The Birmingham-based Kumho European Technical Centre (KETC) has won a major internal award for its work in relation to the Bowler Nemesis Rally Raid programme. The award was granted for the centre’s work on the 275/65R18 KL72 and KL73 tyres it has specially developed for the 500bhp Land Rover-based Bowler Nemesis 4×4 – the covers are the only ones of their size and type available for use in the world’s major rally raid events.
One of the less heralded – but no less important – components of the motorsport tyre setup is without doubt the tyre pressure monitoring system (TPMS). BERU f1systems – a company entirely owned by parent company BERU AG, though also a separate financial entity – supplies such devices, along with other components, such as electrical, stress management and composite systems, to world class motorsport competitors in every major Formula, including all the Formula One teams. Tyres & Accessories took the opportunity of the 2008 Motorsport Review to speak with applications engineer, James Shingleton, about how the company is spreading its wings commercially away from the motorsports arena, and how its experience of working in sport has enabled BERU f1systems to offer top-level TPMSs to ultra-high performance cars and commercial vehicles.
Following two demanding days of rally action, the European winners of the Pirelli Star Driver have been named. Challenges faced by the 18 candidates included a series of interviews with the judging panel and a demonstration of practical skills on six driving stages, and based on their performance Finland’s Jarkko Nikara and the Czech Republic’s Martin Semerad were selected to represent the region.
Pirelli reports that everything is now ready in Freistadt, close to the Austrian city of Linz, for the pan-European Pirelli Star Driver selection process. This will decide who gets two of the five Group N or Super 2000 cars available for six European rounds of the World Rally Championship next year (in the Portugal, Italy, Greece, Finland, Spain and Great Britain WRC events).
A panel of experts will have the responsibility of selecting the drivers who will go through. These people are Walter Rohrl and Michele Mouton (both former stars of the World Rally Championship), David Evans (journalist), Mario Isola (Pirelli’s rally manager), Joao Passos (rally organiser) and Kevin Morris (team manager, Tommi Makinen Racing).
Maxxis selected a winner for its online caption competition, which was run as part of the company’s duties as the Official Tyre Partner of this year’s Isle of Man TT Races. Trevor King from Mansfield came up with, “After a relentless search for tyres I discovered Maxxis, what an eye opener!” to win the top prize of VIP hospitality for two at the last round of the 2008 British Superbike Championship (BSB) on Sunday 12 October.
King decided to try his luck and enter the competition while he was looking for 4×4 tyres on the Maxxis website. He and his wife Melanie are keen BSB fans and had pre-booked tickets for the season finale at Brands Hatch. However, King quickly cancelled the reservation when he learned they would be attending the event as guests of Maxxis: “I once won bike show tickets in a radio competition, but that was about ten years ago, so I was amazed when I got a call to say I’d won this VIP package including hospitality, pit lane passes, access to the Team Maxxis technical areas and a photograph with one of the Maxxis Bykerbabes.
The two-month Pirelli promotion on wholesaler, Grouptyre’s website successfully boosted sales of Pirelli car, van and 4×4 tyres in the independent and garage sector by 10.7 per cent compared with the previous average sales of participating dealers. It was the first in a series of national incentives and exclusive promotions the wholesaler aims to run in conjunction with premium brand tyre manufacturers. In addition, the company – in conjunction with the Italian premium manufacturer – sent an independent retail manager to the World Rally Championship in Spain, allowed an auto-services site owner to send his sons to Oxfordshire for the Pirelli Driving Experience and gave the proprietor of an exhausts and tyre centre a Pirelli track day to enjoy with his son.
Aaron Bothamley, manager of Fairway Tyre and Auto Services in Rickmansworth, was delighted to win an all expenses paid trip to the WRC Rally of Spain in the promotion. Bothamley, accompanied by his brother-in-law Paul, joined a dawn VIP helicopter trip to familiarise themselves with the sweeping asphalt roads of stage one before moving on to the third stage, where they watched defending World Rally Champion and current Championship leader Sebastien Loeb and BP Ford Abu Dhabi World Rally Team drivers Mikko Hirvonen and Jari-Matti Latvala demonstrate their skills. Then it was on to the service area for lunch with team principal Malcolm Wilson and the drivers.
For the past ten years Kumho’s European Motorsport Division has been based on the Stanmore Industrial Estate in Bridgnorth, Shropshire. The division has long since moved from its first building on the site and now, due to expansion, it has taken possession of a still larger premises, one that will accommodate ongoing growth for some years to come. The new warehouse occupies an area of 28,000 square feet, and is accompanied by an adjacent 4,000 square feet of office space plus large conference room.
Maxxis has reported a successful motorsport year thanks to its high profile sponsorship of motocross and participation in the British Superbikes and a top European drifting series. The brand has continued to make strides forward in cycle sports and – proving that it truly has arrived has even featured in an off-road racing computer game.
Maxxis has been a major supporter of British motocross and this season’s ACU British Motocross Championship. The competition’s events aired regularly on Sky Sports, and once again delivered some first class action. Riding for CAS Honda, reigning MX1 class champion Billy MacKenzie, 24, dominated the field to take his second successive domestic title, while fellow Scot Shaun Simpson, 20, clinched the MX2 title – his first national adult championship – riding for KTM UK.
Maxxis-sponsored teams fared well, with ARB Tuning Kawasaki’s Mark Jones and Jamie Lewis finishing fourth and joint 10th in the MX1 class respectively, while Kawasaki Relentless Suzuki MX rider Lewis Gregory put in some solid performances to round out the top ten in the MX2 class. In addition to taking title sponsorship of arguably Europe’s strongest motocross series, Maxxis sponsored the 2008 MXY2 Championship and continued as a major sponsor of and official tyre supplier to Team Green.
