Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SP for the new Ducati 1199 Panigale

Abu Dhabi (United Arab Emirates), 13 February 2012 – Yas Marina Circuit in Abu Dhabi: 440 brand new Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa tires ready to devour the asphalt together with 28 Ducati 1199 Panigales. After the presentation at the end of January of the new P Zero tires for the 2012 Formula 1™ season, after a few weeks the Pirelli men return to the Yas Marina circuit in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, this time to support the press launch of the new super sports car from Ducati, the 1199 Panigale, which will soon be available on the market with i new Pirelli Diablo Supercorsa SP (Sport Production) as original equipment tyres. The latest additions to the Diablo family, presented as a world premiere at EICMA 2011 in the first Pzero Moda flagship store inaugurated last September in Milan, dress the Italian red fury in measures 120/70 ZR17 for the front and 200/55 ZR17 for the rear and will also be used in the version starting this year in SC compound (Special Compound) exclusively by Superstock 1000 FIM Cup riders.

The press launch of the 1199 Panigale underway in recent days saw two exceptional test riders, the three times World Superbike Champion Troy Bayliss and Vehicle Technical Director of Ducati Andrea Forni, who had the opportunity to test the high-performance Diablo Supercorsa both in the SP race replica version also suitable for daily use on the road and in the SC compound version which this year will be used by all the riders of the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup. Together with the riders Pirelli and other Ducati testers, the two gurus of the Ducati world went lap after lap thoroughly enjoying the spectacular performance of the Panigale with Diablo Supercorsa tyres.

“Simply excellent tyres”, declared the enthusiastic Australian who won the Superbike World Championship in 2001, 2006 and 2008 on the bikes of the Borgo Panigale company.“If those in the SP version won me over for the fluid neutrality that accompanies every manoeuvre, even the most extreme, those in the SC2 compound brought me back to the most total racing sensations. I know Pirelli quality well but this time they managed to amaze me. Congratulations Pirelli!”

Particularly appreciated is the extraordinary ability to attack corners when braking with extreme neutrality until the apex point is reached, guaranteeing grip and an absolute level of stability in the subsequent acceleration phases. Features that Troy Bayliss was able to exploit by performing spectacular test runs both on the standard version of the bike equipped with Diablo Supercorsa SP tires and on the kit version with the SC2 version.

And the opinion of engineer Forni confirms what Bayliss declared: “The new Diablo Supercorsa SP in this 200/55 version are undoubtedly the best street legal racing tires currently in the world and I must say the best I have ever had the opportunity to try in my career”.

Pirelli has decided to gradually introduce this new tire into the top racing world with only the SC2 compound version which will be used in the Superstock 1000 FIM Cup starting from this year and only the 120/70 ZR17 sizes for the front and 200/ 55 ZR17 for the rear supplied with the 1199 Panigale as original equipment and already available on the market as a replacement.

At the beginning of 2013 Pirelli will expand the SP road range with the sizes 180/55, 190/50 and 190/55 for the rear and will also make the SC0 and SC1 compounds and the sizes 150/60, 160/60 available for the SC version, 180/55, 180/60, 190/55 for the rear and 110/70 for the front to extend the use of the new tire also to the national championships.

Il General Director of Ducati Motor Holding, Claudio DomenicaliSaid: “The journalists who tested the bike are very satisfied with the character and performance of the 1199 Panigale. Certainly, great credit must also be ascribed to the tires that Pirelli developed in close collaboration with Ducati. The new Diablo Supercorsa SPs showed very high and constant levels of performance and driving even in the difficult conditions represented by a demanding circuit and high test temperatures such as that of Yas Marina. Difficult conditions which, together with the particular grain size of the asphalt, made the quality of the tires even more evident. This is another confirmation of the great effectiveness of the collaboration between Ducati and Pirelli in setting increasingly higher quality levels together.”

And it is precisely as proof of this excellent collaboration between the Borgo Panigale company and the Pirelli research and development center that last November 7th Pirelli received the prestigious Best Product Innovation Award, an award that Ducati assigns to the most innovative supplier of the year, for the excellent work carried out in the development of the Scorpion Trail tire for the Ducati Multistrada and the Diablo Rosso II in the new 240/45 size for the Ducati Diavel.

