Edwards on 2025 Dunlop Supercars tyre

As Brodie Kostecki, Cameron Waters, Andre Heimgartner and Richie Stanaway embark on a Supercars tyre test immediately after Sydney practice, hear what head of motorsport Tim Edwards had to say on the rubber.

A radical switch to a single Dunlop control tyre could be implemented in Supercars for 2025.

Early testing at Queensland Raceway has put a new Dunlop ‘Development’ tyre up against the existing Soft, Super Soft and Hard tyres in both speed and durability runs.

More testing will follow, although there are no plans for any running during this year’s championship events.

“It’s a very different compound to what we use at the moment. It’s very tolerant to heat and abuse,” the General Manager of Motorsport at Supercars, Tim Edwards, told Auto Action.

The target for the tyre is to provide spicier racing and perhaps – in the most radical move since Supercars switched to a single brand for the series – a relaxation of tyre requirements for teams.

“We are working hard on mixing it up for next year,” Edwards said.

“How we use tyres next year is part of a bigger picture. We’re working that at the moment. Nothing is off the table.”

So, could that mean a single Dunlop control tyre for the whole season?

“Absolutely,” Edwards replied.

The tyre test at QR was run using single cars from Dick Johnson Racing and Matt Stone Racing, with Will Davison driving the Ford Mustang and Nick Percat wheeling the Chevrolet Camaro.

“They are Queensland based and they had capacity to do it. Obviously we wanted one from either marque. We allowed the teams to run themselves, but we co-ordinated the runs at the same time.

A second MSR car was in action through the same day, but Edwards said it was not involved in the Dunlop test and was instead doing rookie driver work.

“They were running their second car separately. Nothing to do with us.”

Dunlop brought 60 sets of the Development tyre to the test under the direction of its motorsport manager Kevin Fitzsimons, but less than half were used.

“It was about 40 to 50 tyres, something around that, across the two cars,” said Edwards.

“We compared the Development tyre to the three incumbents. We learned a lot.

“We did qualifying runs on the Hard, Soft, Super Soft and Development. Just to understand the outright pace.

“And we did 25-lap runs on the Development tyre and the Super Soft tyre, to compare it.”

So, what were the times? And how was degradation?

“Not saying,” said Edwards.

“Ultimately, the outright speed is not the objective. We’re looking for something that will be a better tyre to race on.”

But he did give one hint about lap times.

“It’s similar to the Super Soft on outright pace,” Edwards said.

It was a big day for Dunlop, Supercars and the teams.

“Both of them did over 500 kilometres each,” he said.

“It wasn’t about tuning the car. It was jumping into the car and going for a 25-lap run. Then a break, then another 25 laps.”

The outcome was much as expected and Edwards was up-beat.

“Very positive. That’s one data sample for use at QR, which is low-deg circuit.

“We wanted to get through that first, and now we’re planning when we can do some more testing with it. We’re weighing up the options.

“Kev (Fitzsimons) brought in 60 of the new Development tyres and we’ve only consumed around 20 of them so far. So we have another 40 tyres we can test with.

“It’s hard to run through the course of a race weekend. But it could be pre or post an event.

“We don’t need any single lap runs. We just need to get to a track, run the tank dry, and see what happens.”

Once the testing is complete, Edwards already has an objective for the new Dunlop rubber.

“It’s not about saving money. This is how about how we put on the best possible show.”

Dunlop’s Kevin Fitzsimons said the tyre is only a different compound and there were no structural changes to the casing or any other part of the tyre. 

Supercars will need to decide its tyre strategy by August to get tyres into production for next year. 

Image: Peter Norton EPIC Sports Photography

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