Pirelli feels the heat at Imola

The two days of official Infront Motor Sports/Pirelli testing that took place on Tuesday and Wednesday at Imola's Autodromo Enzo e Dino Ferrari were positive for the Italian one-make tyre supplier, who brought one new front tyre and six new rear tyre solutions to the circuit for the riders to test.

Both from a duration point of view as well as performance - Cal Crutchlow (Yamaha Sterilgarda) took a serious chunk out of the circuit record with a lap time of 1 minute 47.478 seconds, three tenths inside last year's Superpole time set by Michel Fabrizio - Pirelli were clearly satisfied with the development tests for the second half of the season and in particular the Imola round in September. WorldSBK.com took the opportunity to have a word with Giorgio Barbier, Racing Director Pirelli Moto, to analyze the situation:

"Here at Imola for the first time this year we brought some really soft race tyres. The aim was to test soft tyres that work well in hot temperatures, and especially for circuits where the asphalt is smooth, in part like Imola. A comparison of the results of at least three different solutions showed that excellent times were achieved, times that are difficult to improve on with a Superpole tyre."

"We focused on a range of tyres, from supersoft to race distance. We are convinced that we will take at least one solution to Imola, irrespective of the temperatures during September's race, when it might be hot like last year. We wanted a confirmation on the material we brought to Misano and which we brought here to Imola, both front and rear including for example the tyre that took Biaggi to victory as well as the front used by Checa, and so on.

"Furthermore we had some new intermediate material in hardness and this also worked well, so now we leave Imola with clear ideas for the race. The positive thing over the past couple of days is that despite the heat and exhaustion of the riders after racing at Misano, everyone put in a lot of laps, especially in the middle of the day when it was really hot, obtaining excellent times. In short, they liked what we brought and were encouraged to test it!"