Dunlop will introduce a new specification tyre in the British Touring Car Championship at Oulton Park, with the new ‘Dunlop Sport Maxx BTCC Medium’ tyre replacing the previous medium-spec rubber.
The new tyre has been some time in the making, having first been tested at Snetterton in 2014. The company are now preparing to introduce the tyre at this weekend’s fourth BTCC meeting of the year, having also tested it at the Brands Hatch and Donington Park pre-season test days.
The change in rubber is expected to improve stability under braking and provide greater consistency over a race distance.
The change was explained by Michael Butler, Dunlop’s BTCC Manager: “Even though we are the sole supplier, we are always looking to introduce new developments that can benefit the teams and the racing.
“The new tyre uses new materials that have been proven in our successful GT Endurance racing programmes and we decided that applying these new technologies would benefit the BTCC tyre.”
Butler added that there will be no changes to the championship’s soft tyre for the rest of the season.
“We did see a bigger than expected difference between the two tyres at the recent Donington race, but this was due to colder than expected track conditions,” he explained. “During the summer months, we expect the performance difference between the current Soft and the new Medium to be similar to 2014. We will consider applying the same material changes to the 2016 Soft tyre if we find it is necessary after analysing the results from this season.”
As previously, the medium tyre can be identified by the use of yellow and black Dunlop lettering on the sidewall, whilst the soft tyre can be identified by white Dunlop letters.