Pirelli Notes from Donington Park
"It was a fantastic day of competition for Pirelli all around the world. Pirelli Moto shone at the first European round of WSBK on the same day as its 4-wheeled side debuted as official tyre supplier for Formula 1 in Australia. Adapting to the very cold track and with no data available because there was no race last year, Pirelli's efforts to develop new compound solutions for an early spring race in the UK rang true when Checa (Ducati) set a new pole time of 1m28.099s on Diablo Superbike qualifying tyres that were new for this race. The majority of SBK riders in Race 1, including winner Melandri (Yamaha), selected the Soft (SC1) front and the new Mid-soft rear tyre, whose warm-up was hindered slightly by the cold track (6°C), but still offered strong consistency having seen Yamaha, Ducati and Aprilia bikes register mid 1m29s through lap 23. Second place finisher Smrz (Ducati) ran the softer (SC1) rear tyre in Race 1 in spite of the fact that low temperatures were not favorable to the soft compound. A 12°C rise in track temps for Race 2 and the softer tyre was confirmed by Checa (Ducati), Fabrizio (Suzuki), Lascorz (Kawasaki), Laverty (Yamaha) and Xaus (Honda), with Checa's race pace breaking into the 1m28s and leaving seven manufacturers in a row for the final result. For the cold weather and unpredictable track conditions, SBK riders were offered 4 front and 4 rear Diablo Superbike tyre options, two developed for this track, and similarly in Supersport with an all-new line-up of 3 front and 3 rear Diablo Supercorsa tyre options, accounting for over 3700 tyres transported. The race action was incredible, with so many battles for position, but most importantly Pirelli now have strong data on the performance of these new cold solutions, a key improvement area for our technical team and a requirement for any future races in these conditions."
