Pirelli embarked on its 2021 World Rally Championship campaign this week with two days of private tyre testing in Sardinia: the first day devoted to gravel and the second day on asphalt.
At the wheel of Pirelli’s uniquely-liveried Citroen C3 WRC test car will be Norway’s Andreas Mikkelsen, co-driven by his compatriot Anders Jaeger. The former Volkswagen, Citroen and Hyundai factory driver will be spearheading the development of the latest-generation Pirelli Scorpion tyres for gravel and P Zero tyres for asphalt, which will be exclusively supplied to the World Rally Championship from 2021 to 2024.
Although the test programme has been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic, Pirelli is still on course to deliver its new tyres for next year’s championship, which will kick off with the world-famous Rallye Monte-Carlo from January 18-24.
Overseeing the test programme is Pirelli’s rally activity manager Terenzio Testoni, leading a select team of researchers on the ground in Sardinia developing the tyres, backed up by many more experts at Pirelli’s research and development facility in Milan.
Pirelli’s objective from these first tests will be to establish a baseline and assess how the increased power and downforce of the latest World Rally Cars affect tyre wear, performance and degradation.