Dunlop’s European Le Mans Series (ELMS) teams performed well at the Le Mans 24 Hours in June with great pace and performance. Jota led the class early in the race and one of the Greaves Motorsport entries took the third step. Oliver Turvey set the fastest time for an ELMS driver, the third fastest time in LMP2, only behind two Dunlop World Endurance Championship (WEC) teams. Seven of the Dunlop ELMS teams finished the epic event with just two retirements.
The Austrian Red Bull Ring circuit shares some of Le Mans’ characteristics with relatively low grip and not the easiest of tracks to build tyre temperatures. The two dry weather options available for Dunlop teams will be the soft and medium compound slicks. The experience at Le Mans may help teams with tyre strategy. The Dunlop tyres easily completed four stints, lasting times approaching three hours. With a three hour race this weekend, and the prohibition of tyre warming, using one set for the whole race has become an option. Teams will need to decide between the benefits of new rubber, with the downside of losing time as the cold tyres come up to temperature, and the advantage of the second driver using worn but hot two-stint old tyres, saving around 30 seconds in the pits. The circuit also has a medium split between left and right and teams may choose to test using soft compound on the right while using medium compound on the left.
Practice sessions take place on Friday 19th July with qualifying on the morning of Saturday 20th July followed by the three hour race later that day starting at 16.00hrs local time.
David Meenan, Senior Design Engineer: “Le Mans was a very good race for our ELMS teams. They had great pace and did very well for so many of them to finish the race, let alone challenging for podium places. We are relatively new to the Red Bull Ring but we anticipate the track being relatively easy in terms of tyre wear which gives us the possibility of teams managing the race on one set of tyres. Our engineers will work with the teams individually to see what suits them best but we think that the Dunlop compound has more than proved itself of being up to the job at Le Mans and can bring a big competitive advantage.”
Source : Dunlop