MEDIA INFORMATION
NASCAR Whelen Euro Series
Landmark victory for MICHELIN tyres in the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series
Thanks to Matthias LAUDA (DF1 Racing by 66), MICHELIN tyres achieved a world first at the weekend at the Tours Speedway, Tours, France, by winning the second race of the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series meeting in torrential rain.
The event – which formed part of the American Tours Festival programme – was the first ever NASCAR race to take place at an oval track in wet weather. Mathias LAUDA, son of the three-time Formula 1 world champion Niki LAUDA, overcame the delicate conditions to secure a spectacular victory.
The Austrian’s N°66 Chevrolet was equipped with MICHELIN P2E tyres (33/70-15) which enabled to him to attempt a sequence of memorable passing manoeuvres. With some 10 laps of the ‘MICHELIN 75’ remaining, he was fourth overall when he decided to pass two drivers round the outside to ease into second place. Shortly afterwards, he pulled off the same move to take the lead. These spectacular passes allowed him to win the race by a margin of 0.667s!
The moves were made possible by the confidence Mathias LAUDA had in his MICHELIN tyres: “I felt good in the rain and I got more and more confident. I tried to save my tyres in the first half of the race, which was a good decision because when I moved to the outside at the end I realised at once that I was faster than the guys ahead of me.”
Philippe MUSSATI, the manager of MICHELIN’s customer competition programmes, was delighted with the result: “The win of Mathias LAUDA and his team DF1 Racing by 66 was an historic one for a number of reasons. In addition to the victory itself, his MICHELIN P2E tyres fulfilled their mission to the letter and contributed to some outstanding lap times. In the rain, the fastest laps on these tyres were only one-and-a-half seconds short of the fastest laps posted in the dry.”
This landmark result is an illustration of the MICHELIN P2E rain tyre’s performance, consistency and safety, and further evidence of the benefit of the MICHELIN Total Performance concept when it comes to delivering qualities that are often believed to be irreconcilable.