IN TOUCH. Simoncelli, di Meglio and Dunlop celebrate in style! THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF DUNLOP MOTORSPORT

Transcription

1 THE OFFICIAL MAGAZINE OF DUNLOP MOTORSPORT [ ] ISSUE TEN, NOVEMBER 2008 IN TOUCH Simoncelli, di Meglio and Dunlop celebrate in style!

2 Marco Simoncelli and Alvaro Bautista have been the most consistent finishers in the MotoGP 250cc category, each scoring in 13 of the 15 races this year and are first and second in the riders' standings with one race remaining, in Valencia at the end of October. With his third place finish in Malaysia mid-october, seconds behind Bautista at the chequered flag, it was Simoncelli who was crowned the cc champion and the Italian celebrated by completing a helmet-less victory lap around the track. Simoncelli has scored five wins to Bautista's four so far this year, but the Italian has consistently finished on the podium. Mid-season he was on devastating form, finishing second to Mika Kallio in France, and then winning the Spanish and German Grands Prix, finishing second in Britain, and third at the Dutch Grand Prix. Bautista had fallen far behind by the time the bikes lined up in Spain, having scored one win, but just 16 more points in the opening six races. The Spaniard worked hard during the second half of the year, starting on his home ground where he was second to Simoncelli, and that led to a run of six straight podium finishes, culminating in victory in South Africa. The series was interrupted by Hurricane Ike, which caused the cancellation of the American 250cc Grand Prix, but in the next three races in Japan, Australia and Malaysia, Simoncelli again applied the pressure, winning twice on his way to securing the title in Malaysia. "What a great season," said the Italian. "Winning the first ever 250cc World Championship for Gilera as the marque prepares to celebrate its centenary in 2009, giving Dunlop their 16th consecutive 250cc crown, and their 200th consecutive 250cc GP victory - it doesnt get any better than this. "I have always used Dunlop in my GP career, starting with the 125cc European Championship title in 2002 before moving up to MotoGP, firstly in 125cc before moving up to 250cc with Metis Gilera in "The Dunlop guys are great to work with, always ready to listen and help, and the number of close races where we have set new lap records at the end of the race shows how good the tyre performance is. Thanks to them, and let's do it again in 2009." The final race of the 2008 season will take place in Valencia on October 26, where more than 125,000 spectators are expected to attend. Marco Simoncelli Dunlop celebrates another successful motorcycle racing season in 2008 Dunlop is celebrating another fantastically successful season in motor cycle racing. Marco Simoncelli scored Dunlop's 200th successive 250cc MotoGP victory at the world famous Twin Motegi circuit in Japan, before going on to win the riders' title in Malaysia mid-october, Dunlop's 16th successive 250cc title. At the Australian Phillip Island circuit, Mike di Meglio became only the second French rider to win the 125cc title on Dunlop, which recorded its 12th successive World 125cc title. The SERT team scored Dunlop's fourth successive World Endurance Championship and Dunlop was successful in all categories of the AMA series, domestic series in Spain, France, Nordic countries and Holland, and the Japanese Superbike series. The tyre manufacturer reached a milestone that most can only dream of when it won its 200th consecutive MotoGP 250cc Grand Prix. As Simoncelli took the checkered flag it marked an historic moment for the tyre manufacturer and motorcycle racing. Since Maxi Biaggi rode his Dunlop-shod Aprilia to victory at the Japanese Grand Prix in Suzuka in 1996, every 250cc race has been won on Dunlop tyres. Mike di Meglio wins the Australian 125cc race and Dunlop's 12th straight category title Win number 50 came with Valentino Rossi at the 1999 British GP, while Marco Melandri brought up the century at Brno in 2002 and Casey Stoner delivered the 150th in Malaysia in Thirty three riders and five constructors have enabled Dunlop to achieve this bicentenary, with many of those riders now legendary in the sport including Rossi and Stoner. Although the current run of 250cc race wins started in 1996, Dunlop has supplied the tyres for the 250cc World Champion every year since Dunlop has also won 1331 of the 2561 Grand Prix held in all the solo capacity classes since the World Championship started in 1949, more than all the other tyre companies combined. We are delighted to celebrate this historic victory, said Sanjay Khanna, Managing Director Motorcycle Tyres Dunlop Europe. The technology transfer between race and road helps us to develop road tyres with superlative characteristics both with regards to safety and performance. We thank the teams for putting their trust in our tyres, a trust that clearly pays off, said Jeremy Ferguson, Manager International Motorsport for Dunlop. Although currently none of our competitors are challenging us in 250cc, Dunlop continues to improve the tyres in 2008 we have already evaluated more than 50 new construction and compound variants and introduced the latest multi-compound technology." Valentino Rossi scored Dunlop's 50th 250cc win 2

