MOTORSPORT
On 20 November the D1GP 2021 season finale started in Ebisu, Japan. Racing driver Naoto Suenaga, part of Linglong Tire’s Drift Team Orange won the Tsuiso event while another Linglong driver, Mekuwa Kojiro, was the runner-up.
Tyre test firm Tread’s founder, Ray Collier secured the Class C MGCC Cockshoot cup championship at the weekend of 11-12 September with a win at Snetterton and a second place. As a result, the overall Cockshoot Cup also went down to the wire at Snetterton, with Brian Butler in Class F managing to successfully retain the overall title by 3 Points from Ray Collier in Class C.
Michelin and Dorna Sports have confirmed a new three-year contract extension with Michelin. The extended tyre supply deal will see the French firm continue as the sole official tyre supplier to MotoGP until at least 2026 and therefore means the partners will reach the milestone of a decade racing together.
Benjamin Boulbes has started the defence of the French Elite Drift FFSA Championship in a brand new car on GT Radial Champiro SX2 tyres.
A ceremony was held at Nexen Tire’s R&D centre in Seoul yesterday to mark the official debut of the N’Fera Racing Team. Several of the South Korean tyre maker’s top executives attended the event, including chief executive officer Travis (Ho-chan) Kang, as well as Hwang Doyun, the team’s first driver.
Team Rosberg has been using products from Munich-based garage equipment specialists Beissbarth for years. Now, however, the cooperation has now been extended and means: Team Rosberg can further optimize its performance on the racetrack, while the Beissbarth developers can rely on the experience of a professional and successful racing team. This team is now using the RaceScales electronic corner weight scale and the innovative Q.Lign wheel alignment device and the employees were enthusiastic from day one.
Tread managing director and test driver, Ray Collier, won two races in the MGCC Cockshoot at Silverstone three weeks after claiming two wins at the Oulton Park season-opener.
13-time Grand Prix winner David Coulthard has slammed the current generation of Formula One tyres, which are supplied by Pirelli. Speaking in an interview with RaceFans.net, Coulthard said Pirelli era tyres resulted in boring races: “This whole Pirelli era is just confusing to me and boring to me to have to talk about, and super-boring for me to have to listen to the drivers going ‘I was trying to avoid pushing too hard on the tyres’.”
Murray Walker, whose voice became virtually synonymous with Formula One, has died aged 97. Walker commented on his first Grand Prix at Silverstone in 1949 and became a full-time F1 commentator in 1978, a position he held for the next 23 years. Such was the esteem in which Walker is held within the Formula One fraternity, a constellation of racing stars have celebrated his life. Following the news of Walker’s death, which was announced over the weekend of 13 and 14 March 2021, seven-time Formula One World Champion Lewis Hamilton summed up their words: “The iconic voice of our sport and a great man, thank you for all you did, you will never be forgotten”.
Cars competing in the DTM race series will race exclusively on Michelin tyres during the 2021 season. As per the agreement signed that Michelin Motorsport signed with DTM management last week, the tyre maker will supply Michelin Pilot Sport GT S9M tyres as well as a range of associated services. Drivers will use the Michelin tyres for the first time at the DTM test drives on 7-8 April at the Hockenheimring and 4-6 May at the Lausitzring in Germany. The season starts on 18 June in Monza, Italy.
Motorsport UK has consulted on the implications for motorsport in England with the Government’s Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport in respect of the plan to enter a four-week national lockdown on Thursday 5 November.
Goodyear has been confirmed as the tyre supplier to the Sports Prototype Cup and the partnership will begin at the Cup’s Formula One support race at the Portuguese Grand Prix later this month.
Pirelli has joined forces with the FIA to back its newly-established Rally Star programme, continuing the Italian firm’s long-term commitment to support talented young drivers at every level of rallying. Rally Star is a recently-launched initiative which brings together national motorsport federations from around the globe, identifying talented drivers between the ages of 17-25 through a mixture of digital motorsport and slalom driving in production vehicles.
The former Promoter’s Cup category of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship will be renamed the Goodyear cup this season. The tyre maker has signed up as title partner for the category for ‘CHROME’ rated drivers, which is dedicated to upcoming talent. This ‘race within a race’ was introduced in 2017.
Continental is a founding partner and, from 2021, the premium sponsor of the Extreme E series. In this role, Conti will fit all race vehicles with tyres for the very challenging action. Indeed, according to the tyre and automotive supplier, Extreme E is the biggest challenge tyres have faced in motorsport. With this in mind, Nico Meier, product designer at Continental, talks about the challenges Extreme E tyres are exposed to in this unprecedented series, the importance of the tyre sidewall in general, and the sidewall design of the Extreme E tyre in particular.
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Linglong
Dickon Siddal
Michelin
GT Radial
Beissbarth
Dickson Siddall
Matthew Spencer; Flickr; CC-BY-2.0
Sports Prototype Cup
Pirelli
Goodyear
Continental