Michelin has produced a new version of its motorcycle racing tyre with an even higher share of environmentally sustainable material ahead of the MotoE World Cup motorcycle racing series. This is the fourth season of the MotoE World Cup electric motorcycles racing series.
BWR Motorsports GmbH has developed technology which enables Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (DMA tyre) testing to take place at the racetrack. Centred on a portable tyre testing unit called Motite, the system helps race teams across series such as Formula One and WEC to measure tyre grip levels and rank tyres on-track. The software allows an immediate grip level output and enables measurement and analysis to be carried out directly on the tyre.
Yokohama Tire is returning as the title sponsor of the Yokohama NORRA Mexican 1000 for the fifth consecutive year. And this time the tyremaker is bringing along elite drivers such as Justin Lofton and new Team Yokohama member Tanner Foust for the 54th running of the iconic rally, which takes place on the famed Baja peninsula 25-29 April 2021.
In mid-March Jenson Button’s JBXE Extreme E team announced who will be racing electric SUVs alongside the former Formula 1 world champion. He will be sharing the cockpit of his Odyssey 21 with Mikaela Ahlin-Kottulinsky. In recent years, the Swedish driver has successfully competed in the Scirocco R-Cup Germany and in the rallycross discipline. In 2015, she took part in the newly established Audi Sport TT Cup. She also started in the junior classification of the ADAC GT Masters in 2016 and in the Audi Sport Racing Academy in 2017, before switching to the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship in 2018, where she made history as the first and only woman ever to win races in that series.
Sailun Tire has entered into a partnership agreement with China’s Apex Motorsport. The deal, signed on 21 August by Apex Motorsport’s Jin Yi and Chen Zheng, deputy director of Sailun Motorsport, gives Apex global sales rights for Sailun Sports Tires including the full range of Sailun Gene R tyres. Sailun believes this agreement marks its “successful shift from the prosumer market to the consumer market following three years of racing events that put Sailun Tire products to various stringent tests.”
After the postponement of the season opener due to the coronavirus, the first Formula 1 race of the year will take place this weekend at the Red Bull Ring in Austria. The same event will feature another premiere: Pirelli’s new 18-inch racing tyres will also be used for the first time, but initially only in Formula 2. Their debut in Formula 1 will follow later.
On 18 November Giti Tire took part in the 65th Macau Grand Prix, sponsoring and providing tyres to all drivers in the Lotus Cup racing competition. The event was one of six during the Grand Prix weekend, which brings racers and spectators from all around the world to the exciting street-circuit motorsports events around the city and ocean side of the historic city of Macau.
Only recently, Michelin unveiled its first connected tyre solution that amateur driving enthusiasts can go out and buy for their cars. This is Track Connect, a system compatible with the newly-launched Pilot Sport Cup 2 Connect tyre and now on sale in several European markets. A dedicated competition version has also been developed – the tyre maker calls it Michelin Motorsport Connect, and this solution will be introduced at the next rounds of the French Rally Championship between 13 and 15 April. Michelin Motorsport Connect will then initially be released in France, with prices starting at 400 euros, before being introduced elsewhere in Europe and the rest of the world.
Ricardo has signed a strategic cooperation agreement with Future Mobility Corporation to provide engineering support in the development of a family of state-of-the-art electric vehicles, aimed at offering affordable quality and performance to customers in Asia, North America and Europe.
Hoosier has launched a new line of gravel rally tyres. According to the company, the tyres were in development for two years and were tested and raced at stages in the US, UK and South Africa. Indeed, they have already earned approval from the Motor Sport Association of the UK, according to Hoosier.
Dorothy Caldwell, who lives in Flagstaff, New Zealand, and is the Guinness World Record holder as the world’s oldest active rally navigator, is to take to the roads again in the New Zealand Haka Classic Rally, a 5,354 kilometre classic car competition on the North and South Islands of New Zealand. The rally starts in Auckland on October 30th and heads to Wanaka before coming back to Auckland again, ending on 25th November. 98-year old Dorothy will be navigating for her son, Alastair Caldwell in his 1963 Rolls Royce Silver Cloud III. The same team and car took part in the TransAm rally from New York to Alaska four years ago and Dorothy won the “Spirit of the Rally” award and her team came 5th overall.
The Mexico City ePrix saw the Michelin Pilot Sport EV face a very different challenge of competing around a permanent circuit, instead of at a temporary city-centre facility, as has been the case since the inaugural Formula E race in Beijing, in September 2014.
Previous venues have ranged from street tracks to public parks (as in London) and airfield runways (Berlin), but Mexico City chose the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez and in the infield of a baseball stadium to stage its round of the FIA Formula E Championship.
Engine detox specialist EDT Automotive has agreed to sponsor Kent-based motorsport starlet Fred Ling in the 2016 Autosport International British Trials and Rally Drivers Association (BTRDA) Clubmans Rallycross Championship.
Currently studying A-levels at Homewood School in Tenterden, Ling was named best newcomer in the 2015 series despite missing the first round because he was four days too young. He will celebrate his 17th birthday the day before this year’s Championship begins on March 13th at the Blyton circuit in Lincolnshire
Michelin
BWR Motorsport
Yokohama
Extreme E
Sailun Group
Pirelli