Stefano Domenicali, the president and chief executive officer of Formula 1, recently visited Pirelli’s most advanced proving ground, the Circuito Panamericano in Brazil. Pirelli has a long-standing industrial presence in Brazil and has so far invested around R$90m (US$16m) in its most sophisticated proving ground to date.
Set over a 1.65 million square meter area, the Circuito Panamericano has seven different track configurations for advanced tire testing. The track’s facilities include dry, wet and off-road areas that enable the manufacturer to carry out 15 test types at the same time to aid in the production of high-performance tires. The ground’s dry handling track was constructed by Italian circuit architect Studio Dromo, which was responsible for the recent overhaul of the Zandvoort track in Holland.
The Circuito Panamericano is located near Sao Paulo and Pirelli’s Campinas factory and is the largest multi-track facility in Latin America. It forms part of the tire maker’s international research and development department, which consists of 12 local working units and almost 2,000 employees.
“Pirelli is a highly valued technical partner of Formula 1 that does an incredible job for the sport over the whole season,” commented Domenicali. “It was fascinating to visit the Circuito Panamericano, a very technological track where Pirelli tests road car tires, making the most of its expertise learned on the F1 track. Today I got the chance to learn how the sporting activity in F1 has direct relevance to the tires we all drive on the road every day.”
The circuit has also been utilized for stock car and formula testing.
Domenicali was accompanied by Mario Isola, Pirelli’s head of F1 and car racing, and Cesar Martin Alarcon, Pirelli’s CEO and executive vice president, LatAm region.
“The Circuito Panamericano is the largest multi-track complex in Latin America,” said Isola. “It was a pleasure to host Stefano Domenicali and show him the close relationship between the continual development of race tires and our road tires.”
