Due out early next year, Dunlop’s new GP Racer D212 treaded tyre has already been impressing riders, after it took victory at a prestigious French Supersport event on it’s race debut.
Rather than conducting testing in private, Dunlop has made a very public spectacle on occasion of putting the new rubber through it’s paces. This included using prototypes at the 12-Hours of Portimao and 24-Hours of Barcelona, and final spec pre-production tyres at the Bol d’Or in France.
The final public test saw Lucas Mahias aboard his GMT94 Yamaha, taking an emphatic double victory in the Supersport class of the French Superbike Championship.
Dunlop’s Technology Director, Sebastien Montet, explained the rationale for such public testing:
“We had conducted thousands of miles of track and road testing in addition to many hours of simulations. But there is nothing quite like a real race situation to gauge the performance, durability and consistency of a new tyre in the heat of intense competition. We have proven many of the GP Racer D212’s new technological features in our race tyres, and towards the end of the validation process we chose to fit the full final product to championship contending bikes”
The GP Racer D212 features several Dunlop technologies proven at the highest levels of racing:
- A new Multi-Tread compound which improves durability and warm-up time, whilst also giving more outright grip.
- The revolutionary NTEC system, which allows pressure tuning for optimum road or track performance.
- Newly developed front and rear tyre profile to for a more agile ride and increased rider confidence.
The new tyre will be available in one front size and four rear sizes in early 2017.