“The new Diablo Supercorsa SP is certainly the most high-performance racing tire for road use ever designed by Pirelli”, ha sottolineato Uberto Thun-Hohenstein, Senior Vice President of Pirelli's Motorcycle Business Unit “and the signals we are receiving from Abu Dhabi are confirmation of the excellent work carried out by our research and development team which has managed to improve a product, the Diablo Supercorsa, which to date has achieved 65 victories in 18 countries in the national championships and international non-single tire. We are also very proud of the solid and long-lasting technological and development partnership with Ducati which, after the tires for Multistrada, Diavel and Streetfighter 848, is also giving us great satisfaction with this new product, confirming Pirelli's leadership in the premium segment and its constant commitment to always invest in innovation".

The new Diablo Super Corsa SC in compound and intended for competitions only, it is in fact the evolution of Pirelli's most successful supersport racing product into an even more high-performance tire designed to maintain precise trajectories in a straight line as well as in curves and capable of offering a profile that favors handling, a lower consumption when used on the track, unrivaled grip and unprecedented racing behaviour.

In the road version used by the 1199 Panigale, the Diablo Super Corsa SP it is a concentrate of technology that exploits the experience and racing heritage gained by Pirelli in its role as sole supplier of the Superbike World Championship since 2004, according to an ideal procedure for transferring sports technology to high-performance road products. This tire for road use designed for professional drivers and motorcyclists who have a sporty driving style on the road but also love the track, offers racing performance typical of products for exclusive use on the track, thus allowing the user to have a single product ultra high performance that can be used on the road or track without the need to make compromises. Compared to the compound version, the Diablo Supercorsa SP, to better adapt to road use, offers a dual-compound rear tire and more regular wear in favor of mileage.

Both versions of the Diablo Supercorsa (SP and SC) feature a new profile at the front and rear which, compared for example to the 190/55 version, is higher with approximately 2 mm more cord and approximately 4 mm more central diameter for greater support during braking and to make driving more intuitive and precise in maintaining the trajectory. In particular, the new 200/55 size is the widest ever mounted on a road Ducati Superbike and the rear tire has been totally redesigned and developed to increase the contact area, grip and speed of descent into lean. The agreement of the front and rear profiles therefore guarantees greater handling and agility.

The rear measurement 200/55 of Diablo Superrace SP use a solution bi-compound, to offer both an increase in mileage and greater grip when leaning. EPT (Enhanced Patch Technology) has also made it possible to use a 23% more soft compound in the shoulder area (compared to the previous version of Diablo Supercorsa SP) which now represents 33% of the tread extension on each side, thus guaranteeing greater grip starting from mid-lean. Finally, new polymers used for the SP compound provide rapid warm up and constant grip in all conditions.

The performance of the compounds is further strengthened by the new and aggressive one drawing of the single element tread, which is repeated six times on the tire surface. The result is that the“bare” area of ​​slick shoulders is 24% wider compared to the previous Diablo Supercorsa, thus increasing the contact area and grip. The long longitudinal grooves, which from the central area of ​​the profile reach the shoulder of the tyre, ensure regular wear even in the most severe use and help drain the water deposited on the asphalt.

The solutions adopted for the compound (23% larger soft compound area) and for the tread (greater extension of the slick area on the shoulders) guarantee a massive increase in grip and traction, allowing the motorcycle to maintain a greater speed in folding phase. However, this also made it necessary to use one new structure, derived directly from those used in competitions and capable of offering greater resistance to deformation. This is why the rear tire of the Diablo Super Corsa SP now presents one carcass composed of an innovative high modulus fibre, patented by Pirelli and developed in WSBK, with a deformation index considerably lower than that of the fiber normally used in tires for road use. The result is one new carcass stiffer, both in the center and in the shoulder area, which offers greater resistance to the stresses created by aggressive corner entry or when there is early acceleration when the bend has not yet been completed. The new carcass helps the bike to obtain better behavior every time the weight shifts from the front to the rear and vice versa, a characteristic which is even more evident the more pronounced the lean angle.

The new Diablo Supercorsa SP finally allows the Customization of the tire via special adhesive labels, to be applied in dedicated areas on the sidewalls of the front and rear tyres, which anyone can create freely on the Pirelli website and receive directly at home (service available in Europe and Australia).