Dunlop has proven itself on wet weather performance products on many occasions but the drive for further grip and wet braking improvements is relentless. With AMG as a partner and an extensive winter testing programme in Aragon, Portimao and Silverstone., Dunlop designers have made further advances with the 2013 wet and intermediate tyres.
The tread patterns for the two specifications have remained the same but the compounds have been developed to provide a major step forward. The tyres have already proved to be race winners. In the wet weather of the Eifel mountains the Black Falcon and ROWE Racing Mercedes cars topped the leaderboard as the wet grip gave them the traction and braking performance needed to take two of the three podium steps including the all important Nürburgring 24 Hour win. At Silverstone, the rain was bad enough to prematurely end the race but Dunlop wet tyre performance enabled its teams to take all three overall podium places in the European Le Mans Series.
Quotes from the Nürburgring podium:
Sean Edwards, Black Falcon: “We worked really well with Dunlop the whole time; they gave us a great tyre in the end which worked well with the car. Thanks to all of them and hats off. They went back and produced a new compound which was simply stunning. They also gave us a lot of tips with how the set up and how to get the most of the rubber with the SLS. Even in qualifying we were seeing that it was working, and obviously the Rowe cars were using Dunlops too and we outperformed them. It’s just been a great partnership for Black Falcon after switching from Yokohama last year, to Dunlop.”
Thomas Jäger, Rowe: “Our success also is a result of the difficult conditions. In these weather conditions, our car is very good-natured and our Dunlop tyres worked really well both in the wet and on the drying track.”
Jean-Felix Bazelin, General Manager of Dunlop Motorsport:
“To see fastest laps from the front running SLS cars, often 20 seconds quicker than the competition at critical stages of the race, is evidence of our focus on providing the wet grip and braking performance that gives drivers the confidence to push. It is the drivers’ confidence in our tyres that helps them to be consistently quicker than our rivals in wet and changing conditions. We undertook very effective work with our partners during the development phase of our 2013 range. It is rewarding to hear some of the comments from the teams and drivers and knowing that we helped them to win in the only race where all the major tyre manufacturers compete. Even one of the competitor’s drivers said “We can beat a Mercedes, we just can’t beat a Mercedes on Dunlops in this weather!”
“Whatever the weather we are prepared for Le Mans. For 2013 we have made improvements to the profile and construction that improves grip and feedback, our hard tyre has improved warm-up and consistency, the medium tyre is now very capable of quadruple stinting and has a wide operating window while the soft works especially well in the cool night running at Le Mans. Of course we would like to see our wets excelling again but we think our drivers will have confidence with whatever tyres they choose from the range.”
Source : Dunlop