Quote:
| Originally Posted by mark 999 No pressure Kev, as I expect it's not ultimately your call but do you have any idea when a tyre decision will be made ?
I have a couple of decent offers on the Dunlops, if I buy in bulk, but knowing my luck I'd end up with 10 sets of Dunlops just as you announce Pirelli ! |
Thing is Mark, at some point in 2014 Dunlop intend to discontinue the tyre we are currently using.
If they can't supply tyres to see out the race season it becomes a problem.
If they intend to replace them with an improved tyre as they did last season when the D212 replaced the D211 range of race tyres, then we need a change over date and assurance that there will enough sets of tyres available for the whole grid
If Dunlop do upgrade the tyre they are hardly likely to tell us ahead of any press announcement and these sort of things often get announced around the time of the Docklands show.
Our contact at Dunlop is currently trying to find out if it's possible to secure enough of the existing tyre to supply the DD series for the whole year.
I presume this would be based on last years known sales figures, but in 2014 if we do an extra round we would need to increase that figure by 12.5%.
We had this issue with Pirelli a few years back, we had been using the H-rated Diablo for several seasons and then they withdrew it and supplied us with the Z-rated Rosso, which was to stiff and to hard a compound, before the season was even over they had brought out the Rosso2 but we were stuck with the Rosso, hence our change to Dunlop the following season.
I missed the NEC bike show due to work so also missed an oppotunity to have face to face discussions with people from Dunlop