21
June
2007
|
10:00
Europe/Amsterdam

Pirelli celebrates Ferrari's 60th anniversary

On the occasion of the birthday of the Prancing Horse, Pirelli will be taking part in the celebrations at Maranello and will be awarding a prize to the most beautiful racing Ferrari.

Ever since the dawn of the Maranello-based marque, Pirelli has been a leading partner for Ferrari's road-going models and competition machinery and the company's most technologically advanced tyres have made their debuts on Ferraris. The original PZero was, for example, introduced in conjunction with the F40, while the new PZero is fitted as original equipment to the 599 GTB Fiorano.


Milan, 21stJune 2007 - Pirelli, having reached its hundredth year of involvement in motorsport in 2007, is now honouring Ferrari's sixtieth birthday, the celebrations for which will be held at Maranello from Thursday the 21st to Sunday the 24th of June. The Milanese tyre manufacturer has flanked the Prancing Horse ever since the 1930s in a technological marriage that has brought success on and off the track and will be participating in Ferrari's celebrations with a variety of initiatives culminating in an award for the most beautiful competition Ferrari (Racing Best in Show) chosen from among the cars due to parade around the Fiorano track on Sunday June the 24th.
Pirelli will also be present at the Ferrari celebrations with two exhibition areas. The first celebrates the historic relationship between Milan and Maranello that began with the very first rosse and continues to this day with the respective road-going excellence of the new PZero and the 599 GTB Fiorano. The second will be of a more markedly historical nature and will be housed in the Galleria Ferrari (entirely devoted to the world of motorsport), with an extraordinary photographic display highlighting unforgettable moments from Pirelli Competizioni's hundred-year history.

The story of the Pirelli company has long been entwined with that of Ferrari. The two prestigious Italian industrial concerns have in fact worked in harmony and synergy over the last sixty years and the Milanese company was actually a supplier to the Scuderia Ferrari in the 1930s when Enzo Ferrari's team was running Alfa Romeos for drivers such as Nuvolari and Varzi.

From the 125S which opened the Prancing Horse's racing account with Franco Cortese's win in the Rome GP of 1947, by way of the 375 F1 that Froilan Gonzalez drove to Ferrari's first F1 victory (Silverstone '51), the 500 F2 that Alberto Ascari drove to consecutive Formula 1 World Championship titles in 1952 and '53 and the 375 Plus of Trintignant and Gonzales that won Le Mans in 1954, there have been numerous Ferrari competition models that have been tyred by Pirelli and that remain associated with historic sporting episodes from virtually every era. This tradition is alive and well, with Ferraris continuing to enjoy success in demanding events such as the FIA-GT Championship - in which the Ferrari F430 GTs won both the Drivers' and Team titles in 2006 - and the Le Mans Series, the latest round of which - the Valencia 1000 Kilometres - was won in mid-May by an F430 GT shod with PZero Racing tyres.

The attention paid by Pirelli engineers to racing Ferraris is amplified in the case of the production models. The experience accumulated by Pirelli in the world of competition has actually been transmitted directly to road-going cars ever since the dawn of the Milanese company's sporting history a hundred years ago, when the Itala of Prince Scipione Borghese dominated the Peking-Paris raid. In terms of road-going models destined for Ferrari clients, numerous protagonists in the history of the Prancing Horse have been fitted with Pirelli tyres. While mentioning just a few of the many cars that mark the union between Pirelli and Ferrari, it should be remembered that the Italian tyres have been a constant presence throughout Maranello's long period of production. From the 166 MM Touring Barchetta of 1949 to the 410 Superamerica (1956), from the supercars such as the F40 of 1987, the 512 TR, the 456 GT and the F355 of the Nineties through to the current models (the 612 Scaglietti, the F430 and the 599 GTB Fiorano), the masterpieces of the company founded sixty years ago by Enzo Ferrari that have been fitted with the technology and style of the Milanese firm are without question extraordinary, elite models. As, of course, becomes a Ferrari, especially when tyred by Pirelli.