Pirelli ready to face the second round of the WorldSBK Championship; focusing on standard solutions, with all soft rear tyres
The Italian tyre company brings to Buriram, Thailand, mostly standard solutions, both in standard and in bigger sizes, alongside the new SCX option that can be used as pre-qualifier and possibly for the Tissot Superpole® Race
From Friday 15 to Sunday 17 March 2019 the Chang International Circuit of Buriram in Thailand will host, for the fifth consecutive year, the second round of the MOTUL FIM Superbike World Championship.
Pirelli is ready to face this event focusing almost exclusively on standard solutions, all in soft compound for the rear, for the WorldSBK and WorldSSP classes. For the first time Pirelli will make available to the riders the new SCX rear option that can be used as pre-qualifier and possibly as a solution for the Tissot Superpole®Race of 10 laps on Sunday morning.
Only the WorldSBK and WorldSSP riders will be competing on track at the Thai round. In the previous visits, victory has predominantly been a Kawasaki rider, with six wins for Jonathan Rea and one for Tom Sykes, however Race 2 in 2018 was won by Chaz Davies on Ducati. After the hat-trick achieved in the first round of the season at Phillip Island, it will be interesting to see if Álvaro Bautista will be able to bring the new Panigale V4R to the top step of the podium here.
Pirelli will bring almost 3000 tyres to the track, practically all standard solutions. In particular, in both classes for the rear there will be only soft solutions because historically the Thai round is one of the hottest, with the asphalt reaching very high temperatures; above 60° C in the past. With such high temperatures, soft solutions are those able to offer the best performance in terms of grip.
The Chang International Circuit, inaugurated in October 2014 and designed by architect Hermann Tilke, is a 4.554 kilometres track with 12 turns, 5 on the left and 7 right. This circuit does not have a particularly demanding configuration for the tyres even with the high humidity index typical of the area, the usually very high asphalt temperatures and the abrupt braking at the end of the two long straights can put stress on the tyres, primarily the front ones.
The solutions for the WorldSBK and WorldSSP classes:
In addition to intermediate and full wet tyres, which are taken to every round in the event of adverse weather conditions, the WorldSBK class can count on seven slick solutions, three front and four for the rear.
The front options are the same as those used by the riders at the first round at Phillip Island: the new standard soft SC1s in the 120/70 and 125/70 sizes will again be joined by the development SC2 X1071, also in 125/70 size but in medium compound.
As for the rear options, the solutions to be used for the two races of standard duration are the two standard SC0, one in 200/60 and one in 200/65 size. On top of these two options there is the SCX option, which in this round is presented in the specification X1428. It is designed to be used during the qualifying session in preparation for the use of the only Superpole® tyre available to riders, and possibly for the Tissot Superpole® Race if the circuit features allows it.The fourth and last option is represented by the Superpole® tyre that will allow riders to make a lap in search of the absolute best time to position themselves on the starting grid.
In the WorldSSP600 category, there will be four dry solutions available to riders, two front and two rear. For the front there will be, as at Phillip Island, the standard SC1 and SC2 whilst at the rear the riders will have two standard SC0 available; both the 2018 and 2019 version with new compound and new tread, so riders can make a final direct comparison between the two solutions.
More details on the race solutions for WorldSBK and WorldSSP600 classes are available in the technical sheets attached to this press release.
The 2018 Pirelli statistics for Buriram
• Total number of tyres brought by Pirelli: 2878
• Number of solutions (including dry, intermediate and wet) for the Superbike class: 6 front and 5 rear
• Number of tyres available for each Superbike rider: 39 front and 28 rear
• Number of solutions for the Supersport class (including dry, intermediate and wet): 5 front and 4 rear
• Number of tyres available for each Supersport rider: 26 front and 21 rear
• Superbike Best Lap Awards both won by: Jonathan Rea(Kawasaki Racing Team), in 1'33.714 (Race 1, 11th lap) and Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing – Ducati) in 1'33.627 (Race 2, 11th lap).
• Supersport Best Lap Award won by: Randy Krummenacher (BARDAHL Evan Bros. WorldSSP Team), in 1'37.620 (11th lap).
• Temperature in Race 1: air 32° C, asphalt 51° C
• Temperature in Race 2: air 33° C, asphalt 49° C
• Maximum race speed reached by Pirelli DIABLO™ Superbike tyres: 305.1 km/h, in Race 2 by Chaz Davies (Aruba.it Racing - Ducati) at the 6th lap and by Jordi Torres (MV Agusta Reparto Corse) at the 3rd lap
• Maximum race speed reached by Pirelli DIABLO™ Supercorsa SC tyres in WorldSSP race: 270 km/h, by Loris Cresson (Kallio Racing) at the 2nd lap.