Pirelli brings two new tyres to Barcelona

Following the two testing days on Thursday and Friday last week, the Barcelona-Catalunya Circuit, also known as Montmelò - from the name of the municipality in the province of Barcelona in which it is located, will host the second FIM Superbike World Championship round of the season, the first in Europe after the exciting Australian debut.

The riders in the WorldSBK class will have two new tyres available, one at the front and one at the rear. In the first case, it is an evolution of the standard SC1 in specification C0516 and it has been developed by Pirelli with the aim of obtaining greater stability. To do this, with no variations in terms of compound, changes were made to the structure. The riders have already had the opportunity to try this tyre in early season tests, including those from last week on this circuit.

As regards to the rear, the new innovation is a development SCX, more specifically an evolution of the B0800 which was widely used last year by riders. This new option differs in terms of both compound and structure: the C0900 specification, aimed at increasing stability and performance. This development ‘super soft’ made its debut in testing last week and is now also available for the actual races.

Giorgio Barbier - Motorcycle Racing Director

Barcelona is well suited to introducing new tyres

“For us, Barcelona is an ideal circuit to introduce new tyres, first of all because the race weekend arrives shortly after two days of testing on this very track; therefore, we already have some data available, and also because this is a fairly demanding track for the tyres so it is an excellent proving ground to immediately understand if a solution has weak points. This year we bring two new tyres with the aim of further improving performance and stability compared to the standard solutions. The development front SC1 has already had good feedback both in the two tests carried out at the beginning of 2024 and in the one of last week, and for this reason it was a natural choice to add it to the race allocation. We have less information on the new C0900 rear, only coming from last week’s tests;  it is a solution that follows in the footsteps of the B0800 introduced in 2022 and already widely used in 2023, we proposed it to the teams for the test last Thursday and Friday and the feedback was positive, which is why we decided to include it in the allocation for the race. High top speeds are achieved on the Barcelona circuit and riders should benefit from the greater stability offered by these new options”.

Keep Eye On

· Tyre allocation: in addition to the new tyres already mentioned above, WorldSBK riders will have standard SC1 and SC2 at the front and SCX and SC0 at the rear available, beside the SCQ exclusively intended for the Superpole and Superpole Race. The choice narrows in WorldSSP, where riders will be able to choose between SC1 and SC2 for the front and SCX and SC0 for the rear.

· Lap times: In last week’s testing, WorldSBK riders consistently ran times in line with 2023 best race lap times, also beating the all-time lap record. If the weather conditions remain similar, it is likely that times will drop further during the race weekend, as track conditions improve and the teams finalise their setup.

· Weather: so far the championship has visited Montmelò in September and May but never in March; therefore, the weather conditions could represent an unknown. Lower temperatures and the possibility of rain could have an impact on the work in preparation for the race, although the recent tests should have provided important elements to finalise the setup and make the tyres work as well as possible.

· Young riders at the start: the Catalan round will also see the kick off of the season for the young promises taking part in the FIM Supersport 300 World Championship, of which Pirelli has been the sole supplier since its inception in 2017, and in the R3 bLU cRU FIM World Cup.

Further details on tyre allocation are available in the technical sheets attached to this press release.