Dunlop became a partner to the MSA British Touring Car Championship in 2003, initially as tyre sole supplier and took over as title sponsor in 2005.
The BTCC is far from a new series to Dunlop – in the era before sole tyre supply, Dunlop was one of the most successful tyre manufacturers competing. In 1996, Dunlop in fact won every major touring car championship in the world with Audi as the partnership.
For Dunlop, the BTCC is about much more than track branding and supplying tyres – the events give the opportunity to engage with fans and show the crossover from the BTCC tyres to the Dunlop Sport Maxx road tyres that are fitted to hundreds of thousands of cars driving around the UK. Dunlop are always striving to make the next step forward in tyre performance
A new naming convention will help spectators to follow who is using which tyre. At all races (apart from Thruxton) the Sport Maxx Prime tyre will be used. This was formerly known as the Sport Maxx Medium and, as before, will be used by drivers in two of the three races at each event. This tyre will use a bright yellow sidewall logo
The learnings and technologies developed on track are directly cascaded in to Dunlop’s high performance Sport Maxx range that is available for the road.
Wet conditions add another little bit of spice to a circuit that already demands skill and precision from the drivers.
Switching to wet tyres has an enormous impact, because a wet tyre has to behave in the exact opposite way to a dry tyre. In 2017 Dunlop upgraded the ‘BluResponse Wet’ tyre to improve aquaplaning resistance with a revised tread pattern and the same 20mm width increase as the Sport Maxx Prime and Option dry tyres.
The learnings and technologies developed on track are directly cascaded in to Dunlop’s multi-award winning Sport BluResponse tyre available for the road that has achieved an A rating in the EU tyre label in both fuel efficiency and rolling resistance.
In one race at each event a ‘Sport Maxx Option’ tyre will be used. This will be either a softer or harder compound than the Prime.These will use a dark grey sidewall marking to help spectators differentiate them from the bright yellow sidewalls of the Sport Maxx Prime tyre.
Soft Compound: Brands Hatch, Oulton Park, Knockhill, Snetterton.
Hard Compound: Donington, Thruxton, Croft, Rockingham, Silverstone.
Dunlop is first to announce the tyre choices for each driver at 11.00am on each race day via its social media feeds. Thruxton is the only exception to this where all drivers use the Sport Maxx Option (Hard compound).
