More than 7,500 WRC stage victories* for Michelin rubber!

Last weekend’s Tour de Corse in France took Michelin’s score of fastest FIA World Rally Championship stage times past the 7,500 barrier.

In the course of the 46-plus years that have elapsed since the FIA World Rally Championship’s creation in 1973, the French tyre company has clocked up no fewer than 331 outright victories and 54 world crowns – yet another way of delivering on its “winning performance that lasts” promise.

Michelin runners have won on all the types of terrain thrown at them by the series, and in all manner of weather conditions, in association with 57 different drivers and 17 different car makes. This tally makes it the most successful tyre brand in the history of the WRC which authorises open competition between manufacturers.

Michelin has long viewed rallying’s showcase and the roads and tracks it visits as an invaluable proving ground for new technologies which must be capable of coping with extreme conditions ranging from stones, rocks and mud, to dust, rain and snow, etc., the aim being to carry over the lessons it learns to its road tyres.

In 1973, for example, Michelin introduced a major innovation in the form of radial technology which has since become the norm for road tyres. Meanwhile, the current Michelin Pilot Sport WRC tyre shares numerous technologies that have been tried and tested in rallying with the company’s Pilot Sport range, including the Pilot Sport 4 SUV which was revealed at the recent Geneva Motor Show and which also delivers optimum, consistent performance all the way down to its wear indicator bars.

Michelin won the very first stage of the World Rally Championship when French Alpine-Renault drivers Jean-Claude Andruet and Bernard Darniche tied on ‘Pont des Miolans’ (26km), the opening test of the 1973, Monte Carlo Rally.

Its 1,000th stage victory came in New Zealand, in 1984, courtesy Walter Röhrl who was fastest on SS1 in his Audi Quattro A2. The 5,000th was the work of Carlos Sainz (SS10 / Turkey / 2003).

The threshold of 7,500 fastest stage times was reached last Friday when Estonia’s Ott Tanak and his Toyota Yaris WRC posted the best effort on the twisty Alta-Rocca test (17km).