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Pirelli says its new Sottozero studded tires have proven their worth at the World Rally Championship’s only all-snow event – Rally Norway – which took place near the Olympic city of Lillehammer this past weekend.
Five-time World Rally Champion Sebastien Loeb, who claimed his latest title on Pirelli tires last year, won in Norway after a close battle with the Pirelli-equipped Ford Focus RS WRC of Mikko Hirvonen throughout all three days of the race.
In the past, spiked snow tires for world championship winter rallies were configured in a special narrow size designed to bite through soft snow to the harder surfaces underneath. This year, the company’s tungsten-tipped Sottozero winter tires – each containing 384 studs – were designed to fit on standard 15-inch gravel wheel rims.
Claiming his 49th career win, Loeb observes that “these were classic winter conditions and we had very good grip from the Pirelli Sottozeros. Sometimes, when you could see the ice, it was hard to believe just how much grip there was from the tires.”
Despite being used on surfaces too slippery for most people to stand up on, Pirelli’s tires performed perfectly in the demanding conditions, with none of the crews reporting problems with stud-loss or punctures, according to Pirelli rally manager Mario Isola.
“We’re delighted that our new snow tire has made such a competitive and problem-free debut in these extremely wintry conditions, where temperatures were sometimes close to minus 30 degrees Celsius,” says Isola. “Although this tire is of a different design to our asphalt and gravel rally tires, it is still closely related to Pirelli’s road car products – underlining the fact that motorsport provides us with the ultimate research and development tool for our high-performance and all-weather road tires.”
Pirelli also exclusively supplies tires to the Production Car World Rally Championship, which got underway on during the Rally Norway festivities. The showroom-class category was won by Swedish driver Patrik Sandell at the wheel of a Skoda Fabia S2000, the first time that such a vehicle has won a round of the championship.
Using the same Sottozero tires as the World Rally Cars, Sandell took a commanding win from local driver Eyvind Brynildsen in a Mitsubishi Lancer, “highlighting the versatility of the Sottozero rubber,” Isola says.
For more information, visit www.pirelli.com.
