The Pirelli engineers are a bit jealous of us Americans. Speaking at the launch for the new P-Zero family at Monza, they tell us how nice it must be to have a thriving grassroots club-racing and track-day scene in America, and so many great road courses for us to drive.
Realizing there was a huge market, Pirelli created a new DOT-approved track-only tire exclusively for the US, the P-Zero Trofeo Track. And good news for the tariff-weary—Pirelli is making these in its Rome, Georgia factory.
Photo by: Pirelli
This near-slick tire is aimed at various SCCA and NASA championship series, which require tires that have DOT approval. These are technically street-legal tires, but you really shouldn’t use them outside of a track.
“It’s basically a slick tire, with some tread designed to make it comply with the DOT, but it’s thought of as a competition tire,” says Emanuele Vanzetti, the engineer leading the Trofeo Track’s development. “We designed it to run at the pressures you run at the track, it’s designed to have a wide working range.”
Pirelli is offering sizes for 17- to 21-inch wheels, which may disappoint those looking for tires for things like Miatas and E30s, but should cover a ton of modern cars. Beyond the club-racing series, the tires should also be good for those running autocross, time attack, and track days. Vanzetti says that his team did development work both at the European tracks it typically works at, which provide a great reference point, and at US road courses. Just a few weeks ago, Pirelli was working at Carolina Motorsports Park.
Photo by: Pirelli
The idea is to provide a tire that provides consistently strong lap times. Not just heroic performance for a lap or two, and then a massive drop off. We actually got to run a couple laps of Monza in a Mustang Dark Horse fitted with 315/30R19 Trofeo Tracks all around. A full test will hopefully come, but for now, it was a nice opportunity to get a bit of early exposure to the tire.
What’s immediately apparent is just how agile the car feels on these P Zero Trofeo Track tires. The Mustang Dark Horse is not a light car, at nearly 4,000 pounds, but at Monza’s slow first chicane, it changes direction so freely. After driving a bunch of road cars on road tires earlier in the day—which were still excellent—the Trofeo Track’s ability to resist understeer at a place where it’s easy to carry too much speed and push wide was admirable.
Photo by: Pirelli
Photo by: Pirelli
Braking performance was excellent, too, with tons of stopping power and great stability. The Dark Horse does have excellent brakes on its own, but on these tires, you can go so deep, even at a crazy high-speed track like Monza.
We’re still waiting on full sizing and a price list, but early impressions are strong. Not only can we not wait to test these more seriously, we want to know how the market responds.