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Formula Two Re-Launches on Avon Tyres

Avon Tyres has been named official tyre supplier for the FIA Formula Two Championship, a series re-launched in 2009 after a quarter-century absence from the motorsport calendar. The first round of the championship will take place at Valencia, Spain, on 31 May.

The championship, which will feature 24 identical cars designed by the Williams F1 team, has been created to be the ultimate feeder category for Formula One, while remaining an affordable series for aspiring young drivers.

5th March 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Pirelli to End Tyre Production at Manresa, Spain Plant

Pirelli Tyre is reportedly ending tyre manufacturing at the company’s Manresa, Spain factory on 31 December 2009. According to a Reuter’s report, the company told union officials it hoped to branch into “other activities,” however further details are not expected until April. According to the report 550 workers employees in Manresa may lose their jobs. Headcount at the plant is said to have fallen from 750 after car demand fell in Spain. The concept of establishing a logistics centre for tyre distribution is reportedly being floated as a factory alternative.

According to the Pirelli website, the Manresa factory (located in the Catalonia region of Spain) opened in 1924 and covers 211,000 square metres. Production at the plant totals 41,900 tonnes of UHP passenger and SUV tyres a year. Total employees were numbered at 1009.

26th February 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Kumho Renews Supply Commitment to Formula 3 Euro Series

Kumho Tires’ role as official tyre supplier to the Formula 3 Euro Series has been extended to 2011. The renewed contract was signed on February 18 at a meeting between the head of the series’ organising committee, Walter Mertes, and H.S. Lee, president of Kumho Tire Europe GmbH, at Kumho’s European headquarters in Offenbach, Germany.

The F3 Euro Series was founded in 2003 by the organisers of the French and German championships. A full grid of 32 cars, the largest number since the series began, will contest the 20-race 2009 series between May and October, with rounds in the UK, Germany, France, Spain and the Netherlands.

25th February 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone Announces Temporary Closures at European Facilities

Bridgestone Europe has announced temporary closure of factories in the region following worsening market demand during December, January and February, especially in the OE tyre segment. According to Bridgestone, these temporary shutdowns will affect the bulk of its European facilities, including the company’s plants in Béthune, Bari, Bilbao, Burgos and Poznan. Only the Tatabánya factory in Hungary and the agricultural line at the Puente San Miguel plant in Spain have been exempted from this action, reports Gert Meylemans, senior manager at Bridgestone’s European Communications Office. These temporary closures are already being implemented, Meylemans adds, and employees affected by the closures are being continuously informed as circumstances change.

19th February 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Michelin Announces Participation in 3 Motorcycle Championships

Michelin has announced its participation in three motorcycle speedway racing competitions in 2009 – the Endurance World Championship, along with national speed championships in Spain and Italy.

This year, Michelin will provide tyres for the Yamaha Austria Racing Team, which finished second over all in the six-race 2008 Endurance World Championship. The partnership, says Michelin, will enable the company to measures its tyres against its competitors’ products. And while this is Michelin’s main reason for taking part in the competition, it comments that racing also serves as an important testing ground for developing tyres for the consumer market. With this in mind the company will enter – for the first time ever – a motorcycle displaying its own colours in all Endurance World Championship events. The Michelin Power Research Team, with riders William Costes, Hugo Marchand and Josep Monge, will focus on gathering technical data to be used in designing the brand’s future motorcycle tyres.

9th February 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Pirelli Moto Secures Dakar 1st and 2nd Overall with Scorpion Rally

Pirelli reports that its Dakar Rally debut as a supplier to the official KTM factory teams was nothing short of dominating, with the new Scorpion Rally tyre, fitted to bikes ridden by Marc Coma and Cyril Despres, capturing the 1st and 2nd positions on the podium. This Pirelli off-road rally tyre was developed together with KTM in preparation for this year’s Dakar. Out of a field of 235 riders, seven riders chose to receive support from Pirelli and out of these seven, three riders finished in the top seven positions overall. KTM Repsol rider Marc Coma, from Spain, and Red Bull KTM rider Cyril Despres, from France, were fiercely competitive in this 31st edition of the Dakar, which this year was staged in South America.

20th January 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

European New Car Sales Fell 8% in 2008

Western European new car registrations fell 8 per cent in 2008, while the monthly figure for December plummeted 19 per cent. According to the European car makers’ association, ACEA, this is the sharpest annual fall since 1993. However, according to market analysts, the fact that there were two extra selling days in 2008 means that when 2007 and 2008 are compared like-with-like the results are actually worse than those published.

The UK market was one of the three worst affected in Western Europe, with registrations falling 21 per cent year-on-year and 11 per cent year-to date. The Spain was the only market worse affected than the UK. According to the ACEA figures, Spanish new car registration were 50 per cent down year-on-year and 28 per cent down year-to-date.

15th January 2009/by Tyrepress Editors

Vipal Europe Change of Address

Vipal have moved to a new premises, a move they say has followed their growing presence in Europe. As of now the company’s new address is:

VIPAL EUROPE S.L.
GENERAL URRUTIA 75- 10-B
46013 Valencia
Spain

The company adds that its phone number +34 963 81 11 81 and fax number +43 963 28 16 83 remain unchanged. Vipal’s distribution centre in Valencia also continues to operate at its existing address.