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Kumho’s ever-expanding European Motorsport Division has been based on the Stanmore Industrial Estate in Bridgnorth, Shropshire for ten years. Having long since moved from its first building on the site, it has now taken possession of still bigger premises that will allow ongoing growth for some years to come. At any one time the Bridgnorth warehouse is home to thousands of competition tyres. They are manufactured to order in the company’s Korean factories, shipped to Bridgnorth and then supplied to teams and events throughout Europe.
The seven-strong team at Bridgnorth have a pair of fully-equipped trucks with which they provide on-event support to many of the company’s top race and rally competitors. Others are supported by the comprehensive European network of specialist Kumho motorsport tyre dealers. Adjoining the new 28,000 sq ft warehouse is 4,000 sq ft of smart, modern office accommodation for the benefit of both the permanent staff and visiting Kumho executives. There is also a large, state-of-the-art conference room on site.
An integral part of the division’s activities is providing the R&D department and factory with the information they need in order to keep designing and developing winning products. In turn, all the lessons learnt in the heat of the racetrack and the often damp, muddy conditions of the rally stage are incorporated in the design of Kumho’s UHP road tyres, helping to provide them with greater levels of performance.
New Zealander Mark Tapper has been selected to represent the Asia-Pacific Region in the Pirelli Star Driver scheme. The 27 year-old from Auckland, along with co-driver Jeff Cress, beat nine other contenders in the selection process, which took place over two rallies in New Zealand and Malaysia.
Tapper is the second driver to be named from the five who will benefit from the initiative, organised jointly by Pirelli and the FIA, to give young drivers a foot in the door of the FIA World Rally Championship. The Pirelli Star Driver programme will give five young talents (one each from Africa, the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific regions, plus two from Europe) the chance to compete in six WRC events in a Group N or S2000 car prepared and run by a top team. The drivers who earn a place on the Pirelli Star Driver scheme next year will get a chance to show what they can do in Portugal, Italy, Greece, Finland, Spain and Great Britain.
The 2008 Tour of Mull Rally proved a successful event for Yokohama, with Paul MacKinnon’s Advan A006T tarmac tyre-shod Subaru Impreza winning the event outright and Tristan Pye’s Impreza N11 winning the Group N class of the event. The Tour of Mull is one of the most iconic events in British club rallying. Running on the abrasive asphalt roads around the remote Scottish island, changeable weather conditions typically make tyre choice extremely difficult. Drivers are often forced to compromise when it comes to selecting the ideal pattern and compound for stages that may be wet in parts and dry in others, or where the weather can change part-way through a stage.
This year, both MacKinnon and Pye were using the latest specification of Yokohama’s moulded slick tarmac tyre. It would be the second time Pye has used the Japanese manufacturer’s products, as he clinched this year’s Production Cup in the BTRDA rally series, which included two asphalt events.
The Citroen C4 WRC, driven by Sebastien Loeb and Daniel Elena was triumphant for the fourth consecutive time in Corsica this month. They were followed by three Ford Focus WRCs driven respectively by Mikko Hirvonen, Francois Duval and Jari-Matti Latvala. Martin Prokop (Citroen C2 S1600) won the Junior World Championship classification ahead of another C2 S1600 driven by Sebastien Ogier and local Renault Clio R3 driver Pierre Campana. With this result, Ogier has sealed the 2008 J-WRC title.
Loeb-Elena’s win in Corsica was the 46th of their career, the 10th of their 2008 season. Driving their Pirelli PZero-equipped Citroen C4 WRC, the duo seemed to control the pace at will, and can justifiably claim dominance over the rest of the field on the island. Behind them Hirvonen in second benefited from Ford team orders after damaging a wheel and puncturing a tyre in a hole on the first stage this morning. The time lost changing the wheel was recovered by dropping team mates Duval-Pivato and Latvala-Antilla behind him before the finish. They ended up third and fourth respectively behind the number 3 Focus-Pirelli.
Hankook has renewed its links with leading rally driver Stuart Jones for the final round of the Intercontinental Rally Challenge in Switzerland – the Rallye International du Valais – in October. The manufacturer has been working with Jones and his family business, SJR Motorsport since the driver’s British Rally Championship days, and Hankook motorsport manager, Mike Patterson declared himself, “delighted to be renewing our partnership for such an exciting event.’’
“We have been developing tyres specifically for the S2000 cars and Valais will provide the perfect opportunity to test these in some tricky conditions and against some of the best rally competition around.’’ The Hankook MG Super 2000 will be in action at the three-day event, which gets underway on Thursday October 23 from the rally’s base in Martigny. The crews will tackle more than 260 km of competitive stage miles.
The Citroen C4 of Sebastien Loeb and Dani Sordo have finished first and second respectively in the 44th Catalunya Rally in Spain. The Citroens took command from the start, beating Hirvonen-Lehtinen and Duval-Pivato’s factory Ford Focus in third. In the Junior WRC (JWRC), the Citroen C2 of Martin Prokop claimed the spoils, from the Renault Clio R3 of Alessandro Bettega.
Just as was the case at the Rallye Deutschland in mid-August and on these same roads in Spain one year ago, Citroen claimed the top positions thanks to their C4 WRC crews of Loeb-Elena and Sordo-Marti. The result reinforces Loeb’s lead of the drivers’ World Championship and Citroen’s advantage in the constructors’ standings.
The FIA has published a list of 18 young drivers from Europe and Central and South America who will take part in the Pirelli Star Driver competition in Freistadt, Austria. The two winners will each receive a drive on six rounds of the 2009 WRC.
The competitors have all been chosen locally by their respective national sporting authorities (ASNs), who have put them forward for the competition in Freistadt that will take place from October 23-25. This contest will select two people to receive a fully-paid drive on six rounds of the World Rally Championship next year.
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