Pirelli Sets New Record at Nurburgring-Nordschleife for Ninth Straight Year

Pirelli has been instrumental in helping set a new lap at Nurburgring-Nordschleife for the ninth straight year, continuing a tradition that it began in 2010. From that year onwards, every year, a car fitted with Pirelli tires has set a record and there have been eight records set so far at the track that is known to racing fans as ‘Green Hell’. This year, a Lamborghini Aventador SVJ which was fitted with P Zero Trofeo R, a tire that is suitable for road use as well set a lap record of 6m 44.97s. This is the second such record that a Lamborghini has achieved in the past three years. The previous record was established by the Aventador LP-750-4 SV, which achieved a time under the seven-minute mark, followed by the Huracan Performante (a record that was unbroken until September 2017).

The latest V12-powered Lamborghini model will be factory fitted with Pirelli P Zero Corsa tires as the standard fitment, while the P Zero Trofeo R tires that played such a crucial role in the record breaking attempt can be selected as optional equipment. Pirelli developed variants of both these tires specifically for the Aventador SVJ, working closely with the engineering team from Lamborghini engineers, the outcome of this close partnership being tires whose performance have been maximized by adapting the characteristics of the tires to enhance the performance of the vehicle.

One fact that the engineers kept in mind as a reference when they developed the tire was the lap time at the Nardo handling circuit in Italy. Here, the Aventador SVJ which was fitted with the new P Zero Corsa tires was able to shave off two seconds per lap when compared to the P Zero Corsa tires that were used for the previous Aventador SV. In the case of the new Lamborghini, the key barrier during the development process was to optimize the four-wheel drive system for four-wheel steering. The tires also had to guarantee a consistent rotation, for the optimal distribution of torque so that there is minimal stress on the Haldex clutch system.

The Nurburgring Nordschleife is one of the most popular races for those who are passionate about motorsports as well as for the leading automotive manufacturers in the who use this 20.6 kilometer track as a laboratory to refine their most performance-oriented models. Pirelli also uses the Nordschleife track to fine-tune the different variants of the P Zero tyres, which have now achieved as many as 1028 specific homologations, and are customized based on the requirements of manufacturers who are keen to ensure that their cars have tires that complement the performance of their models. Thus, every car ends up with its very own Pirelli P Zero tire, which can be easily recognized with a specific marking on the sidewall, like ‘L’ for Lamborghini.