The Dunlop Racing Service

With its hiss of compressed air and the purposeful aroma of freshly cured tyres, the Dunlop tyre-fitting awning has been at the very hub of motor racing paddocks since the birth of racing.

For cars and motorcycles, it is the same: mechanics from rival teams gather with their racks of wheels, and Dunlop’s expert tyre fitters mount new racing rubber, balance it up, and send them out trackside again.

This is the sharp end of an organisation that starts with the design and production of the tyres, at Dunlop Motorsport’s base in Birmingham, UK.

The plant at the traditional Fort Dunlop base now produces around 250,000 competition tyres a year. The range is enormous – from vintage road and race tyres to the latest state-of-the-art car and motorcycle race tyres for the FIA World Endurance Championship, Le Mans series worldwide, BTCC, Moto2 and Moto3, AMA and Endurance World Championship – and tyres are exported to all corners of the world from Birmingham.

More than 300 people are employed at Fort Dunlop in research, development, manufacturing, engineering and commercial teams.

A fleet of 23 service trucks transports tyres throughout Europe to more than 200 races and tests per year serviced by the Dunlop Motorsport team.

Operations are under the overall control of Jean-Felix Bazelin, General Manager Motorsport, with the car side handled by Gary Wassell, and motorcycles by Stephen Male.

Other senior engineers and race management figures include Patrice Omont, Director, Tyre Technology, Motorcycle and Motorsports who remains hands-on with the end users of our tyres.

The link between drivers and riders and the tyre designers is the crucial team of service engineers. They work closely with individual teams and competitors, advising on tyre choices, and monitoring reactions to new developments.

Finally, the team of tyre fitters bring practised expertise to a task that is more exacting than it appears. Dunlop’s team spans the range of operations from source to the end user on the track – just as it has for many years, as a backbone of racing.