Mikkelsen and Pirelli at work in Sardinia

Earth the first day and asphalt the second: this was the program for Pirelli Motorsport and Andreas Mikkelsen earlier this week for the effective start of the 2021 tire tests for the Italian-Norwegian tandem.

L’ancien pilote Volkswagen et Hyundai, confirmé pour être le pilote de développement de la gamme du manufacturier transalpin, a pu se glisser dans le baquet de la Citroën C3 WRC operated by Saintéloc Racing on behalf of Pirelli.

The work of these first two days consisted of establishing a baseline for future work sessions, both with the Pirelli Scorpion tires for dirt and the P Zero dedicated to asphalt.

“This is going to be particularly important when it comes to land, analysis Terenzio Testoni, activity manager rally at Pirelli. In the WRC, around 80% of events take place on gravel. Fortunately, the roads we test on – which were previously used on the Rally Italy – are some of the most demanding in the world.

It is important that we work methodically in order to measure our progress accurately. We start from the base of a proven and reliable tire, then we will run a series of prototypes to see where we can add performance and reliability.

The task is particularly delicate in rallying, because unlike on a circuit, the road and grip conditions are constantly changing. But we will return to these roads in the future, to see how the modifications we make to the prototype tires improve their performance. »

The SS covered by the Rally Italy also provide an ideal basis for comparison with the previous performances carried out by the WRC since 2017.