Dunlop using endurance experience for new soft tyre
Learning from the world of endurance racing might seem like an unlikely course of action when constructing a new soft tyre compound for the BTCC, but that is precisely what Dunlop has done ahead of its 14th season supplying the championship.
For the fourth season in a row, Dunlop will provide an ‘option’ tyre which each of the drivers must use in one of the weekend’s three races. And based on feedback from last year, the new tyre is designed with the aim of maintaining the laptime advantage while removing some of the late race drop-off in performance.
Track testing of the new soft compound started at the mid-season tyre test at Snetterton last summer, with the 2015 medium compound tyre used as a base for its construction and an LMP2 tyre as the base for its compound.
Marketing and communications director James Bailey explained the logic behind the endurance racing link.
“It seems strange to say soft tyre from endurance, but in the world of endurance we have soft tyres which are designed mainly to work in the cool of the night. In Le Mans you might have temperatures of six degrees in the night and 30 degrees in the day,” said Bailey to TouringCarTimes.
“It’s proven to be durable in those temperatures, and the learning from that compound – where we won the Le Mans Series in LMP2 – has gone into the BTCC tyre compound.
“There are going to be some races where the soft is the tyre to have, and maybe in the summer months there will be some races where the medium is the one to have.”
Assessing the reasons for the change, Bailey added: “We’re always trying to bring something better than before; it’s what drives us and is one of the reasons we do motorsport. We want to learn, not just bring the same tyres as the previous year.
“For the last three years we’ve tried a couple of variations on the soft tyre. We had some feedback last year that there was a possibility of improving the steering feel and feedback, but also it being more consistent across a race distance.
“We want the tyres to have a difference between them of about a second a lap, but not to have them fading at the end of the race. That’s our goal and that’s what we’ve achieved.”
Another change for both the teams and the Dunlop engineers to contend with is the introduction of the new stock NGTC parts from RML, replacing the supply from GPRM.
Asked if this has produced any difference in the feel of the cars, Bailey said: “Initial feedback is that it’s different, but that’s usually the case. The cars and regulations are standardised in many ways, but you’ll often get differences, where one car uses its tyres very differently to another.
“That’s why the media day test session is so important. We’ve done a lot of testing with the teams over the winter but this is the first time they are on the track at the same time.”
The Dunlop partnership with the BTCC goes back as far as 2003, with the brand enjoying title sponsor rights since 2005. It also recently announced an extension of its supply contract to the end of 2021, along with free-to-air broadcaster ITV.
“We made the decision at the end of the year to renew the contract with a five year extension, and that was for a number of reasons. There’s no other championship in the UK or even across Europe which gets such a consistently high level of media attention,” said Bailey.
“When the BTCC announced they had extended their contract with ITV4 it was one of the reasons we wanted to stay on board. The television is very important to the championship.
“It’s going to be so close this year. With 32 cars on the grid and more than half of them are regular podium contenders. That’s deeply impressive – there’s not going to be a dull race this year.”
