For the second time since the creation of the FIA World Endurance Championship in 2012, MICHELIN and its partners are poised to contest the 6 Hours of Sao Paulo (August 31- September 1) at the Autodromo José Carlos Pace in Interlagos, Sao Paulo.
The Brazilian outing is particularly important for the Michelin Group which sees motorsport as a means to reinforce its commitment to dialling greater safety, durability and energy efficiency into every tyre it designs, in keeping with the MICHELIN Total Performance plan which lies at the very heart of its development process and which consists in pushing out the envelope on every front, even those which are commonly believed to be irreconcilable. For this year’s 6 Hours of Sao Paulo, MICHELIN will provide its partner teams in the four classes with 2,000 tyres. These tyres benefit from the latest technological advances which – once they have been proven in demanding of conditions on the race track – will be carried over to MICHELIN’s street production tyres.
Thanks a research and development budget of more than €600 million in 2012, MICHELIN’s tyres are today more durable than ever, whilst also delivering enhanced grip and efficiency. As an example, over the course of the last five years, MICHELIN has reduced the number of tyres it takes to the Le Mans 24 Hours from more than 9,000 to some 6,000. Yet its LMP1 tyres for the French endurance racing classic are now capable of completing up to five stints, which equates to more than 700km at an average speed of 220kph. In the GTE Pro class, all of MICHELIN’s partner teams are able to use the same set of tyres for up to three stints, with no fall-off in performance and without sacrificing driver safety.
These gains represent valuable progress in environmental terms in several ways. Firstly, employing fewer tyres means using less raw materials and energy. Secondly, fewer tyres lead to lower CO2 emissions generated by their transport from the factory to the racetrack. Lastly, by reducing the quantity of tyres used, the number of tyres that need to be recycled is also reduced. Indeed, at the end of the race, all the tyres that have been used are gainfully employed in the production of energy or other environmentally-respectful activities, such as the production of rubberised asphalt.
Last but by no means least, the MICHELIN Group has been actively involved in taking mobility forward ever since it was founded. In 1998, it created the first ever global event dedicated to new mobility technologies, the CHALLENGE BIBENDUM.
Source : Michelin