D212 GP RACER SLICKS
LAP TIME: 1 . 48 . 071
No tyre transformed the handling of the bike like the Dunlops. From the minute of leaving the pit lane to the conclusion of my first few laps, I was left mesmerised by the added agility of the Aprilia, which often meant I found myself turning in too early and looking a right nob as I cut the inside rumble strips as habitually as a pisshead visits a pub. It genuinely took a serious amount of recalibrating to get my head around the eagerness of the rubber to drop the bike on its ear, which was forcing me to run deeper into corners before pitching for an apex. They felt effortless to turn and immediately gave me high hopes for a damn fast lap, aided by their inherent ability to carry higher corner speeds and an unexpected sense of general ability. I banged in a 48.0 from very early on in my first stint
and, from that point onwards, every time I looked at my lap timer it predicted I’d be one or two seconds up on that pace. I genuinely thought there was a 46 on the cards, and there probably would have been had it not been for the Dunlop’s Achilles Heel; their tendency to loose grip at the most unpredictable of moments. It wasn’t that the Dunlops lacked massively in the feel department, but working out where the rubber’s limit kicked in was pretty hard to guess. They gripped like hell, but then you’d overstep the mark and your dreams would be shattered like a brick hitting a mirror, as the rear end of the Aprilia threw its toys out the pram and did its best to buck you with it. It was cruel, frustrating and, because I was often hindered by slower traffic on other fast laps, meant that not once did I get near to delivering on the 212’s potential. By rights, these Dunlops should have wiped the floor with its rivals, but that lacking degree of fine edge grip, coupled with the aforementioned lack of feel, meant they only just made the podium. It was an unfortunate case, because in pretty much every other way they ticked all the boxes, including stability and dependability under heavy braking. These qualities were probably down to the 212’s carcass that was so stiff it could make a rigor mortis corpse seem supple. They also looked notably different to their rivals, being taller and sharper sided. Here was a tyre that made its own rules, and revolutionised the way the Aprilia worked. If only they’d of come good for one solid lap, you’d probably be looking at your winner right now.