New Pirelli hillclimb tyre wins European championship in its first year
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| Simone Faggioli |
Pirelli has won the FIA European Hillclimb Championship in its first year of competition with Italian driver Simone Faggioli, who helped to develop the all-new tyres. Faggioli, who drives a Norma M20 FC Zytek in the top class of the championship, won his eighth title at Ilirska Bistrica in Slovenia, at the latest round of the championship last weekend. The new Pirelli hillclimb tyre comes in two versions: slick (with soft and supersoft compounds available) and Cinturato rain, equipping all the classes in the sport. The tyres come in 250/575-13 and 315/660-13 sizes, using some of the techniques and technology carried over from Formula One. All these tyres proved to be victorious this year, including the rain tyres that dominated at a wet round in Switzerland. The P Zero soft tyres also won the longest hillclimb event in Europe: Trento Bondone in Italy, which is 17.3 kilometres long and climbs to an altitude of 1650 metres. In total, the supersoft tyres were used in six races so far, the soft tyres in one, and the rain tyres in one. Faggioli enjoyed a masterful season, lowering the course record at every circuit on the calendar to underline his leadership from start to finish. The 37-year-old sealed the title in Slovenia with one round still to go. He commented: “I’m particularly happy because Pirelli entered the championship for the first time this year, and together we emerged as the winners. So many thanks to Pirelli for this opportunity!” Pirelli’s product manager Terenzio Testoni said: “Many congratulations to Simone for a fantastic championship victory: we feel incredibly proud to share in his success. Hillclimbing is new to us this year: it’s a growing discipline that is in fact very hard to develop tyres for. The races are short so the tyres have to provide instant performance with a rapid warm-up, in a very wide variety of conditions all over Europe. This presents a big challenge, and we’re delighted to have met it in our first season of hillclimb competition.” The next round of the FIA European Hillclimb Championship takes place at the 34th Buzetski Dani in Croatia from 19-20 September.
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