Tokyo - The Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., today announced its plans for supporting motor sports events in 2016. Support for motor sports events worldwide is a key component of Yokohama Rubber’s efforts to develop and improve tire technology. The Company’s sponsorship of motor sports not only contributes to the globalization of its tire business and greater recognition of the YOKOHAMA tire brand but also helps to promote the growth, development and revitalization of motor sports market and the automobile industry as a whole.

YOKOHAMA looks forward to participating in many events this year. A brief summary of the main events follows.

YOKOHAMA has been the FIA WTCC’s official tire supplier since 2006. Since 2010, we have supplied the WTCC with our YOKOHAMA ADVAN racing tires, which use our proprietary orange oil compounding technology to enhance environmental performance while maintaining superior grip performance. YOKOHAMA is excited to be supplying the control tires for the WTCC for the 11th consecutive year in 2016. New regulations for WTCC racing cars introduced in 2014 led to the introduction of a new class of cars with greater engine power and larger aerodynamic parts, increasing their speed. As a result, tire widths as well as inner and outer diameters have become larger, with today’s standard size being 250/660R18. This year’s WTCC series will include 12 rounds and 24 races, with the first race held in France, followed by subsequent rounds in Europe, Africa, South America and Asia.

From 2016, YOKOHAMA’s ADVAN racing tires have been adopted as the control tires for the Japanese SUPER FORMULA Championship Series, Asia’s ultimate Formula racing series. The control tires will include the ADVAN A005 and the ADVAN A006 for use on wet surfaces. Both tires make use of YOKOHAMA’s proprietary orange oil compounding technique to ensure superior grip performance while enhancing environmental performance. The supplied tire sizes will be 250/620R13 for front tires and 360/620R13 for rear tires. YOKOHAMA has been an avid participant and supporter of top-level Formula racing in Japan, dating back to its first involvement in the All-Japan Formula 2 Championship series in 1980. YOKOHAMA has also participated in the All-Japan F3000 Championship since 1987 and in the initial Formula Nippon series in 1996. The initial Formula Nippon series has used another tire maker's product since 1997 but this year decided to return to YOKOHAMA tires for the first time in 20 years.
YOKOHAMA again this year will supply control tires to the Japanese Formula 3 Championship and the Japan’s Super FJ races. The Company will continue to support the full gamut of formula-car racing in Japan, from entry-level races to the top-level races.

Super GT races are contested in two classes, GT500 and GT300. GT500 is dominated by works teams from major automakers, while GT300 teams tend to be more varied and individualistic. GT500 cars are touring cars with high aerodynamic performance. Like cars competing in the Japanese SUPER FORMULA Championship Series, GT500 cars are equipped with direct-injection gasoline turbo engine with 2,000cc displacement. GT300 cars are a mix of cars manufactured and sold by automakers that are adjusted to meet international standards for FIA GT3 machines and cars that meet Japan’s JAF-GT standards. The implementation of the “mother chassis” rule for GT300 cars in 2015 opened up the GT300 competition to a wider variety of car models made by Japanese and foreign automakers. In 2016, Yokohama Rubber is supporting two GT500 cars: KONDO RACING's NISSAN GT-R and the LEXUS TEAM WedsSport BANDOH's LEXUS RC F. In the GT300 class, we are supplying Yokohama tires to more than 20 cars seeking to capture the title. As in 2015, the Super GT series’ eight races, including the one in Thailand, are expected to draw huge crowds of racing fans.

Participants in Japan’s Super Taikyu Series compete in six classes, from STX/ST1 to ST5, based on engine displacement size, wheel drive system, and other factors. These races pit FIA GT3 machines against a variety of worthy opponents, ranging from four-wheel drive turbocharged vehicles and two-door sports coupes to compact cars. Each machine has a team of three or four drivers engaged in fierce competition with other teams’ drivers. The keys to success are speedy pit stops and skillful tactical maneuvering as the race develops. The series became a one-make control tire competition in 2010, and Yokohama Rubber has been the official supplier of the races’ tires ever since, entering its seventh straight year in 2016. We supply the ADVAN A005, a racing slick suitable for use on dry surfaces, and the ADVAN A006 for use on wet courses, both in a wide variety of sizes, from 15-inch to 19-inch tires, to meet the needs of the diverse range of competing machines.

