V8 Supercars and Dunlop were forced to work around the clock in order to fix the wet weather tyre supply issue that plagued the opening day of running at the Supercheap Auto Bathurst 1000.
Hundreds of wet weather tyres were delivered to Dunlop’s pitlane garage at Bathurst between 1:00am and 2:00am this morning, as witnessed by Speedcafe.com.
See below for Speedcafe.com’s exclusive video of the tyres being delivered.
A small army of Dunlop and V8 Supercars staff were on hand at the circuit to unload the tyres, including V8 Supercars’ general manager for motorsport Adam Perry, operations manager Damien White, technical manager Frank Adamson and Dunlop’s V8 Supercars operations manager Kevin Fitzsimons.
When approached immediately following the conclusion of the tyre delivery, Perry thanked Speedcafe.com for its interest in the story, but refused to make any comment on the situation.
Thursday’s events marked a major embarrassment for V8 Supercars, with the third and final practice session cancelled amid controversy over the possibility that some teams could be significantly disadvantaged by a shortage of wet weather tyres.
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A meeting at the circuit last night saw V8 Supercars declare that it will allocate each car competing in The Great Race with just four sets of wet weather tyres for qualifying and Sunday’s 161 lap race.
Each car will receive the same ratio of PV and ZD marked tyres following concerns that the existence of the two separate batches – produced five months apart – could also unfairly disadvantage some teams.
All wet tyres at the circuit possessed by the teams spent the night in Dunlop’s pitlane garage, following a ‘force majeure’ call from V8 Supercars to both the V8 Supercars Championship and Fujitsu Series outfits.
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s story on the tyre allocation solution
CLICK HERE for Speedcafe.com’s breaking news story following the cancellation of Practice 3
CLICK HERE for comment from Dunlop following the cancellation of Practice 3
CLICK HERE for comment from V8 Supercars following the cancellation of Practice 3
