Goodyear opens a winter tyre test centre in Finland

One of the most important elements of a vehicle is its tyres. They are the only part of the car that maintains contact with the road at all times, so proper maintenance of them is essential.

Brands in the sector know this and invest many months, even years, in the research, study and development of new compounds for future products. Besides R&D, test centres are a fundamental part of that whole process. This is where the results, possible faults and improvements that can be made before the product is finally launched on the market are seen.

Goodyear has opened a new winter tyre test centre in Finland. The Artic Center is located 300 kilometres from the Arctic Circle, close to the town of Ivalo, in northeastern Finland.

Jean-Pierre Jeusette, Managing Director of Goodyear’s Innovation Centres, Laurent Colantonio, Director of Tyre Performance Prediction, and Ludvig Nauckhoff, Managing Director of the company’s Nordic Region, were in charge of officially opening the facilities.

The Finnish driver Ari Vatanen also attended the event. He won the World Rally Championship in 1981 with the Ford Escort RS 1800, and was four-time Dakar Rally champion (1987, 1989, 1990, 1991) at the wheel of the Peugeot 205 T16 and 405 T16, and the Citroën ZX. He had the privilege of being the first to drive around the Artic Center, demonstrating his great skills as a driver.

This new centre will be one of the main benchmarks for winter tyre testing in Europe. Its location is ideal since, thanks to its microclimate, it allows winter tyres to be tested under different weather conditions during the coldest time of the year.

It will join the other facilities that Goodyear has in France, Luxembourg, Switzerland and New Zealand, where it tests its winter tyres all year round in very different snow conditions.

One of its latest products, the UltraGrip 9, was tested at the new Artic Center in Ivalo during the final phases of its development, before it was commercially launched. In this way, high-quality products can be developed under conditions identical to those any user encounters in everyday driving.

Source | Goodyear