Pirelli Tire tackles its sixth year as official tire supplier for the World Superbike Championship with stable performances and increased adaptability. World Endurance racing turned development solutions into real products for the market. 

Pirelli Moto addressed the 2009 road racing season as an opportunity to bring forth more firsts for the Italian manufacturer, and not just on the podium. With the newly crowned 2009 World Superbike Champion, American Ben Spies, Pirelli congratulated Yamaha’s first victory in WSBK, adding to victories of Honda and Ducati since the start of the experience as unique supplier.

Pirelli has also taken home this year’s French Superbike Championship, the Italian CIV Superbike & Supersport titles, the Dutch Superbike Championship and placed five teams in the top ten amongst the FIM World Endurance Championship’s eighteen permanent teams and over 35 riders.

WORLD SUPERBIKE
In Pirelli’s sixth year as single tire supplier for the World Superbike Championship, the measured race time decreased an average of 20 seconds over the previous year, signifying truly faster racing and a consistent competition level. The 2009 season saw eight manufacturers, including new entrants Aprilia and BMW, and over 120 world-class riders competing amongst the four classes at the fourteen races.

The diversity of this experience added to the absolute performance of the Diablo family of racing products which are continuously injecting technology into products like the new Diablo Rosso Corsa, made for passionate road and track riding.

Pirelli began its first two years of World Superbike operations by refining the service element to guarantee adequate support for all riders in the Superbike paddock. Following this, Pirelli opened a true search for performance, improving lap times and cornerspeed for elevated excitement and the shattering of circuit records. Recently, Pirelli has continued to deliver the same competence, but more noteworthy has been the stabilization of performance, meaning reduced lap times all the way to the checkered flag. This was demonstrated often throughout the year, with several records being set on the ultimate or penultimate lap such as Jonathan Rea’s (HANNspree Ten Kate Honda) 20th lap in race 2 at Nürburgring or Noriyuki Haga’s (Ducati Xerox) 21st lap in race 1 at Magny-Cours.

From the 48 dry solutions available to riders this season between the World Superbike and Supersport grids, one front and three rear tires will enter the 2010 Pirelli Racing product range and be available to all authorized customers on the market. With as many as 6000 tires delivered each weekend, the cutting-edge technologies are transferred quickly into street product through Pirelli’s application of perfected constructions concepts. The new Diablo Rosso Corsa adopts a carcass from the Superbike class and shoulders of its three zones compound rear tire are offspring to those of the Superstock class.

WORLD ENDURANCE
All five teams riding with Pirelli in the 2009 World Endurance season finished within the top 10 spots in the final Championship standings, led by the Swiss-based Bolliger Kawasaki squad, confirming the high overall satisfaction level with Pirelli’s tire solutions both regarding performance and duration. These teams commonly maintained the first three positions relative to lap performance and even duration by making turns up to 3-4 hours. In this championship, Pirelli’s philosophy is equal to World Superbike: to be highly competitive with all possible teams via production-based tyres as well as possible alternatives which may well be delivered to market the following year.

The scale of Pirelli’s support for this year’s World Endurance ranged from 1500 tyres and 12 solutions at the shorter races to as many as 4000 tires and 15 different solutions for the longer races such as Le Mans and Bol d’Or, always supported by a team of between 6-12 service staff. This extremely demanding environment best validates new racing solutions with its diversity of teams, motorcycles, duration requirements and climatic conditions.

In addition to the Superbike World Championship, Pirelli is also represented as the single tire supplier in four national championships: British Superbike, Canadian Superbike, Brazilian Superbike and the newly formed Pirelli Superstock Series in Spain. Pirelli’s always strong competitive appetite is fed also by participation in nearly 85 different classes of 32 open national racing championships around the world.