18th December 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

UK New Car Sales Drop More than 35% in November

Sales of new cars in the UK plummeted in November to 100,333 units, a decrease of 36.8 per cent on last year’s figures. These dismal results, released by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), represent the greatest monthly drop since June 1980. During the year to November, car sales totalled 2,023,104 units, down 10.7 per cent on the first 11 months of 2007.

5th December 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone Holds Last MotoGP Tests Until February

The final MotoGP tests of 2008 took place at the end of last week. Eight teams took part in a two-day test at Circuito de Jerez in Southern Spain, while two tested at Australia’s Philip Island Circuit over three days. Reigning world champion Valentino Rossi ended the Jerez test the fastest rider, setting a time of 1.39.429 on the second day, edging out Dani Pedrosa’s first day fastest time of 1.39.525.

The test took place over 26-27 November and fourteen riders took to the track over the course of the two days. On the final day, Pedrosa was second fastest to Rossi, whilst the third to sixth fastest riders, Jorge Lorenzo, Toni Elias, Alex De Angelis and Nicky Hayden, were separated by just 0.06s, illustrating the very close level of competition, even for those riders who have changed teams from the 2008 season.

1st December 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Two Hundred Champions in 2008

Cooper and Avon have shown particular strength in the field of motorsport, with more than 200 worldwide motorsport champions crowned on either tyre brand in 2008. One of the more impressive aspects of this record is the sheer variety of competitive motorsport championships and range of markets in which the manufacturer has enjoyed success.

In the US, Cooper continued its title sponsorship of the Cooper Tires Atlantic Championship powered by Mazda, where Finland’s Markus Niemela won the title in his rookie season. He held off challenges from second and third placed, Jonathan Bomarito and Jonathan Summerton, plus Greg and Leo Mansell, sons of 1992 F1 World Champion Nigel. From next year in Europe, Cooper Tire will also be the title sponsor for the UK’s premier single-seater championship, the British Formula 3 International Series.

30th October 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Bridgestone Score 15th 2008 MotoGP Victory

Bridgestone has concluded its 2008 MotoGP season with panache in Valencia, Spain setting the company up for next year, when the manufacturer will take on complete tyre provision duties for the series. Casey Stoner took his Bridgestone-shod Ducati to the win, while Honda’s Dani Pedrosa and this season’s World Champion, Italian rider Valentino Rossi, made up the rest of the podium. Rossi’s third-place, which he took impressively from a starting grid position of tenth, meant that he set a new points record for a MotoGP season with 373. Australia’s Stoner (280) and Spain’s Pedrosa (249) made up the rest of the season-ending top three.

Hiroshi Yamada, Bridgestone Motorsport’s Motorcycle Sport Unit’s manager, told motorsport journalists, “I could not have asked for a better way to end this successful season for Bridgestone. Casey rode a faultless race and thoroughly deserved his sixth win of the season. Together with Casey and Ducati, we have taken wins at the beginning and end of this season… We enter a new era for next season with a sole tyre supply regulation, but it has been a great pleasure for Bridgestone to have been part of a competition scenario with our rivals [Michelin] in MotoGP since 2002. After such a long season, I would like to thank each and every one of our riders, teams and their staff for a tremendous support this year, and to all Bridgestone staff at the track and at the factory for their invaluable individual contributions. Tomorrow marks the first day of testing in preparation for next season and we will surely have another big challenge ahead of us.”

27th October 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Pan-European Pirelli Star Driver Selection This Weekend

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).

24th October 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

Avon Tyres Name Bows out of British Formula 3

Avon Tyres ended a 27-year association with the British Formula 3 International Series at Donington Park on Sunday October 12, where Spain’s Jaime Alguersuari followed names such as Ayrton Senna and Mika Hakkinen by winning the UK’s top single-seater racing category. Next year the championship’s tyres will be branded under the name of Avon’s parent company, Cooper Tires.

Avon Tyres have been the sole tyre supplier to British F3 every year since 1982.

14th October 2008/by Tyrepress Editors

New Car Registrations Down 21.2%

New car registrations fell 21.2 per cent in September to 330,295 units. According to SMMT data, year-to-date volume is down 7.5 per cent to 1,794,419 units. Once again diesel market share increased (this time to 42.8 per cent of the market), but overall volume in this segment fell 15.4 per cent to 141,306 units in September.

There is also increased evidence that, based on rapid changes in registration profile, the tyre market of the years to come could be smaller than observers may have predicted last year. Smaller, that is, in terms of dimensions. For various reasons for the last couple of years drivers in the volume car market have been opting for smaller models, which drive on smaller tyres. Two years ago (in September 2006) was the first time the Ford Focus was knocked off the top slot in the SMMT’s registrations data by the smaller Fiesta model. By September 2008 the Focus had been relegated to fourth place in the monthly data, beaten by Vauxhall’s Corsa, the Ford Fiesta and the Vauxhall Astra.

7th October 2008/by Tyrepress Editors