WRC
Pirelli is to step down from being a World Rally Championship tyre supplier at the end of the season, according to motorsport director Paul Hembrey. The decision is based on “marketing reasons” Hembery said in an interview with Autosport magazine.
Welsh rally legend Gwyndaf Evans was on hand to help organisers launch the 2006 Wales Rally GB in style at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff this week. The Hankook-backed driver is playing a starring role in the British Rally Championship this year and is eagerly looking forward to Wales Rally GB – which is this year the finale for the British Rally Championship.
Pirelli have confirmed that they are ‘reviewing’ their position with regard to competing in the FIA World Rally Championship beyond 2006. Reports in the latest edition of Autosport speculate that the Italian tyre manufacturer is considering quitting the sport and that they are less than happy now that Michelin is promoting its sister brand, BF Goodrich. However when contacted by Crash.net for clarification, Pirelli’s rally manager, Paul Hembery added that quitting the sport is only one option and that ‘many scenarios’ are possible for 2007 and beyond.
A Peugeot on Pirelli tyres will be back in a world championship event in the Rally of France-Tour de Corse. The team, comprising Italians Gigi Galli and Giovanni Bernacchini, will compete in the fifth round of the World Rally Championship in a Peugeot 307 CC entered by the team of Jacky Bozian.
The agreement, currently only valid for the French rally, will see Pirelli Competizioni support the involvement of Galli-Bernacchini more or less entirely, with the added help of the sponsors of the team itself. The Peugeot 307 CCs prepared in the Bozian atélier have already demonstrated many times their high level of competitiveness, as seen by the third place of one of their cars driven by Austrians Stohl-Minor in Mexico on 5 March.
A successful tyre and chassis test has given the SJR Hankook rally team a major boost ahead of a hectic fortnight for the team. Drivers Gwyndaf Evans and Stuart Jones put the team’s Mitsubishi Evos through their paces in Wales as final preparations get underway for a series of events.
On Sunday 19 March the team will be at Mallory Park in Leicestershire for BRC Live – the official launch of the Tesco 99 Octane MSA British Rally Championship. As soon as the event closes the team heads directly to Spain where young hot shot Stuart Jones and co-driver Craig Parry, will be competing in the Rallye Catalunya – the Spanish round of the World Rally Championship.
After a modest start to the season, Pirelli and Subaru were back fighting for victory in Mexico. The Japanese manufacturer’s number one driver, Petter Solberg, led for much of the rally before giving way to Sébastien Loeb due to power steering problems after hitting a rock. The result of the third round in the World Rally Championship is, however, more than positive and underlines the rapid improvement in performance and reliability of the Impreza WRC, supported by its P Zero tyres.
The Yokohama/ADVAN equipped Mitsubishi Lancer Evo IX of Fumio Nutahara has won the opening round of the 2006 FIA Production car World Rally Championship (P-WRC). The Rallye Monte Carlo is the first time the Japanese manufacturer’s tyres have won a round of the P-WRC and the maiden victory for Nutahara.
Nutahara is a seasoned campaigner in the production category of the World Rally Championship, for group N, or showroom specification, cars. However, for the 2006 season, Nutahara has engaged the services of experienced co-driver Daniel Barritt and the combination is already paying off.
The recent Autosport show saw Korean tyre manufacturer, Hankook, unveil a raft of motorsports plans, as it seeks to become a key player in the UK motorsports arena. Building on last year’s successful rallying programme, Hankook Motorsports has confirmed plans to run a two-car team in the British Rally Championship with former British champion Gwyndaf Evans and rising-star Stuart Jones driving Hankook shod Mitsubishi Lancers. On the racetrack Hankook announced that it is joining forces with the VW Racing Cup.
Bibendum, the well-known Michelin man character, has uttered his first words more than 100 years after he was created. And what did he have to say? “I’m letting off fireworks” – the title of a 30 second radio advert airing this week on 59 British radio stations and in 10 other countries around the world.
Michelin representatives have appealed for information regarding the whereabouts of a Michelin Z BTO, which they say was stolen from service facilities during the recent Rally Japan. The incident reportedly took place at the Obihiro service park during the night of 1 October. As you might expect the manufacturer was less the impressed. “The Michelin Group considers acts of this sort to be extremely serious and unreservedly condemns such acts of industrial and technological espionage,” an official statement said implying that the tyre was stolen by a competing manufacturer.
Marcus Gronholm’s Pirelli-equipped Peugeot 307 WRC, has won the all-gravel Rally Japan, round 13 of the World Rally Championship. The event came to a dramatic finish when the Subaru of Petter Solberg, which had led from the beginning, retired through a steering mechanism failure. Pirelli-shod cars dominated the action throughout all three days, setting 25 fastest times out of 26 stages with all three partner teams (Subaru, Peugeot and Mitsubishi). Gronholm, who took the lead when Solberg retired, notched up Pirelli’s 140th World Championship rally victory.
Pirelli has announced that its tyres will be fitted as OE on the new Peugeot 407 Coupé, at an international press conference in Granada, Spain. The new 407 will be exclusively equipped with 18 inch P Zero Nero UHP tyres.
The 2006 World Rally Championship will not be a battle between Pirelli and Michelin, but BFGoodrich and Pirelli. The French manufacturer has decided to substitute Michelin name for the brand that uses to compete in the Rally Raid World Cup.
Pirelli-shod cars swept the board in the Rally Mexico in mid-March, taking all three podium places.
Out in front was the Subaru of Petter Solberg, who led from start to finish for his second victory of the year. He won six out of the 14 all-gravel stages, finishing 34.5 seconds ahead of the Pirelli-equipped Peugeots of Marcus Gronholm and Markko Martin.
While exhibiting at this year’s Geneva International Motor Show, Pirelli highlighted 2005 as “the year of innovation.” In the wake of strong business results (the company recently reported a 42 per cent increase in operating profit), Pirelli Tyres reports that it has begun 2005 with a strategy of expansion in some of the faster growing emerging markets plus North America, as well as extending its MIRS automated production process in the United Kingdom, Germany and the US. And that is not all. The company says that its research into tyres of the future will reach concrete conclusions in 2005. Pirelli goes on to explain that this year will see the start of a series of products that will “revolutionise the concept of the tyre, which will become a more active product that ever before, and will be able to communicate with the car and driver.”
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