World Superbike tyre supplier Pirelli has withdrawn one of its soft tyres ahead of Saturday’s first race of the Portuguese round due to safety concerns.
Pirelli has come under fire this year following a number of high profile tyre failures at Donington Park and Misano prior to the summer break.
The tyre in question – the Type A soft compound, which is a development tyre – was found to be producing ‘less stable’ wear than the other soft option available, and while no serious threat was posed Pirelli has opted to err on the side of caution.
“It was a brand-new development solution focused on maximum performance,” Matteo Giusti of Pirelli told Bikesportnews.com.
“Thanks to the availability of our mobile laboratory we noticed it was less stable in terms of wear in comparison to the other soft solution, and so we decided to withdraw it even because the other soft solution is perfectly able to do the race.
“It’s just an extremely safety reason, although there were not concrete problems.”
This change to the allocation will most notably affect championship leader and race one pole man Jonathan Rea, who has spent the entirety of this weekend’s practice running the offending tyre.
Rea has been affected by tyre issues already this season, with the Kawasaki rider crashing out of second during the first race at Donington when his rear slick failed.
Two weeks later at Misano he experienced further issues, while Yamaha’s Michael van der Mark was flicked out of the lead of the first race when he was struck by a similar failure.
