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 KUMHO celebrates championship wins
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KUMHO enters the 2005 season in buoyant mood after its most successful year ever in European motorsport. A fine championship win in Irish tarmac rallying capped a winning season which saw the company consolidate its position in Formula 3 and make some significant advances in European rallycross.
Rally success
The superb performance of KUMHO’s rally tyres, backed by the strong technical service provided by KUMHO’s Bridgnorth-based European Motorsport Division brought the company one of the most coveted prizes in rallying when Irish tarmac maestro Eugene Donnelly drove his Toyota Corolla WRC to joint overall honours in the 2004 Pirelli Irish Tarmac Rally Championship – a significant achievement in a country where the tarmac rallying is generally acknowledged to be the best in the world.
In the same championship, KUMHO-backed Dessie Keenan took the Group N Production title in a Mitsubishi Evo VII while KUMHO stalwart Guy Woodcock became Two Wheel Drive Champion in his Ford Escort Maxi. Woodcock also clinched the West Euro Cup for good measure.
KUMHO also had its share of success on the mainland with a deserved win for Lorna Smith and her Subaru Impreza in the hotly contested Ladies category of the British Rally Championship, Lorna also finishing as runner-up in the Production class
Masters of Formula 3
KUMHO took a big step further towards a leadership position amongst the world’s F3 tyre manufacturers when it successfully bid to become Official Tyre Supplier to the new F3 Euroseries. Some two years on, this major investment has proved its worth as the series has now established itself as the premier European F3 championship and a major training ground for future F1 talent such as inaugural champion Ryan Briscoe at Toyota, Christian Klien, driving for Jaguar, and Timo Glock who ended the season on Jordan’s regular race roster in 2004. 2004 Champion Jamie Green has already secured a place in the Mercedes Benz DTM team. Green’s team-mate Alexandre Prémat took the honours at the prestigious Marlboro Masters of F3 race, for which KUMHO also supplies the control tyres.
 In
the FIA European Rallycross Championship, KUMHO finished the season
with all three supported drivers in the top ten and wins for former
World Rally Champion Per Eklund and Frenchman Jean Luc Pailler on
the company’s new specialist radial tyres.
Extensive motorsport line-up
KUMHO’s expertise in developing racing and rallying tyres is demonstrated in its extensive array of new and existing motorsport products. The long list of ECSTA branded products includes the S700 slick and W700 wet for F3 and sports car racing, the popular V70A circuit racing and track day tyre, the R800 forest/gravel tyre and the highly successful FIA approved C03 and TW01 tarmac rally tyres.
2005 CALENDAR
F3 Euroseries and Marlboro Masters
| 17 April | Hockenheim (GER) - DTM |
| 8 May | Pau (F) - Super Series |
| 15 May | Spa (B) - DTM |
| 22 May | Monaco (MC) - F1 |
| 5 June | Oschersleben (GER) - DTM |
| 13 June | Marlboro Masters of F3, Zandvoort (NL) |
| 17 July | Norisring (GER) - DTM |
| 7 August | Nürburgring (GER) - DTM |
| 28 August | Zandvoort (NL) - DTM |
| 18 Sept | Avignon (F, TBC) - DTM |
| 23 Oct | Hockenheim (GER) - DTM |
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