In recent years, the control tire scheme that a designated manufacturer exclusively supplies the tires has become more and more common in the motor sport world. It has a number of benefits but the most significant virtue of the scheme is giving all competitors equal conditions in terms of tires.

Macau Grand Prix F3 race is fought by the leading competitors from the national and regional F3 championships around the world and Yokohama Tire has been the official and sole tire supplier for this race since 1983, the year it was decided to use F3 cars for the feature race of the event. The "equal conditions" is an important key word again in this race which is said to decide the fastest F3 driver in the world.

Yuichi Kobayashi, a tire development engineer of Yokohama Rubber Co., Ltd., explains about the tires used in the Macau F3 Grand Prix race.

From the view point of a tire engineer, the Macau F3 Grand Prix is highly competitive race because only the leading teams and drivers from the F3 championships around the world come together to race here. Naturally, the race attracts much attention from all over the world and I, as an engineer, always get a bit more nervous than usual, to be honest.

As you know, the race track at Macau is used as public roads at normal times. Because of this, the race cars can be driven on the track only during the race weekend. I think this is the biggest difference from the races on the permanent circuits.

The track surfaces at Macau are also different from those of the permanent race tracks in that normally have a special kind of pavement and, therefore, the grip level is lower in general. During the race weekend, the track is confined by guard rails on both sides and there is almost no escape zone, so one small mistake can lead to lots of damage on the car. The drivers and teams must accommodate to this unusual circumstances within a limited track time, which is very demanding.

Yokohama Tire has been supplying the official tires for Macau F3 Grand Prix for 30 years since 1983. These days, a lot of race series are run with the control tires but I don't know any other case that the same single manufacturer has supplied the tires for such long time as we have done for Macau Grand Prix.

Race fans may have a question; what kinds of capabilities are required for the tires used in Macau Grand Prix? My answer is, first of all, the quality control to supply the identical tires to all competitors.

The capability to set the fastest possible lap time isn't the most important requirement for the control tires because everyone uses the same rubbers. That said, at the same time, the tires must be capable of setting a certain level of fast lap times because the Grand Prix is a race to decide the fastest F3 driver in the world from the topnotch competitors. It may sound conflicting but both of these are true.

As one of basic requirements, the performance curves shouldn't be too steep because, as I said, it is a street track race with no escape zone and the track surfaces' coefficient of friction is relatively low. Given the regulations that restrict the number of tires each competitor can use, and the fact that accidents on the track happen so often, the tires also need to be strong enough against external aggression. On top of these, it is very important that there is no significant variation in performance among individual tires.

Macau Grand Prix is a very valuable opportunity for the tire development engineers to get comments on the Yokohama tires from the topnotch teams and drivers. Particularly, we can often hear some interesting impressions of our tires from the drivers who use other manufacturer's products in their national championships. Another major benefit for the engineers to be involved in this event is to gain experiences on the street track race. There are a few street track races in WTCC series but such opportunities are limited in comparison with the races on permanent circuits.

The experiences earned in Macau Grand Prix can be utilized in the tire development works for other race categories. There are a lot of things to be learnt by the tire engineers in this event, as we have not only the F3 race but the touring car, GT and many other races as well in one weekend.

It was in 2003 when I was involved in Macau Grand Prix as a tire engineer for the first time. At that time, I was in charge of Ghia Race for touring cars, so my strongest impression was about the touring car race rather than the feature F3 race. What surprised me most was the fact that the races were run in such a busy downtown. I knew there would be crashes on the track so often but many other things, such as the underground garages for the supporting race competitors or even the motor scooter race, were very new to me.

There are a lot of ups and downs in the world of motor racing, as it is sensitive to the economic climate or social influence of the time. For that reason, not many manufacturers in the world have continuously been involved in a race category for decades.

The year 2012 is the 30th anniversary since Yokohama Tire started to supply the official tires for Macau Grand Prix. It takes only two words to say "thirty years" but it actually is a very long time period. I believe the continuous tire supply for such a long time is a great achievement in itself.

Yokohama Tire has been the control tire supplier for the Japanese F3 championship as well since 2011. In addition to this, we provide the F3 tires in several countries and are actively supporting the category in which the promising young drivers compete with each other. We will continue the tire development works for the Macau Grand Prix F3 race to provide the reliable high quality products, keeping the proud tradition built up by my predecessors going strong.