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4th Overall For Dunlop At Le Mans!
Rollcentre Racing, Dunlop's main development partner in sportscar racing, finished a very strong 4th overall and first among privateer teams with their Judd-engined Pescarolo LMP1 in the Le Mans 24H held on the famous 13.6 Km road circuit outside Le Mans, France on June 16 and 17.
Watched by a record crowd of 250,902 spectators, the race started and finished in treacherous, ever-changing conditions. The first few hours featured localized and sometimes heavy rain showers which made tire choice particularly difficult, and the last two hours brought torrential rain so heavy that the race had to be 'neutralized' behind the safety car for 40 minutes.
Not surprisingly, every one of the tire options that Dunlop brought to the race were used, due to both the changing conditions and on the recommendation of Dunlop Motorsport's technical engineer dedicated to the Rollcentre team. There were slicks in two compounds, the softer of which was used during the cooler part of the night and was consistent enough to be left on the car for three fuel stints (a total of 2 hours 15 minutes). Intermediate light patterned wets, full wets and even the 'monsoon' wets were all put to good use.
Rollcentre Racing driver and team owner Martin Short was delighted with his team's fourth place finish: "This is more than we expected. It would be lovely to be up there on the podium, but this is really special for a private team. The Dunlop tires worked brilliantly. We had a really well-balanced car that worked really well on slicks, intermediates and wets. We have had great support from Dunlop, they have really pulled out all the stops to help us this weekend, and that shows in the result."
The race was dominated, as expected, by the diesel powered LMP1 prototypes from Audi and Peugeot. Although two of the three Audis retired following accidents, the third Audi finished 10 laps clear of Peugeot (returning to Le Mans after a 14 year absence). Despite more than 2 hrs and 20 minutes of the race being 'neutralized' behind the safety car, the winning car covered 5029 kms in the 24 hours at an average of 209 kmh, en route to recording Audi's 7th Le Mans victory since 2000.
Dunlop has 34 Le Mans victories, putting them way ahead of the other tire manufacturers. When combined with Goodyear, the total rises to 48!
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