This race series has two components—the Professional Series open to all-comers and the Clubman Series, which is not open to drivers that have already achieved a measure of success. Pro drivers therefore inevitably enter the Professional Series, while amateur drivers can enter either series, enabling them to hone their skills by competing against pros. The 2016 series includes eight regular rounds and one special round, to be run on the major circuits in Japan. Professional Series participants will vie for the 2016 title based on total effective points earned over six races, while the Clubman Series title will be based on effective points accumulated over four races.
Car retooling is strictly limited to a few designated and certified parts as determined by the races’ supervising body. The races do not have an official control tire, so entrants are able to select tires from among several tire makers. The series champion in each of the past two years (2014–15) has been Nobuteru Taniguchi, running on YOKOHAMA tires. YOKOHAMA tire–clad cars took the top three spots in the 2014 series overall standing, and in 2015 Tsubasa Kondo drove to a third place overall finish on YOKOHAMA tires.

In addition to the races noted above, YOKOHAMA will provide its ADVAN racing tires to participants in a number of other GT and touring car races held around the world, including the FIA European Touring Car Cup and the SEAT Leon Eurocup in Europe, the Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by YOKOHAMA and the Porsche ULTRA 94 GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by YOKOHAMA in North America, and the Inter Proto Series and Super Car Race Series in Japan.

-FIA European Touring Car Cup (ETCC)
-Porsche GT3 Cup Challenge USA by YOKOHAMA
-Porsche ULTRA 94 GT3 Cup Challenge Canada by YOKOHAMA
-V8 Thunder Cars - Sweden
-Australian V8 Ute Racing Series - Australia
-Danish Superturisme - Denmark
-Inter Proto Series - Japan
-Super Car Race Series - Japan
-Yokohama 1600 Challenge - Denmark
-Aussie Racing Cars - Australia
-SEAT Leon Eurocup
-SEAT Italian Championship – Italy
-RallyX - Sweden

YOKOHAMA is once again supporting a number of teams that aim to raise the championship trophy in a number of classes, with the 2015 series champion team of Toshihiro Arai and Naoya Tanaka and the 2014 series champions Fumio Nutahara and Tadayoshi Sato of the ADVAN PIAA Rally Team (ADVAN PIAA LANCER) leading the charge.

YOKOHAMA also is again supporting top drivers seeking to raise the winner’s cup in rally series around the world, including in Canada, India and Peru, where drivers raced to victory in 2015 on YOKOHAMA tires.

YOKOHAMA will support drivers seeking the championship in all classes of this competition by supplying the high-performance “ADVAN A050” and “ADVAN NEOVA AD08R.”
YOKOHAMA looks forward to supporting a number of championship cars with its lineup of ADVAN rally tires featuring tires suitable to a wide range of road conditions, including “ADVAN A031” for use on soft road surfaces, the “ADVAN A036” for harder surfaces, and the “ADVAN A053” as standard gravel tire.

YOKOHAMA will again supply its GEOLANDAR tires for SUVs to teams participating in off-road races around the world, including the Baja 1000 in North America’s SCORE World Desert Championship series as well as this year’s Asia Cross Country Rally in Southeast Asia.

YOKOHAMA will again be an avid participant in the KF category of the All Japan Karting Championship, hoping to again propel the winner of the opening race of the series and many others thereafter. In addition, YOKOHAMA tires will again be the control tire for the FP-Junior category of the Japanese Junior Karting Championship. We also will stay active overseas, again supplying the control tire for this year’s Asian Karting Open Championship. Yokohama Rubber will also continue supplying its tires to circuit races in the Philippines, Thailand and elsewhere.

Once again this year, Yokohama Rubber will be an enthusiastic supporter of racing teams competing in events across all motor sports categories and in countries around the world. The data gathered from the use of the Company’s tires under the demanding conditions of motor sports will contribute to the development of tires for everyday drivers around the world. News about sponsored races and their results will be posted on YOKOHAMA’s motor sports web site (http://www.y-yokohama.com/cp/global/motorsports/) as well as the Company’s official Facebook site (http://www.facebook.com/YokohamaRubber), official Twitter site (http://twitter.com/YRC_Global/) and the Yokohama Rubber Channel on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/TheYokohamaRubber).