ERC Tyre Competition

[Sulland]

It will be interesting to follow the tyre brand competition within the ERC circus this year.

There is now 4 different options to choose from for teams and drivers.
Pirelli and Michelin, normally the top notch, mainly due to history and huge amount of data to iterate the tires.
Then we have the challengers, MRF and Hankook, that are trying to catch up.

They all have different surfaces and temperatures they work best at, and charateristics drivers like and dislike.

I am looking forward to see differences in speed on the different rallies, to look for how much the speed difference will be on the different combinations of cars and drivers.

The freedom of choice brings in a new aspect we dont see in WRC. The MRF gang with their different cars will be cool to follow, and to see MRFs ability to play catchup to the the two big motorsport brands.

[Sal yet again]

Think the tyre battle is going to be very interesting also which chassis makes best use of which tyre especially in MRF's case

[AndyRAC]

ERC doing it right, allowing tyre competition. COuld throw up some 'different' results if the weather is tricky.

[AMSS]

Yes will be very interesting for sure, at least on paper MRF (Östberg) and Pirelli (Breen in Fafe and Paddon ERC ) seem to have signed the most competitive drivers

[Sulland]

Who should Hankook hire to lead their attack for the top spot?

[BBman]

Having multiple tyre suppliers is a huge plus for the ERC and I really hope that at some point we will see it (back) in the WRC.
It will be interesting to see the differences between them during the season. Speaking of the "challengers", Hankook seems strong on tarmac (especially with their new model), but MRF is looking very good on gravel and they seem to do a lot of development. I really hope the underdogs will get to a point where they will match Michelin and Pirelli. I remember when Dmack was superior to Michelin in some very specific conditions in the WRC (slippery gravel) and even that was a great achievement.

As for who should Hankook hire, they sadly don't seem to be that involved. Miklos Csomos would have been interesting to watch, as he was a known quantity and would have only improved with experience, but he switched to Pirelli. Maybe he knows something we dont...

[Andre Oliveira]

If MRF won next WRC contract for 2024 - 2028, how will Premium makes react? I prefer ERC style. Imagine Michelin to Toyota and Hyundai, Pirelli to enter pays a good amount to M-Sport... private teams etc etc...

[Sulland]

Must say that the 3 brands are much closer than I expected!

how many types of gravel tyre have the different tyre manufacturers brought to this event?

[AMSS]

Must say that the 3 brands are much closer than I expected!

how many types of gravel tyre have the different tyre manufacturers brought to this event?

I can be wrong but from my understanding you have to homologate the tires for this season, so only one gravel tire and one tarmac tire is allowed, with different compounds of course, maybe there are some joker(s) allowed I don`t know ?

[br21]

3 tires (compounds) for gravel and 3 tires (compounds) for tarmac (plus one wet tire for tarmac). One of each can be changed during the season.