Pirelli
– which this year celebrates
its first centenary of
Motorsport activities -
will accompany the Itala
in its new challenge: a
revival of an all-Italian
epic
of
technology and tradition
100
year-old
tyre design hand-made by
Pirelli technicians
for
this special occasion
Pirelli will also equip
the support vehicles on
the raid due to depart
on 20 July and finish on
20 September inPeking.
15
thousand kilometres on the
roads of Europe and Asia
Milan,
July 2007. From
Paris to Peking with the
Itala and the same tyres
as a hundred years ago,
hand-made for the occasion
by the Pirelli engineers
and technicians who this
year are celebrating the
centenary of the firm’s
involvement in motorsport
(encl.). Pirelli’s
successful history on road
and track throughout the
world in fact began in
1907 with the Itala driven
by Scipione Borghese that
as the contemporary reports
make clear beat its rivals
thanks above all to its
tyres.
A hundred
years later Pirelli and the
Itala 45 HP are back together
again and heading to China
on an epic journey under the
sign of Italian technology.
The tyres accompanying the
Itala on the frequently unsurfaced
roads of Europe and Asia have
been produced in Pirelli’s
Turkish plant and are identical
in terms of the carcass and
tread pattern to those of a
hundred years ago. However,
they now boast tougher, safer
compounds born out of the research
conducted by the Milanese company
which has always been the car
makers’ supplier of choice
for their most exclusive and
innovative performance models.
Pirelli
Tyre SpA – Press Office
Viale
Sarca, 222 – 20126 Milano –
Italy – phone/fax +39 02 644245407-33060
/ +39 02 6440 45407 - www.pirellityre.com
Moreover,
all the tyres produced for
the Itala will be equipped
with a special conservation
system designed for the occasion
by Pirelli’s engineers and
capable of maintaining unaltered
performance and safety characteristics
even for the spares during
the long journey.
Pirelli’s
participation in the Paris-Peking
2007 actually goes beyond the
provision of tyres for the
Itala. The
company will also be equipping
the Iveco support vehicles
involved in the venture.
After
all, for over hundred years
the history of Pirelli tyres
has been the history of the
automobile itself, the core
business of a brand founded
in 1872 that has been manufacturing
tyres since the late 19th century
and which is today a market
leader in terms of technological
innovation and performance.
The “Ercole” that equipped
the first cars on the roads
dates from 1901, while the
“Milano” bicycle tyres were
already available in 1890.
Six years later, the Peking-Paris
of 1907 saw Pirelli enter
the motorsport sphere in
which it has been a protagonist
on two and four wheels, on
road and track, consolidated
over the years ever since
in the hands by the likes
of Nuvolari, Ascari and Fangio.
The
Paris-Peking 2007 starts
on 20 July from Place de
la Concorde (where the original
raid ended 100 years ago)
and is due to arrive in the
Chinese capital on 20 September.
The Itala, star of the Turin
Motor Museum, has been restored
for the occasion and will
cover the 15 thousand kilometres
of the original itinerary across
Europe and Asia, taking in
the principal capitals of the
two continents.
Pirelli
tyres are marketed in Oman
by their authorized sole distributor
General Trading Enterprises
LLC an OTE group of company
with strong distribution and
service network spread across
Oman.
Milan,
July 2007- Pirelli’s
association with motor
racing goes back to the
very first years of the
firm. By the end of the
19th century Giovanbattista
Pirelli had already supplied
tyres to motorcycle racers,
but the true starting point
– when car tyres came into
the picture – was the famous
1907 Peking-Paris marathon
won by Prince Scipione
Borghese with the Itala.
That
win now dates back a century
and ever since Pirelli has
constantly been involved in
racing all over the world.
In the 1920s it teamed up with
another high-profile Milanese
firm and together they dominated
the contemporary Grand Prix
scene with the extraordinary
Alfa P2 driven by Antonio Ascari,
Giuseppe Campari, as well as
by Gastone Brilli Peri, the
winner in 1925 of the first
world championship for Formula
1 before F1 became widely known
as such. Pirelli then made
its mark in road competitions,
enjoying repeated success in
the Mille Miglia, again with
Alfa Romeo, though it also
recorded outstanding results
with other makes, such as the
OM and the Lancia models.
Success
was not long in coming in the
post-1945 period, both with
Alfa Romeo – a longstanding
and continuing partnership
that embraces mass-production
models, as seen at the Paris
Motor Show where Pirelli tyres
graced all models on the Alfa
stand – and also with the Ferrari,
then still a relative newcomer,
and the restlessly enterprising
Maserati.
1950s:
four F1 World titles with
Alfa Romeo and Ferrari
With
the Alfa Romeo 158 and 159
Pirelli claimed the first two
F1 World titles thanks to Turin
driver Nino Farina and to Juan-Manuel
Fangio (in 1950 and 1951 respectively).
It then extended its unbeaten
run over the next two years
with the 4-cylinder Ferrari
500 and Alberto Ascari, a towering
F1 World Champion both in 1952
(six wins in the six events
he competed in) and in 1953.
