Known for its style, speed and performance marketing values, Pirelli & C. S.p.A. is a multinational company based in Milan, Italy, listed on the Milan Stock Exchange since 1922, with a temporary privatization period by the consortium led by the Chinese state-owned enterprise ChemChina.
When hearing the name Pirelli your thoughts may turn to Formula One, however the tyre maker also supports races where the highest speed imaginable isn’t the top priority. Such a case is its partnership with the Green Rally of Montréal, formally known as the Rally of Alternative Energies of Montréal and Hydro-Québec. Pirelli will act as the official tyre supplier of the series with its Cinturato ‘Green Performance’ range.
The British Rally Championship will move to a seven-round format in 2013, with the Scottish Rally returning after a seven-year break and Rally North Wales back as the opening round. Rallye Sunseeker will host the season’s finale in October. Pirelli has been the series’ official tyre supplier since 2007.
The latest Pirelli UK report filed with Companies House shows a slight drop in pre-tax profit in 2011 despite sales jumping almost £40 million year-on-year to £329.7 million. Profit decreased from £12.2 million to £12 million during the year. The company singled out its original equipment segment activities as a strength during the year, noting that Pirelli UK continued to secure new contracts with prestigious vehicle manufacturers.
Red Bull driver Sebastian Vettel took his second win of the season in Singapore with a two-stop tyre strategy, which prevailed following two safety car periods. Vettel started from third on the grid with the P Zero Red supersoft tyre and then completed two stints on the P Zero Yellow soft tyre, which had been nominated for the weekend. Vettel’s winning margin was nine seconds over McLaren’s Jenson Button, who adopted the same strategy, pitting four laps later for his first pit stop than Vettel.
Testing of Pirelli’s Cyber Fleet system began earlier this year in South America, and in the second half of July an evaluation programme also began in Europe. So far, Pirelli’s European tests, conducted mainly in Germany using 15 heavy goods vehicles, have monitored the Cyber Fleet system over more than a million kilometres. Tests will continue until February 2013, and results so far confirm the results obtained in Latin America. Cyber Fleet will go on sale by the end of January 2013.
Pirelli has been named world leader in the Autoparts and Tyres sector of the Dow Jones Sustainability World and Dow Jones Sustainability Europe indices for the sixth consecutive year, with a score of 86 points compared with a sector average score of 53.
Luca Negri has been appointed Pirelli’s new industrial director for the UK. He takes over from Paolo Battistini, who will return to Pirelli’s Milan office to work in the Company’s Industrial business unit. Negri will be based at the tyre maker’s Carlisle site.
The Pirelli P Zero has taken top honours in Evo magazine’s annual tyre test. The Pirelli tyre and its rivals from Continental, Dunlop, Goodyear, Hankook, Kumho, Michelin, Nexen and Vredestein were put through their paces on a circuit in the south of France, where wet handling, dry handling, braking and aquaplaning were assessed, followed by a drive on a mixed road route designed to replicate real world conditions.
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.
In American advice magazine, Consumer Reports’ latest tests of all-season and winter replacement tyres, Michelin and Continental lead the way, Tire Review reports. However, the results show that many tyres offer good overall performance. In total, CR tested 78 models of all-season and winter tyres: 20 T speed rated all-season tyres; 20 H speed rated and 22 V speed rated performance all-season tyres; and 16 winter tyre models.
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.
The winners of a silent auction enjoyed a trip to the Formula One in Monza last weekend where the prize winners received paddock passes and hospitality courtesy of Italian tyre firm Pirelli. The auction was held in July at Evolution in Battersea as part of Great Ormond Street Hospital Children’s Charity’s annual Formula One party. Pirelli donated two paddock passes to the individual who placed the highest bid on the night.
World Rally Championship tyre supplier, Dmack is rolling out its passenger car and commercial tyre ranges this year, and the brand has received something of a boost in becoming one of the first Chinese tyre manufacturers to achieve an A rating in wet grip for one of its passenger car tyre products. Manufactured by Shandong Yongtai and designed and developed from the brand’s base in the north-west of England, the brand says it has achieved the rating with a concept version of its Kinetic S high performance tyre, which was launched in May this year. Dmack said the concept version of the tyre has been produced “to demonstrate the high levels of expertise that lie within the business”.
Guglielmo Fiocchi has left Pirelli for another Italian automotive supplier, Sogefi SpA, which has appointed him as general manager of the company. Fiocchi, who is 49, graduated in aeronautical engineering from the Milan Politecnico and brings long term experience in the automotive component sector.
Lewis Hamilton recorded McLaren’s third consecutive win this year at the Italian Grand Prix, adopting a one-stop strategy to claim victory from Sauber’s Sergio Perez, who started from 12th on the grid, and used a different one-stop strategy to dazzling effect. Pirelli’s P Zero Silver hard tyre and P Zero White medium were the compounds available at Monza, and the two hardest tyres in the Formula One range showed good performance and durability. Hamilton ran 30 laps on the hard tyre at the end of the race, while the speed of the medium tyre – which Perez used for his 24-lap final stint – enabled him to lap more than two seconds faster than his closest rivals at one point.
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