“Slatina is one of the highest performing and technologically advanced plants within the Pirelli Group. Our main plant for motorsport tires is the one in Izmit, Turkey, which also manufactures Formula 1 tires and the second most important one is in Slatina,” says Paul Hembery, motorsport director within the Pirelli Group. He adds that the Romanian plant already manufactured some of the materials needed and had the necessary technology, so it was logical to expand production to such tires.
The team in charge of manufacturing high-tech motorsport tires is made up of 68.
“Currently the annual manufacturing capacity for motorsport tires is 40,000 units, but it will increase. These are for GP2 and GT championships, including for endurance races,” the director says.
As for production of Formula 1 tires, for which Pirelli has been the exclusive supplier in the last few seasons, Hembery says “Slatina is Izmit’s backup plant. Tires manufactured here last year were used for evaluations. We will focus significantly on tires for the GT championship because these races will develop significantly over the next few years.”
The price of a set of GT tires is around EUR1,500-1,600 depending on size, comparable to that of high-performance P Zero tires – stock tires for cars such as Aston Martin, BMW, Ferrari, Lamborghini, Maserati and Mercedes-Benz.
The investment made last year in the new section dedicated to motorsport tires, whose value is confidential, is not included in the EUR105 million investment plan for 2013-2017. The EUR105 million investment plan will boost the plant’s area from 180,000 to 200,000 square meters, while the manufacturing capacity will go from 8.5 million tires at present to 13 million units. The new project adds to the investment plan for 2005-2014, so the total value of the Italian group’s investments will climb to EUR555 million. Pirelli will hire a further 500 people at the Slatina plant by 2017.
The Slatina tire plant is one of the world’s most highest-performing and manufactures models from the premium range, such as Winter, UHP Winter, High Performance, Ultra-High-Performance, Runflat and SUV, with Romanian-made tires being used for Porsche Cayenne, as well as for Mercedes-Benz and Audi models.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)