In 1954
Pirelli tyres were mounted
on the Ferrari 375 MM Plus
driven by Trintignant and Gonzalez
that won Le Mans 24 Hours.
Pirelli followed this up supplying
ultra high-performance tyres
for a very wide range of competitions.
These included the Carrera
Panamericana, the Mille Miglia,
the Grand Prix races, and the
more testing and prestigious
endurance events such as the
Sebring 12-Hour Race, won in
1957 by the Maserati 450S driven
by Behra Fangio.
1957
was also notable as the year
when Pirelli took its first
beak from involvement in Formula
1 racing. It marked its temporary
farewell with a parting outright
victory, gained by the Vanwall
driven by Stirling Moss at
Monza.
Rallying:
wins for Pirelli on
mixed road surfaces
The next
decade saw Pirelli debut in
rally racing, then increasingly
ubiquitous and destined to
be arena in which it would
always be a leading performer.
An almost non-stop contributor
to the World Rally Championship
since its inception thirty
odd years ago, Pirelli has
garnered as many as one hundred
and forty successes, stretching
from the 1973 Rally in Poland
won by a Fiat Abarth 124 (Warmbold-Todt)
to the 2005 Great Britain Rally
in which a Subaru Impreza WRC
claimed first place (Solberg-Mills).
Other
successes certainly deserving
of mention include the unbelievable
victory by Markku Alen in the
1984 Tour de Corse, in which
the Finn, in a rear-drive coupé-style
Lancia Rally 037, outran more
sophisticated, powerful, and
highly-rated 4x4 models, the
spate of wins by Sandro Munari
in the Lancia Stratos at the
Montecarlo Rally (from 1975
to 1977), the victory of Stig
Blomqvist at “Sanremo” ‘83,
and the one hundredth win by
Pirelli in world rally racing
with the Subaru Impreza WRC
driven by Burns and Reid (1997).
Mention
may fittingly be made here
of the two most recent successes
by Italian drivers in the World
Championship: Franco Cunico,
first at Sanremo in a Ford
Escort Cosworth in 1993, and
Piero Liatti, who in a Subaru
Impreza was the first to gain
prominence in a World Championship
event driving a WRC model -
equipped, naturally, with Pirelli
P Zero tyres.
1980s:
Pirelli comes to the fore
in a wide variety of championships
Meantime,
following its success in endurance
races with Lancia (which won
World titles in 1980 and 1981),
Pirelli resumed its involvement
with Formula 1 and Formula
2. At that time the Pirelli
P7 radial was the most advanced
racing tyre its technical people
had developed.
With
that tyre Eddie Cheever beat
the field in his Osella-BMW
in the first race of the F2
European Championship at Silverstone.
The following year, having
won the European tournament
in the Toleman, Pirelli was
preparing for its inevitable
move into Formula 1. This was
duly accomplished in 1981 with
the cars of the British team.
Subsequently, Pirelli F1 tyres
were chosen by Osella, Arrows,
Fittipaldi, Minardi, as well
as by renowned teams such as
Lotus, Brabham, and Benetton.
Indeed, Brabham presented Pirelli
with its first win, in France
in 1985 with Piquet driving,
twenty-eight years after Moss,
and Benetton brought it victory
in 1986 with Gerhard Berger.
It was Benetton, too, that
secured Pirelli what was its
last win in F1, when Piquet
came first in Canada in 1991.
Present
time: major victories still
abound
More
recently, in addition to rallying,
Pirelli has turned its attention
to events for prototypes and
GT cars. In the first category
Pirelli tyres were instrumental
in Oldsmobile and Ferrari claiming
success at significant endurance
venues such as the 24 Hours
of Daytona and in Imsa titles
in the mid 1990s.
In GT racing,
the efforts of Pirelli have
certainly not gone unrewarded.
In 2005 and 2006 the Pirelli
P Zero tyres notched up a
long list of victories and
championship wins, with victory
in the Le Mans Endurance
Series 2005 thanks to the
Ferrari 550 Maranello of
the Italia-BMS team followed
by a repeat win in 2006 with
the Porsche 996 GT3-RSR of
AutOrlando Sport. At the
same time, in the GT1 class
of the FIA-GT Championship,
the Maserati MC12 provided
success for Pirelli in the
2005 and 2006 team categories
and, most notably, in the
2006 drivers’ championship
with Bertolini-Bartels. With
the Ferrari 430 GTC, Pirelli
was also triumphant in the
GT2 class, with victories
in the team categories (thanks
to the AF Corse team) and
among the drivers with Jaime
Melo, top driver on the Italian
team. Put through their
paces likewise in America,
the P Zero Racing tyres scored
wins with Aston Martin DBR9s
in the American Le Mans Series,
triumphing in the Imsa Cup
and enabling Stéphane Sarrazin,
the lead team member for
Aston Martin, to qualify
as the best new driver of
2006.
Pirelli
P Zero Racing tyres are supplied
on an exclusive basis for Ferrari
Challenge events in Italy,
Europe and North America, as
well as for the Trofeo Maserati
in Brazil and the GT4 international
championship – a telling sign
of Pirelli’s key position in
Grand Touring racing
