Pirelli P Zero Rosso: passion and technology
Max choice, zero limits with the new P Zero Collection
Miami, Florida, February, 2000 - Pirelli is to launch the new P Zero Rosso, the fastest, quietest, most comfortable product in the history of Italian sports car tyres, in markets across the world.
The tyre is called P Zero because that name has become a milestone marking a fundamental turning point in Pirelli ultra-high performance tyre technology: Zero as in "zero limits".
And it is called Rosso, the Italian for red, because rosso has always symbolised a love of driving fast cars; that is what led to the birth of the first P Zero, the founding father of the dynasty, which continues to give life to this new generation of ultra-low profile tyres.
P Zero Rosso is already homologated for the Audis TT and RS4 and it is under advanced testing phase for Ferrari, Lamborghini, Mercedes and Porsche.
With P Zero Rosso, a new Pirelli ultra-high performance car tyre range has been completed for drivers who want the maximum, not only on the road but off it, too. Altogether, they comprise the P Zero Collection: Pirelli is responding to the specifications set down by the leading carmakers with a range of tyres that accept no compromises.
P Zero Rosso, P Zero System, Scorpion Zero: three zeroes, a whole Millennium...
P Zero Rosso: the comfort of high speed
Not so long ago, words like "comfort" and "silence" were no part of a sporting supercar's language. Performance and wet grip were enough: the love of driving meant the bump-thump which small road undulations transmitted to the cockpit fell on deaf ears.
Then electronics arrived: electronic traction, suspension and stability control. Ever more sophisticated management systems in the areas of safety and driving comfort made their way aboard sports cars as well as most other modern motor vehicles.
Laws were also enacted governing acoustic pollution: thunderous engine and exhaust notes, aerodynamic noise, tyres squealing as they bite into the asphalt have all played their last symphony.
As part of this evolution in the sports car segment, Pirelli has created the P Zero Rosso: comfortable, quiet, ultra-high performance with no trade-off.
Naturally, P Zero Rosso is the top performer of the breed. Sports handling made up of quick, sharp response, progressiveness, precision of trajectory, straight line speed, cornering power: the qualities on which Pirelli founded its lineage of low profile tyres more than 25 years ago with the P7, created for the mythical Lancia Stratos.
And then there is safety in the wet: behind all P Zeroes are years of intensive study of profiles, tread compounds and patterns which guarantees the ultra-low profile will provide maximum safety in potential aquaplaning situations. To the point that Pirelli introduced the exclusive P Zero System, two different tread patterns for a car's front and rear axles, which provide exceptional handling in wet and dry conditions.
To those elements of top performance, P Zero Rosso today adds top comfort, because the makers and buyers of modern luxury supercars demand from their tyres quiet running, the ability to absorb road surface undulations, handling uniformity, smoothness.
Top project
To be top in performance and comfort is the objective for which P Zero Rosso has been conceived, developed, built and tested; and that has been done together with the top sports car manufacturers from the first design stage and with the help of the most advanced methods of calculus.
With P Zero Rosso, virtual and integrated systems of tyre development achieved the maximum of their respective capabilities. Thousands of small coloured bricks in movement, shared with car designers so that Pirelli could know in advance the characteristics each primary component should embody so as to become part of a specific car under development. Simulation under load, steering, change of trajectory, on the steering pad, the impact of an obstacle: P Zero Rosso underwent exhaustive advanced "virtual" tests.
The design of the tyre using finite elements is what enabled Pirelli to identify its primary objective: weight reduction. A lighter, more resistant structure was created for P Zero Rosso so that the tyre brakes better and accelerates more progressively, cutting down thermal strain under stress and maintaining the tyre's integrity, regulating its wear.
New materials, such as Aramid Pulp, have also contributed to this result.
Aramid Pulp used in the basic tread compound acts to stiffen the compound and maintains thermal stability under prolonged stress with no decline in performance.
In the short term it is planned also the use of PenTec . Used as light belt wrapped at zero degree on the steel belt, the Pen Tec will give more high speed stability together with reduced flat spotting and weight of tyre. Produced by AlliedSignal and originally developed for space exploration, PenTec has already been tested with success in motorcycle tyres - the Pirelli Dragon Evo- and now, for the car tyres.
The development of P Zero Rosso has also introduced important process innovations, including the use of the highly automatized Flexi system in the production phase. The Flexi system allows the minimisation of the production lots at the customisation limit, and ensures continuous control of the tension of the belt material on the carcass to provide maximum built uniformity. The result is a profile which produces an absolutely uniform footprint at high speed for outstanding handling and road holding in a corner.
The structure's weight has been further reduced by the use of a steel cord 20% lighter and more resistant than traditional material, exclusively produced by the Pirelli Steelcord division: this benefits handling and comfort by improving the tyre's ability to "envelop" obstacles.
A simple but valuable idea for the bead: a single wire with a "diamond" winding, tough but flexible, for uniform distribution of tension during roll.
Tread pattern: designed by computer
And then there is the silica, here used in the tread compound to provide outstanding wet grip in low temperatures and lower rolling resistance in the dry.
In this area, P Zero Rosso has pioneered new mixing processes to ensure better dispersion of the silica through the rubber polymers, in particular as a result of using innovative instruments of analysis.
Ample use of the most modern methods of predictive calculus in the curing phase, in which F.E.A. simulation - Finite Element Analysis - has enabled Pirelli to find the optimum value of curing of each of the tyre's 10 different compounds.
The P Zero Rosso's tread pattern is completely new and elegant: in fact there are two versions, asymmetric and directional, in line with P Zero tradition. Considerable use has been made of curved grooves, which alternate with wide longitudinal grooves: protection from aquaplaning.
It is a "multi-ring" pattern, able to drastically lower noise generation.
The new tyre retains the "Zero concept" of central semi-slick rib, which guarantees driving precision under acceleration in the same way that the outer design -with robust blocks- ensures excellent dry grip while the inner circumferential segment has wider grooves through which to quickly eject water.
The shoulder siping minimises the longitudinal tread blocks' rigidity, to improve quietness and comfort. But above all, quietness is governed by the multi- pitch pattern. Comfort comes not just from the use of a soft tread compound but also from the "multi-groove" tread design.