scorpion Ice.
Apollo Tyres is one of the brands featured in the CoolBrands book Around the World in 80 Brands, which aims to share stories with opinion formers around the world. Part of an overall concept that includes online seeding and sharing via social media, guest lectures at universities and workshops, the book includes articles about visionary people, smart brands and trendy destinations. “Apollo Tyres is pleased to be part of this global storytelling project,” comments Rob Oudshoorn, CEO of Apollo Vredestein.
Following the preview of AA-labeled and close-to-production prototypes of Hankook’s core products, the Ventus S1 evo² and the Kinergy Eco, the manufacturer reports that both AA-labelled versions are to be launched in 2013.
During a visit to Bridgestone’s Sweden Proving Ground earlier in the year, Tyres & Accessories drove in temperatures way below freezing in some of the most extreme conditions in Europe, using the manufacturer’s current Blizzak LM-30 winter rubber, and the prototype of its successor to be, the LM-32, which remains in development for the moment, as well as a comparative summer weather tyre, which behaved about as well as one would expect on heavy snow. There was, however, an intermediate all-weather tyre option, which the company is particularly focusing on in Oceanic climates such as that found in the UK.
Kirkby Tyres’ philosophy of stocking large quantities of high quality on and off-road highway tyres and wheels to cover every possible application for both OE and replacement markets has reportedly earned the company increased business. The exclusive importer of Double Coin tyres, Kirkby reports that it has sold over a million tyres to the replacement market to date.
The Italian Grand Prix takes place this weekend (7-9 September, 2012) in Monza, following swiftly behind the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa, and Pirelli returns to its home nation with the same P Zero White and Silver tyres it used in the previous meeting. Monza is the fastest circuit on the Formula One calendar, and puts similarly high energy loading through the tyres as at Spa. Pirelli, which knows the circuit well since the Autodromo Nazionale is situated half an hour’s drive from the company’s Milan headquarters. Pirelli highlights the first chicane, characterised by heavy downhill braking; the Ascari curves, with their several rapid direction changes; and the famous Parabolica, a wide, open radius corner that puts a lot of lateral stress through the tyres as being the most challenging areas for its rubber. Pirelli says these sections, coupled with some of the season’s fastest straights, mean tyre temperatures can peak at up to 130°C and choosing the right tyre for the conditions will be important.
Vredestein UK managing director Stuart Jackson also serves as the chairman of TyreSafe, so it is safe to say he is pleased to welcome the safety organisation’s latest member – Vredestein’s parent company Apollo Tyres.
McLaren’s Jenson Button completed a dominant weekend to win the Belgian Grand Prix. Only second-placed Sebastian Vettel could match the Briton’s ability to look after his tyres, using an almost identical one-stop strategy – medium compound P Zero White tyres, changed to hard compound P Zero Silvers just before the midway point – to finish 13 seconds behind Button, who led from start to finish. This was the first race at which a driver has achieved this in 2012 While Button’s imperious drive would have taken some beating, Vettel’s ascent from tenth on the grid was aided by a spectacular smash involving Championship leader Fernando Alonso and McLaren’s Lewis Hamilton at the first corner, over which Lotus’s Romain Grosjean has been handed a one-race ban.
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