Hankook to Debut New Specification Super Trofeo Tire

Photo: Jamey Price/Lamborghini

Hankook will debut an updated tire for Lamborghini Super Trofeo this year, which is aimed for improved durability and better drivability according to Lamborghini’s head of motorsport Maurizio Leschiutta.

The 2025-specification Ventus tire will make its race debut in next month’s Super Trofeo Europe season-opener at Paul Ricard before being rolled out from the third events of the season in both Super Trofeo North America and Asia.

“There is a new specification of tire for this year, which stems from the improvement that we’ve driven based on the episode suffered at Le Mans last year and also based on what we need to introduce in terms of what we need to introduce in terms of better drivability for the car,” said Leschiutta.

“By the time all the teams come to the final [regional] events of their championship and the World Final, both at Misano, everybody will be on this tire.”

Leschiutta said the improvements, which were primarily made to resolve the issues the single-make series encountered at Le Mans last year that led to the cancellation of one race, will benefit drivers with a more robust tire offering.

“In my experience in motorsport, there are four factors that determine the performance in a race,” he said.

“The number one performance factor is the driver. The number two factor is the tire. The third point is the product and the fourth one is the strategy in the team.

“If we take the driver out of the equation, because that’s a human element, the tire is the single-most important element of performance of the car.

“We need to build into the tire, for the gentlemen drivers, the drivability that allows a gentleman to have the confidence to express themselves.

“The tire manufacturers are very good at doing this, dialing in the correct level of understeer, oversteer balance of the tires.

“By tweaking the specification, they can improve this. This has been improved for our car for 2025.”

The new-spec tire will also serve as a transition to Lamborghini’s new Temerario Super Trofeo, which is set to debut in the single-make series in 2027.

“We will have the new Super Trofeo coming in a couple of years, in 2027, so we need to give continuity for ’25 and ’26 to the current Super Trofeo,” said Leschiutta.

“We need to improve it a little bit, so the tire was the one area we wanted to work on.”

John Dagys

John Dagys is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of Sportscar365. Dagys spent eight years as a motorsports correspondent for FOXSports.com and SPEED Channel and has contributed to numerous other motorsports publications worldwide. Contact John