V8 Supercars to test super-soft tires

V8 Supercars and its tire supplier Dunlop will evaluate the introduction of a super-soft compound in 2016, during tests in the coming months.

Softer option compounds have been used in various forms in the series since 2009, and their presence this year was beefed up following a sequence of timid Saturday sprint races on the control tire at the start of the season. Three new tire compounds will be tested, with a view to introducing a super-soft option next year, pending final race formats.

"The plan is to test a couple of different compounds of tire and then report back to the [V8 Supercars] Commission on the performance of those tires," V8 Supercars technical director David Stuart told the series' website. "So we will do a qualifying run, a race run on them and evaluate the speed and the degradation of the tire and report that back to the Commission. That, I guess, will all be taken into the mix of what happens as far as a tire.

"I can't really say anything about change of race formats... but I imagine they would take the tires into consideration for what they want to do."

While details of the tests such as the venue, dates and participating teams and drivers are yet to be finalised, the compounds to be sampled have already been produced by Dunlop.

"There are a couple of different compounds that are coming from Japan which are variants of the soft tire compound of the current soft tire," Stuart said. "What we'll be looking at is the behaviour and the performance characteristics of the tire. And that'll be tied into the ultimate one lap qualifying pace of the tire, and then how the tire performs over a simulated race run."

Originally on Autosport.com