The new MICHELIN® Pilot® Super Sport tire spectator bridge at Turn 17 is the symbolic link between the paddock and the pit lane. Photo credit: Rick Dole for Michelin North America

The technical bridge from the race track to the street can extend thousands of miles or in the case of the new MICHELIN® Pilot® Super Sport tire spectator bridge here at Sebring International Raceway, just 108 feet long.

The Sebring bridge is the symbolic link from the pit lane and paddock, where Michelin technical partner teams from BMW, Audi, Porsche, and Peugeot have claimed overall victories at Sebring for the past 12 consecutive years, to the infield and the tens of thousands of fans gathered for the opening race of the 2011 American Le Mans Series and Intercontinental Le Mans Cup.

The technical bridge from track to consumers spans several years, and many thousands of miles of testing, competition and development at the track and in the Michelin research centers.

“Our new MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport tires were born from endurance racing,” said Silvia Mammone, Michelin motorsports manager.

“We place a Michelin engineer with every one of our technical partner teams to help the teams optimize their results, and to help us better understand how our tires perform in the extremes of competition.

“We feed everything we learn into the development of new tires for consumers as well as racers.

“The MICHELIN Pilot Super Sports tires (pictured below) are a perfect example of that process.”

Michelin researchers, tire designers, engineers and chemists drew upon Michelin’s experience at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Sebring and other premier endurance events to actually test and develop two of the three innovative technologies that make the new MICHELIN Pilot Super Sport tire the highest performing street tires the company has ever offered.

This story appears in the Sebring issue of The Alley, Michelin’s trackside publication. It is available as a PDF online at michelinracingusa.com and around the track.