After the glory of achieving eleven consecutive Bol d’Or victories in the opening round of the FIM Endurance World Championship, Dunlop’s focus now moves to the overnight second round which takes place in Spain with the Albacete 8 Horas Nocturnas on May 21-22.

Dunlop heads to the 3.54 km Albacete circuit having won five of the previous seven events. The Albacete circuit is located inland, 260km south east of Madrid. Opened in 1990, it features 13 turns, eight right-handers and five left-handers.

“Albacete is a different challenge from Magny Cours for the Bol d’Or, and it’s an event where we have found the competition to be very intense,” says Dunlop Motorsport Service Engineer, Peter Chapman.

“We have won every race there since 2004 except 2007 and 2009, but it is those two failures to win which motivate us the most.

“As an eight-hour race, Albacete is a very different beast from the 24 hour endurance of the Bol d’Or. It is much more of a sprint. The strategy means that there are relays of around 50 minutes’ duration in the race. The riders do not experience as much fatigue as they do in a longer race, so they are able to push far harder.

“For Dunlop, this is a more focused operation than the Bol d’Or for two reasons; there are fewer teams, and eight hours of racing rather than 24 means that around a third of the amount of tyres is required per team.”

Endurance racing offers Dunlop a very strong proving ground for its motorcycle tyre technology with the variety of conditions encountered during the course of a race enabling Dunlop’s race to road philosophy to develop such advancements as NTEC and Multi-Tread.

Dunlop tyres feature on a number of the frontrunners, including the reigning EWC champions and long-time Dunlop partners, Suzuki Endurance Racing Team (SERT) with Vincent Philippe, Freddy Foray and Daisaku Sakai. New to the Dunlop stable, and the EWC in 2011, is the Honda TT Legends team with John McGuinness, Keith Amor and Steve Plater.

In addition, notable Dunlop teams in the Stock class include 2010 champions QERT, AM Moto, Moto 45 and the new Viltais Racing Division team.

“Last year’s event was very dramatic,” says Chapman. “The entire lead group of around a dozen bikes crashed on the fourth lap due to oil spilt on track. SERT were able to rebuild their bike and rejoin the race, taking the lead 146 laps later and going on to win the race. It goes to show that even though there is ‘only’ eight hours of racing at Albacete, there can still be plenty of action!”

“Albacete from a technical perspective is much more stop and go than Magny Cours,” explains Chris Valentine, Senior Tyre Engineer (Motorcycle Race) Dunlop Motorsport.

“Most corner exits involve larger throttle openings at relatively low speed and high lean angles. The tarmac is slightly more abrasive than Magny Cours, but this is balanced by higher expected track temperatures.

“We tested at Albacete in March and were able to confirm that the new front tyre profile and rear construction we used for the Bol d’Or also worked well at Albacete, in combination with some compounds developed for the higher temperatures and greater loadings expected due to increased acceleration out of Albacete’s slower turns.

“We are heading to Spain confident that our tyres will be able to provide the grip levels and stability the riders need to continue our winning ways from the first round last month in France.”

The Albacete 8 Horas Nocturnas, round two of the FIM Endurance World Championship, starts with practice and qualifying on Friday May 20, followed by final qualifying on Saturday May 21. The race starts on Saturday May 21 at 18:00 local time, with a scheduled finish at 02:00 the following day.

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