3 Di Meglio 125cc champion as Dunlop secures 12th title Mike di Meglio celebrates winning the 125cc title by spraying the champagne in Australia Bautista wins in Malaysia but Simoncelli seals title Mike di Meglio was crowned as the 125cc World Champion at Phillip Island, Australia on October 5 after a dominant performance, starting from pole position and going on to win by 10 seconds from Stefan Bradl. Di Meglio, who became only the second French 125cc champion six years after Arnaud Vincent achieved the feat, had already put himself into a dominant position in the championship when he finished second to Bradl at the Twin Motegi circuit in Japan one week earlier to give himself a 36 point lead over Simone Corsi. Di Meglio started the Japanese race from pole but was embroiled in a struggle with defending champion Gabor Talmacsi and Bradl. The gap between the three of them was never more than 0.5 seconds, with Bradl and di Meglio taking turns to lead. Bradl held the slight advantage, the young German finishing 0.1 ahead of di Meglio with Talmacsi 0.1 second behind. The group of three finished six seconds ahead of a chasing group of four (Joan Olive, Nicolas Terol, Sandro Cortese and Simone Corsi) who were separated by less than 0.5 seconds at the flag. From Japan, the traveling circus moved to Australia and the Phillip Island track, just 130ks south of Melbourne and is dramatically situated on the top of the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The circuit is a riders favourite, with its high speed (176 kph average) and long flowing corners producing close racing whilst producing a lot of stress on the rear tyres. Weather is always an issue - this being early spring in Australia, but whilst it had rained on Friday, by Sunday it was dry, sunny and warm with temperatures of 20 degrees Centigrade (68F). Di Meglio again started from pole, took the lead on lap two and eased away to take victory, and the title, in style. Bradl finished second after a race long duel with Talmacsi, the two riders filling the other podium places just ahead of Iannone. At 20 years of age di Meglio added his name to the list of Dunlop shod riders that have won this title every year since Valentino Rossi savoured his first world Championship crown in di Meglio on his way to the 125cc title Marco Simoncelli may have scored then in the later stages by Alvaro Bautista Dunlop s 200 th consecutive 250cc race (Aprilia) who closed to within 0.3 seconds win at the Japanese Grand Prix, but the of the Italian at the flag after setting a Italian had to wait until the Malaysian new lap record on the final lap of the race. Grand Prix on October 19 to wrap up the Alex Debon (Aprilia) finished third, having riders title. demoted Simon to fourth six laps from the The Italian has been a consistent finisher finish. all season, and had done enough to be Simoncelli went to the next race in Australia able to finish third to his title rival Alvaro leading the championship by 32 points, Bautista in Malaysia to be declared the with Bautista now moving into second, champion with one race, in Valencia at the eight points clear of Mika Kallio (KTM) who very end of October, still to contest. finished 5th in Motegi. The Motegi circuit is situated two hours At Phillip Island, the Australian crowd was from Tokyo in a heavily wooded rural treated to yet another wheel to wheel race setting and it was here that the 250cc between pole-sitter Simoncelli and Bautista, riders put on another fantastic race, who led the early laps with the KTMs of Fittingly, it was championship leader Simon and Kallio in close attendance. Simoncelli who started from pole and led Simoncelli took over the lead on lap eight throughout the race to bring up the 200th (of 25) but could not shake Bautista off. consecutive victory. The two of them traded lap records as the The championship favourite race wore on, never separated by more was challenged throughout the race - than 0.3 seconds with Bautista eventually initially by the KTM of Julian Simon, and putting in the fastest lap (172.7 kph) on lap 22 in a final attempt to take the victory. The KTM duo did not have the pace to stay with the leaders, falling 14 seconds behind at the flag with Kallio claiming the third podium spot just two one-thousandths of a second ahead of Simoncelli leads Bautista in Australia Simon. 3

