V8 Supercars to trial super-soft tyres for 2016 season
V8 Supercars and its tyre supplier Dunlop will evaluate the introduction of a super-soft compound in 2016, during tests in the coming months
Softer option compounds have been used in various forms in the series since 2009, and their presence this year was beefed up following a sequence of timid Saturday sprint races on the control tyre at the start of the season.
Three new tyre compounds will be tested, with a view to introducing a super-soft option next year, pending final race formats.
"The plan is to test a couple of different compounds of tyre and then report back to the [V8 Supercars] Commission on the performance of those tyres," V8 Supercars technical director David Stuart told the series' website.
"So we will do a qualifying run, a race run on them and evaluate the speed and the degradation of the tyre and report that back to the Commission.
"That, I guess, will all be taken into the mix of what happens as far as a tyre.
"I can't really say anything about change of race formats... but I imagine they would take the tyres into consideration for what they want to do."
While details of the tests such as the venue, dates and participating teams and drivers are yet to be finalised, the compounds to be sampled have already been produced by Dunlop.
"There are a couple of different compounds that are coming from Japan which are variants of the soft tyre compound of the current soft tyre," Stuart said.
"What we'll be looking at is the behaviour and the performance characteristics of the tyre.
"And that'll be tied into the ultimate one lap qualifying pace of the tyre, and then how the tyre performs over a simulated race run."
Be part of the Autosport community
Join the conversationShare Or Save This Story
Subscribe and access Autosport.com with your ad-blocker.
From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.
Top Comments