Pirelli Tire and Porsche Motorsport North America conquered the legendary Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, Sunday, June 27, with a record-smashing run by Jeff Zwart in the Luminox Watches Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car shod with Pirelli P Zero racing tires.
After obliterating the qualifying record earlier in the weekend by 18 seconds, Zwart broke the existing Time Attack class record by a massive 38 seconds in his official race-day run up the famous 12.42-mile mountain course on Sunday. The victory was Zwart’s seventh triumph on the 156-turn hill climb layout and he literally left in the dust a full field of other two-wheel drive and four-wheel drive competitors that came up short on a variety of other tires from several different manufacturers.
"The Porsche Motorsport and Pirelli team had lots to celebrate on Pikes Peak with the winning combination of the 911 GT3 Cup car and the great Pirelli tires getting Jeff Zwart to the top of the hill in a new record time,” said Paul Ritchie, President and CEO of Porsche Motorsport North America, Inc. “Jeff’s amazing new two-wheel drive record could only be achieved with the outstanding cooperation between Porsche and Pirelli and, of course, Jeff’s great vision to conquer the hill and his amazing driving skills."
The P Zero tires that Zwart used for his record-run were actually the same wet-weather Pirellis that have been successful in GRAND-AM Rolex Series GT competition since 2008. The fact that the tire selected for Pikes Peak by Pirelli and Porsche was a rain-tire application supports the versatility of their industry-leading products and the entirely unique nature of the iconic event.
“This was a banner day for Pirelli and we are honored to have been part of it with Porsche and Jeff Zwart,” said Rafael Navarro III, Pirelli Tire North America Director of Motorsport and Media Relations. “Combining Porsche’s fine engineers with our equally experienced technical staff at Pirelli and a talented rally and hill climb specialist like Jeff provided the necessary ingredients we needed to achieve this outstanding result on what may be the toughest circuit of any kind in North America. The performance of the P Zeros and the Porsche GT3 Cup were equally impressive and this is a victory that will take its rightful place in Pirelli’s more than a century of motorsports achievements.”