4 Timo Scheider leads the drivers title by two points before the final in Hockenheim DTM title goes to the final as di Resta is second at Le Mans The battle for the DTM title will go to the final race in Hockenheim at the end of October after Audi driver Timo Scheider could manage no better than sixth place at the penultimate round in Le Mans, while his title rival, Mercedes' Paul di Resta, was second on the road, closing the points gap to just two. The title will be decided between these two drivers as Mattias Ekstrom, the defending champion for Audi, is now 11 points behind Scheider with only ten available at the final race. Ekstrom took those ten points for Audi at Le Mans in changeable conditions which upset the traditional running order. Scheider started on slick tyres, and stayed on slicks through his two scheduled stops, but then Lowndes makes history, Whincup takes title lead Jamie Whincup moved back into the lead of the Australian V8 Supercar series as he and Craig Lowndes made it three out of three at the famous 1000 mile race at Bathurst on October 12. For Lowndes, it was his fourth win at the great race and he stole the headlines, but Whincup moved into a strong position in the drivers' title standings with just four races remaining on the Gold Coast, Bahrain, Tasmania and finishing the season in Sydney on December 7. The Ford Falcon pair finished just 2.4s ahead of the Holden of Greg Murphy and Jason Richards, while Whincup s nearest came the rain which soaked the track and he was forced to stop a third time for wet tyres, dropping to sixth at the flag. Di Resta started on wet tyres but had to pit for slicks before the pit stop window opened on lap ten. During his second mandatory pit stop he correctly picked rain tyres, and moved through the order to take second place and close the gap in the drivers title to just two points. Alexandre Premat was third for Audi, a fantastic finish for the Frenchman at his home race as he was the first this season to finish on the podium in a year-old car. Mercedes was fourth with Gary Paffett, and fifth with Bernd Schneider who overtook Scheider to deny the Audi driver further points in the table. title challenger Mark Winterbottom, could manage no better than fourth in the Ford Performance Racing Falcon, sharing with Steven Richards. The pair leaped ahead of Garth Tander, who made a poor start away from pole position in his Holden, and the car was later was crashed against a wall and finished 12th overall. Dunlop celebrated its 120 th birthday at Bathurst, 36 years after changing Australian motorsport by introducing slick tyres that helped Peter Brock win his first of nine Bathurst races. In 2008, Dunlop introduced a new control tyre to the V8 Supercar Championship series and on the Dunlop celebrated its birthday at Bathurst Road Racing European Championships - Held at Albacete, Spain on Oct 12th, the single event European Championships brought together 128 riders in three classes - Superstock 1000, Supersport 600 and 125GP. 19 of the riders were female, the girls competing for their own combined Superstock and Supersport title. Dunlop supplied the tyres and technical support for 78 of the riders, winning all three of the European titles. Superstock - Dunlop shod Yamahas dominated this class. In a close race, the Spanish L Oreal team riders Carmelo Morales and Javier del Amor took first and third, sandwiching fellow Spaniard Bernat Martinez. They finished 11 seconds ahead of Germany s Jorg Teuchert. The first six finishers all used Dunlop s latest D211GP tyres. Supersport - Spain s Angel Rodriguez (Team L Oreal Yamaha) took an easy win, finishing 3.7s ahead of Scotland s Kev Coghlan (Honda) who came out on top of a close race with Spain s Daniel Rivas (Suzuki) for the other places on all Dunlop D211GP podium. 125cc - Lorenzo Savadori, runner up in the 2007 Red Bull Rookies MotoGP Cup, prevented a Spanish clean sweep, the Italian winning the 125cc GP race by over four seconds. All but nine of the 40 runners were on Dunlop. All Japan Superbike Championship - The most competitive national championship in the world, with factory supported entries from Honda, Kawasaki, Suzuki and Yamaha. Against fierce competition from Bridgestone, Dunlop shod Yamaha riders finished first and road launched the latest in a long line of passenger and 4x4 tyres. Whincup took the lead of the 161-lap race at the first pit stop, and with Lowndes was just about dominant for the remainder of the race, enjoying good fuel economy and fast pace from their to return an historic result. They follow in the footsteps of Brock, who shared with Larry Perkins to take a hat trick of victories at the Mount Panorama track in , and Brock again with Jim Richards in Despite their pace, Lowndes and Whincup had a fight to the chequered flag as Lowndes fended off Murphy to the line. Lowndes and Murphy had contact on the first lap, Murphy