After competing as one of three tyre suppliers to the Australian GT Championship in 2012, Pirelli’s Australian motorsport supplier Trofeo Motorsport has been granted the rights to become the control tyre supplier for the 2013 season, and the naming rights sponsor for the category for the next three years.
The opening round of the new season was within an existing framework for the annual Bathurst 12-Hour race. In this particular race Pirelli was admittedly not the sole tyre on the track; under Bathurst 12-Hour regulations some registered Australian GT entrants were able to run with other manufacturers tyres. Despite this competition, victory went to a Pirelli-shod car.
With the Italian tyre manufacturer now in its third year as the sole tyre supplier to Formula One, is there any flow down effect to categories like Australian GT? “I think Pirelli have built their product range up over many, many years around motorsport,” commented Wilson. “I think certainly with their current involvement with Formula One. Clearly it is a brand that is known, and they’re also associated with a range of top marques as original equipment – Ferrari, Lamborghini and Porsche to name a few, so I think it’s important for them to support Formula One, because it appeals to that end of the market. “They also support sports car racing all over the world, from the FIA GT Championships (GT1 and GT3), the Blancpain Endurance Series [on which much of the AGT rules are based], so Australian GT really completes that picture, and of course with the addition of Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge presented by Pirelli – we’ve pretty much covered the whole spectrum of sports car racing in Australia.
