Often the only time they hit the headlines are when scraps of rubber are sent flying in all directions after a failure. In other words, tyres are not always the most interesting of subjects aside from when something goes wrong. Yet tyres have increasingly become a hot topic in national motorsport in recent months, for very different reasons.
The announcement in October that Avon Tyres owner Goodyear was beginning a consultation process about closing the Melksham manufacturing site – potentially resulting in a loss of jobs and the famous name disappearing – caused shockwaves in certain corners of the sport. Then it emerged that other tyre makers such as Yokohama were undergoing a restructure and reassessing their rubber ranges, which in turn created further uncertainty. And this all followed a period when some tyres had been in short supply.
