Dunlop used the FIA GT Championship race at Donington to further develop new tyres and left the British circuit delighted with their performance. During the wet second qualifying session, Dunlop’s legendary expertise in the wet allowed them to set fastest time overall, and top two times in N-GT. The fortune continued with Tim Mullen and Jonathan Cocker finishing on the N-GT podium on their race debut with the Gruppe M Porsche while running Dunlop’s new FIA GT-spec tyres for the first time.
The race did not bring the hoped-for results overall, but the tyre company has gained vital information to further develop their rubber against rival manufacturers. “The Creation team had a few car problems, but were very happy with the performance of the Dunlop tyres around this circuit,” said Dunlop’s manager Graham Shuter. “We found that we could have double stinted them but we elected to change tyres at every stop because there was nothing for them to gain by leaving the rubber on.
“They qualified on full wets and the pole time was set on intermediate tyres, but we are very pleased with the performance of the wets in the afternoon session. Our wet tyres are quite simply the best out there.”
The RML Saleen of Tommy Erdos and Mike Newton put on a strong performance in the latter stages of the race, the Brazilian setting his fastest lap time, just one tenth off the fastest lap of the race on tyres that had run for 40 minutes. The team elected to use Dunlop’s latest specification rear tyre on its 600bhp Saleen S7R and Dunlop’s engineers were delighted that he was able to continue at a similar pace for the rest of the stint. The other car, of Chris Goodwin and Miguel Ramos was also able to lap consistently at a race-winning pace.
“We tried new rear tyres, and produced some magnificent results,” said Shuter. “We brought a new selection of compounds and with no time for set-up work due to the weather conditions, found them to be very good in race conditions. We are now looking forward to the next FIA GT race, which is the Spa 24-hours, with great anticipation.”
