As the official tyre supplier of the HiQ MSA British Touring Car Championship, Dunlop is confident it knows what it takes to create a truly high performance tyre. The technology required to create such tyres is not only used on racetracks across the UK; it also resides in the tyres used by millions every day.

There was a time when the motto ‘race on Sunday, buy on Monday’ meant exactly that – sixty years ago a motorist could more or less purchase any car or component seen out on the track the previous weekend. These days competition cars are somewhat farther removed from their road going counterparts, but Dunlop says that in spite of this it strives to keep the race on Sunday, buy on Monday spirit alive as it believes on-track rubber developments can benefit every driver.

Most of the time BTCC drivers compete on treadless slick tyres, so one may be tempted to ask how such an item can help the development of a road tyre. The answer is straightforward – a tyre without tread is, by necessity, more dependent upon its compound to deliver the correct amount of grip. Tyre longevity, or lack of, also becomes more pronounced. Sensors allow data from the tyres to be read, and when fed into a computer Dunlop’s road engineers can study how the rubber behaves when pushed to its maximum.