Tyres have a history, a story which has legends, concepts and ideas, fights, controversies and much more. Tyres evolved slowly with the creation of new innovations and designs that were introduced for the pure purpose of comfort. Alongside with the story of pneumatic tyres was the evolution of racing tyres.
We present you with the story of racing tyres that evolved into something that is aesthetically appealing and superior in performance.
Long ago, the pneumatic tyre was invented by John Boyd Dunlop in the year 1888. It was made for his son's tricycle which made traveling over cobblestones a breeze. Just after the year it was patented, the tyre was fitted to a bicycle which enabled the rider to win a race. This was the beginning of the first race tyres which became a game changing object.
The tyres in its initial stage consisted of a rubber tube that was filled with air, covered by rubber canvas that was wrapped around a wooden rim set. The method of fitting this tyre to the rim developed and improved gradually and the current tyre design was first introduced around 1920. Dunlop tyres was leading in the race tyre business. They had won the first Le Mans 24 hour race in 1923.
These early tyres were standard and the tyre design was barely able to keep up with the demands of improved versions of vehicles that was developed by the Racing federations. It is at this juncture that Dunlop started to develop specialized tyres for competition.
Also See: The History Of Formula 1 Tyres Explained
The first race tyres they created was the 5 stud pattern designed in 1934 and then in the year 1946, they came up with the R1. If one considers the standards of these tyres, then it can be seen that these tyres were crude since they were being made from cotton fabrics and genuine tree rubber. The tyres weighed about 17 kilograms. These were popular until the R3 was introduced in the year 1955. Soon after this the R4 was introduced in 1956 as wet weather condition tyres.
In 1958 Dunlop introduced the use of Nylon fabric with the R5 which reduced the weight by 5 kilograms per tyre and this was a breakthrough in the tyre industry. Dunlop introduced the first synthetic tread compound which is now known as 'Green Spot' due to the identification done by using colour code.
In the later part of 1950s, the American giants such as Goodyear and Firestone entered into the European market however, Dunlop remained as the leader and continued its domination in Formula 1. Then came the R6 tyres which was introduced in 1962 which consisted of improved Nylon casings and reduced aspect ratio. This was soon followed by major developments in the way tyre was constructed which included the use of synthetic rubber tread compounds and lower aspect ratio.
The R6 tyre design was also popularly known as the CR48. Next came the R7 or CR65 in 1965. The first ever slick tyre design was introduced by Dunlop in 1966 which was debuted as CR70 however this was considered to be ahead of its time and required different elements which was not yet found and was proven unsuitable for the compounds available then. It is a known fact that a tyre needs flexibility in the tread to give it progression without which the tyres cannot perform well. The current slicks tyres achieved this effect by using softer tread compound. However, the compounds used earlier were too hard for that design
The next pattern development was the CR82 in 1968 which is considered a much more traditional design, which was developed based on the earlier CR65 platform. In the late '60s other developments came in the tyre design which were developed by Goodyear and Firestone. The developments included extended use of depressed contour mould, tubeless tyre construction and aspect ratios as low as 40.
The CR84 was introduced later in 1968, which helped Jackie Stewart win his first Formula One world championship in the year 1969.
Dunlop had to officially withdraw from F1 in the later part of 1969 with their last tyre set- the CR84 due to lack of road tyre development. The Slick type treads followed immediately after Dunlop withdrew. It was during these times when road tyres were changing to radial-type-construction that was not suitable for racing.
