Milan,
09
October
2023
|
14:02
Europe/Amsterdam

PIRELLI DOMINATES FIA ERC EVEN IN LAST RACE. A TRIUMPHANT SEASON COMES TO AN END WITH 4 RALLIES OUT OF 8 WON

The last success with Ostberg in Hungary

Pirelli is the only tyre manufacturer to win on all road surfaces and always on the podium

Testoni: "Our team has brought the quality and experience of the WRC to the European Championship"

Pirelli closes the FIA ERC 2023 championship with yet another victory to round off a season in which it dominated the European rally championship by accompanying Hayden Paddon to the title with two races to spare and winning a total of four out of the eight races on the calendar and 55 out of 106 special stages. 

The last rally won by the Italian tyre manufacturer was the closing one of the season, held last weekend in Hungary. The umpteenth success came aboard the Citroen C3 driven by Mads Ostberg, who also won the power stage, making a full haul. The Norwegian driver is the fourth driver that Pirelli has driven to victory in the eight races of the championship. Before Ostberg the P Lunga victories came with Paddon in a Hyundai i20N (Serras de Fafe), Oliver Solberg in a Polo GTI R5 (Scandinavia) and Andrea Crugnola in a Citroen C3 (Rome). 

"We have opened and closed the FIA ERC with victories that seal a championship that has been exciting for us, not only for the number of overall successes, but above all because we have consolidated our position in such a challenging context as the European one, in which our products have imposed themselves on all terrains, with different cars and very different drivers," comments Terenzio Testoni, Pirelli's Rally activity manager. “The work of our team of engineers and technicians has become a point of reference for teams and drivers, setting standards of service and assistance never seen in the European Championship and very similar to those we provide in the WRC. The experience we are accumulating in the World Championship also makes itself felt heavily in the evolution of products and in the development of strategies for approaching races, just as the European Championship makes itself felt in the development of increasingly high-performance tyres. It is no coincidence that we are the only tyre manufacturer to make the podium in all races, the only one to make the en-plein, as in the Rally of Roma, and the only one to have won on both gravel and asphalt. My compliments this time go not only to the drivers who achieved success with us, but also to our entire team, which supported them at their best”.  

These are the main tyre statistics of the ERC season:

  • Overall wins were 50% Pirelli, 4 out of 8 races, with the remainder going to the other 3 tyre manufacturers in the race
  • Of the 4 wins, 2 were on asphalt (Rome and Hungary) and 2 on gravel (Fafe and Scandinavia), achieved with 4 drivers and 3 different cars (Citroen, Hyundai, Volkswagen)
  • In the eight championship races, at least one Pirelli-tyred car finished on the podium. A total of 11 cars finished on the podium.
  • Out of a total of 106 special stages, Pirelli-tyred cars won 55, or 52%, with a 55% spike in gravel stages (30 out of a total of 55) with 10 drivers and 5 cars (Citroen, Hyundai, Ford, Skoda and Volkswagen)