pitting with a bent steering arm while Lowndes had damaged the tyre, a problem only discovered by the team at his first pit stop when they realised it was on the verge of coming off Nakasuga won Dunlop's first title since 2003 second in the 2008 championship, giving Dunlop its first series win since As has been the case in MotoGP this year, many of the events had wet practice or a wet race, but Dunlop showed fully competitive in both conditions enabling Katsuyuki Nakasuga to ease to a 17-point championship winning margin ahead of Noboyuki Ohsaki, with the Bridgestone shod Kawasaki of the very experienced Akira Yanagawa third overall. Supermoto World Championship - Consistency throughout the 16 individual races brought Heimer the S1 title. The German KTM rider finished 32 points clear of Thierry van den Bosch and Ivan Lazzarini who tied on points for second. Adrien Chareyre of France, who won the S1 title in 2007, switched to the S2 class won the World title for the Husqvqarna squad. The Supermoto World Championship is run exclusively on Dunlop, the series acting as showcase for the Dunlop Sportmax Mutant developed specially for this increasingly popular type of bike. International GT Open Richard Lietz and Gianluca Roda moved into the lead having won at Monza, in their Autorlando Porsche. Rivals Andrea Montermini and Maceratesi had another zero point score in their Ferrari. Lowndes and Whincup were kings of the hill for the third time for Ford the car at any moment! James Courtney finished on the podium for the third straight year after sharing his Ford with David Besnard. Courtney led the opening stages of the race before Besnard ran out of grip and dropped back. The same problem hit the Ford Performance Racing Falcon of Winterbottom and Steve Richards, but their problems were nothing compared to the Holden factory teams. Craig Baird was tapped into a spin in one of the HRT Holdens shared with Glenn Seton, but Tander failed to make the most of his pole position when he crept over the line, and stalled. He, with Mark Skaife, recovered the lost time to run just outside the top ten when Skaife ran wide and hit a wall. British Touring Car Champion Fabrizio Giovanardi struggled to match the race pace of his Australian counterparts in the Holden he shared with Marc Hynes. 4

5 DUNLOP MOTORSPORT RESULTS AND POINTS, 2008 Championship positions 125cc after 16 rounds 1 Mike DI MEGLIO 248 points 3 Gabor TALMACSI Simone CORSI Stefan BRADL Nicolas TEROL Joan OLIVE Bradley SMITH Sandro CORTESE Pol ESPARGARO Scott REDDING 97 Championship positions 250cc after 15 rounds 1 Marco SIMONCELLI 256 points 2 Alvaro BAUTISTA Mika KALLIO Alex DEBON Yuki TAKAHASHI Hector BARBERA Hiroshi AOYAMA Mattia PASINI Julian SIMON Thomas LUTHI 102 Results, Supercheap Auto Bathurst Lowndes/Whincup (Ford) 161 laps 6h26m00s 2. Greg Murphy/Jason Richards (Holden) Besnard/Courtney (Ford) Richards/Winterbottom (Ford) Brad Jones/Max Wilson (Holden) Davison/Johnson (Ford) Dean Canto/Luke Youlden (Ford) Jack Perkins/Nathan Pretty (Holden) Jason Bright/Adam Macrow (Ford) Fabian Coulthard/Alex Davison (Ford) 161 Drivers' round points, Bathurst 1. Lowndes/Whincup (Ford) Greg Murphy/Jason Richards (Holden) Besnard/Courtney (Ford) Richards/Winterbottom (Ford) Brad Jones/Max Wilson (Holden) Davison/Johnson (Ford) Dean Canto/Luke Youlden (Ford) Jack Perkins/Nathan Pretty (Holden) Jason Bright/Adam Macrow (Ford) Fabian Coulthard/Alex Davison (Ford) 156 Drivers points, Australian V8 Supercars 1. Jamie Whincup 2, Mark Winterbottom 2, Garth Tander 2, Craig Lowndes 1, Will Davison 1, Steven Richards 1, James Courtney 1, Rick Kelly 1, Steven Johnson 1, Russell Ingall 1,464 DTM Round 10, Results, Le Mans 1. Mattias Ekstrom (Audi) 41 laps 2. Paul di Resta (Mercedes) s 3. Alexandre Premat (Audi) s 4. Gary Paffett (Mercedes) s 5. Bernd Schneider (Mercedes) s 6. Timo Scheider (Audi) s 7. Bruno Spengler (Mercedes) s 8. Tom Kristensen (Audi) s 9 Mike Rockenfeller (Audi) s 10. Jamie Green (Mercedes) s DTM Championship positions after 10 rounds 1. Timo Scheider 65 points 2. Paul di Resta Mattias Ekstrom Jamie Green Bruno Spengler Martin Tomczyk Bernd Schneider Tom Kristensen Gary Paffett Alexandre Premat 10 For further information: Jean-Felix Bazelin, General Manager, Motorsport, EU, jean_felix_bazelin@dunlop-tires.com Jeremy Ferguson, International Motorsport Manager, jeremy_ferguson@goodyear.com Gary Wassell, Manager, Car Motorsport, EU, gary_wassell@dunloptyres.com Stephen Male, Manager, Motorcycle Motorsport EU, stephen_male@dunloptyres.com Jason Dee, Sales and Product Manager Motorcycle EU, jaydee@goodyear.com Paul Bryant, Key Account Manager - Car Motorsport EU, paulthomas_bryant@goodyear.com Dunlop Motorsport Division, Dunlop Tyres Ltd, Fort Dunlop, Birmingham, B24 9QT Tel: fax: ; motorsport@dunloptyres.com Produced by Mico Agency Limited,