Silverstone (UK) As The partnership between Pirelli and World Superbike has delivered close and exciting racing since day one but at the last race of the 2005 championship, at Monza, some real world comparisons proved the progress of Pirelli’s technical development. After weather issues and occasional poor track conditions on raceday at most of the early season venues, Monza offered almost ideal track conditions. The fact that the pace improved by one second in race conditions, and eight tenths of a second in qualifying, demonstrated that Pirelli’s dedicated solutions performed as planned. The pace of development continues for the Silverstone round, but a relatively late change in the track layout means that the solutions Pirelli are bringing were produced with the full F1 circuit in mind, rather than the current International layout. Thus the Silverstone-specific tyres were made for the high speeds of the full circuit, not the much reduced pace of the shorter one. Nonetheless, a new carcass, produced after the Monza weekend, has been designed to work well during changes in direction through the slow chicanes. In addition to all the new products, Pirelli will also bring the most popular tyres from last year’s event, to give the teams a benchmark to work from. At this round there will be four different front tyre solutions in Superbike instead of three, to give the teams the chance to experiment with ever-softer front tyres, allowing them more grip in race conditions. The Silverstone qualifying tyre will be the same as those used – and greatly appreciated – by the riders at Monza With the notoriously fickle British weather expected to play its part once more at Silverstone, there will be three Supersport tyres available for this race. Leading British Supersport riders Craig Jones and Cal Crutchlow, (Team Northpoint Ekerold Honda) will be wildcard riders at Silverstone, backing up their outstanding abilities in the British series on Pirelli rubber. The scope and scale of Pirelli’s operations in World Superbike continue unabated, with 30 personnel on site, based in eight trucks. Some 6000 tyres are transported to each of the rounds, a fact which illustrates the efforts expended by Pirelli in this important global series. Last season results: Superpole: Laconi Race 1: Haga, Vermeulen, Chili Race 2: Vermeulen, Haga, Laconi TRACK CONDITIONS Dry AIR TEMPERATURE 20° TRACK TEMPERATURE 41° HUMIDITY 48%