Wayne Maxwell leads Jamie Stauffer during Phillip Island's second race on Sunday. Image: TBG Sport/Andrew Gosling.

Dunlop national motorcycle and motorsport manager Ken Wieden has defended the brand after claims have been made that the company’s Australian Superbike Championship control tyre is not suitable for national level competition.

Controversy has surrounded the company’s nominated ASBK control rubber in recent weeks, reaching boiling point after a number of tyres blistered due to overheating problems at round six of the ASBK last weekend, contested alongside the V8 Supercars L&H 500 at Phillip Island in Victoria.

Both 10-lap Superbike races were won by Honda riders Bryan Staring and Wayne Maxwell using the original D211GP Racer 190/55R17 control tyres, albeit missing large chunks of rubber at the race’s end in what appeared to be a major safety concern.

However, according to Wieden, Dunlop had suggested teams use the newer 200/55R17 tyre in a medium compound at Phillip Island last weekend – the tyre that was introduced for Queensland’s third round of the ASBK series.

Prior to the Phillip Island races, Dunlop distributed a notification suggesting all teams race with the 200 profile tyre in the medium compound, pressurised by nitrogen at 24psi to ensure the tyre lasted the entire race distance.

“I have spoken to virtually everybody who ran the medium compound 200 profile tyre and not one of them blistered or overheated,” Wieden stated. “We proved that they will go the distance.”

The leading rider on the 200 profile medium compound tyre was Ducati Motologic’s Jamie Stauffer, who also used the 200 at the Queensland Raceway rounds and finished third during Sunday’s race at Phillip Island after contending for victory.

Stauffer and the Ducati Motologic team was the lone factory outfit to compete the entire weekend with the 200, with the remaining factory entrants and many privateers on the grid opting to go against Dunlop’s suggestion.

Stauffer’s opening race result was derailed when he experienced a scary off-track excursion in Turn One after coming together with Staring.

Two different profile Dunlop control tyres are available for use in ASBK. Image: Championship Digital.

While the common theory is that the 190 profile tyre is the faster of the two, Team Suzuki riders Shawn Giles and Robbie Bugden switched to the medium compound 200 tyre for Sunday after experiencing blistering during race one on Saturday when using the 190.

Giles’ best lap was just one tenth faster on the 190 despite limited set-up time on the 200 before Sunday’s race, while Bugden was less than a tenth slower on the 200 profile tyre.

Over the race distance contested in similar conditions on both days, Giles’ overall race time was less than a tenth slower on Sunday, while Bugden’s race time was almost four seconds quicker than Saturday’s opener.

Interestingly, both riders lapped quicker over the final three laps of the race when using the 200 profile tyre on Sunday.

And in relation to speculation that Dunlop doesn’t have enough 200 profile medium compound tyres to cater for the entire field, Wieden said Dunlop had a “truck full of them” at the event.

Wieden also went on to point out that Dunlop has not experienced any major overheating issues with the control tyre during the season apart from at Phillip Island, which is notoriously one of the hardest circuits in the world on tyres next to Daytona International Speedway in the United States.

“Throughout the season we haven’t experienced any durability troubles with the 200, or the 190 for that matter, at any circuit apart from Phillip Island,” Wieden commented.

With Dunlop already announced as the official control tyre of the ASBK for the 2011 and 2012 seasons, Wieden confirmed that further developments will continue to go into the D211GP Racer tyre if that is the selected tyre for next season.

“There will be some refining and there are obviously some new developments coming from America,” Wieden explained. “In talking to the majority of competitors, they just want one tyre and a couple of compounds available.”

At the moment, confusion has reigned over competitors having the option of the 190 and 200 profile tyres – both requiring vastly different suspension settings to extract maximum performance out of the tyre and machine.

In previous seasons at Phillip Island, including last year’s season finale, Dunlop’s much heralded and more expensive N-Tec tyres also experienced overheating and blistering problems in selected cases.

Severe blistering occured for riders using the 190 profile tyre in the Island races, while the 200 profile medium compund tyre lasted the race distance. Image: TBG Sport/Andrew Gosling.

The D211GP Racer was introduced as the control tyre in 2010 in a bid to reduce ever-increasing expenses on tyres at the very top level of the sport in Australia.

With the Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix support races not requiring a control tyre for the Superbike category next month, Wieden confirmed that Dunlop will make the N-Tec tyres available for the weekend.

“At the GP there will be N-Tecs available since the rules have been opened up for that event,” he confirmed.

In an unrelated incident, selected Dunlop Sportmax GP-A tyres that make up the control tyre of the FX1000 class in the Australian Formula Xtreme Championship Series also experienced troubles at Wakefield Park in New South Wales last weekend.

Following Saturday’s FX Nationals racing it was found on a number of machines that the Open Tread Joint (OTJ) tyres were delaminating, causing Dunlop to issue a new tyre free of charge to competitors for Sunday’s three races.

“At Wakefield Park we had an issue with OTJ tyres, which came from a new batch. We are definitely addressing with the factory in America and hope that it will be sorted before the end of the year,” Wieden concluded.