Which tyres for which cars?
The pre-season test at Le Castellet, France, on March 28-29, along with the first two rounds of the 2014 FIA World Endurance Cham- pionship (FIA WEC) at Silverstone, Great Britain, and Spa-Francor- champs, Belgium, have revealed the competitiveness of the tyres developed by MICHELIN Motorsport for its partners.
o fewer than 12 grams lighter (per set of four), these new tyres are new this Michelin tyres deliver the same level of “ year,” confirms Jé- performance as last year’s solutions, the rôme MONDAIN, target being to enable quadruple stints the manager of at Le Mans with no effect on lap times. MICHELINN Motorsport’s endurance racing Three different basic types are available : programmes. “Michelin has effectively slicks, rain tyres and hybrid tyres, with revolutionised its range for the 2014 FIA the latter designed especially for damp WEC and for Le Mans. Thanks to the tech- or drying conditions. nical data provided by our partners du- The slicks come in a choice of two ring the development of their respective compounds, SOFT and MEDIUM, while at cars, we were able to carry out thousands the same time covering two temperature of computer simulations before running windows, termed HIGH and LOW. and fine-tuning our new tyres on the There are also two types of rain tyre: race track with a view to optimising the ‘WET’, for light rain, and ‘FULL WET’, for different car/tyre packages. ”The number heavier rain and/or standing water. of innovations and modifications MICHE- The size of Michelin’s latest LM P1 LIN’s engineers introduced over the win- endurance racing tyres is now identical ter break points to how fruitful this work front and rear, i.e. 31/71-18, instead of proved. 36/71-18 (front) and 37/71-18 (rear) pre- viously. All-new MICHELIN tyres for Michelin’s LM P1 partner teams in the the LM P1 prototypes 2014 FIA World Endurance Championship (FIA WEC) are AUDI Sport Team Joest, The latest, technologically-advanced PORSCHE Team, TOYOTA Racing and RE- tyres for the LM P1 prototypes have been BELLION Racing. extensively redesigned in order to equip MICHELIN Motorsport has worked closely cars which themselves have undergone with all its LM P1 partners to develop so- substantial changes compared with re- lutions that match the specific characte- cent seasons. Despite being five or six ristics of their respective cars as closely as centimetres narrower and eight kilo- possible. A stronger presence for Michelin’s two new partners at Le MICHELIN in the LM P2 class. Mans this year are SMP Racing (two ORE- CA03-NISSANs), SEBASTIEN LOEB Racing This year, the regulations which co- (ORECA03-NISSAN), OAK Racing-Team ver the LM P2 class do not permit the Asia (LIGIER JS P2-HPD) and LARBRE Com- use of so-called ‘confidential’ tyres. The pétition (MORGAN-JUDD). latter frequently pack new technologies and are recovered by Michelin after each New MICHELIN rain tyres race in order to protect the secrets they for the LM GTE cars contain. This year, in LM P2, they have been replaced by new solutions which In LM GTE Pro and LM GTE AM, deliver the same level of performance Michelin’s partners benefit from new WET without making use of trade secrets, a and FULL WET rain tyres this season to co- significant achievement by MICHELIN ver track conditions ranging from damp Motorsport’s engineers who succeeded to extremely wet. MICHELIN Motorsport’s in upgrading performance thanks to the engineers have worked hard to increase lessons learned in 2013. These tyres are the efficiency of its compounds and tread now in the public domain yet feature patterns in order to deliver enhanced wa- technologies that were still being tested ter-clearance capacity and grip. a matter of months ago. The sizes used by the LM GTE runners Like last year, the sizes of the tyres are 30/68-18 (front) and 31/71-18 (rear). used by the LM P2 prototypes are 30/65- Michelin’s partners also have a choice of 18 (front) and 31/71-18 (rear). three types of slick (different compounds The range is made up of two types of and temperature windows). slick (‘Low Temperature’ MEDIUM and MICHELIN Motorsport will have 1,500 MEDIUM), plus two types of rain tyre tyres for its LM P1 partners at Le Mans, (WET and FULL WET). plus 1,000 LM P2 tyres and 4,500 LM GTE Pro and AM tyres, for a grand total of New partners 7,000 tyres. Its staff at the 2014 Le Mans After returning to LM P2 prototypes 24 Hours will comprise 100 people: (50 in 2013, initially with PeCom Racing, fitters, 30 Technical Team Advisors, 10 Michelin has invested further in the class development engineers and 10 manage- this year. ment staff).