Michelin to celebrate centennial of Monte Carlo Rally by giving away 100 tyres

Clermont Ferrand, France - Michelin will celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Monte Carlo Rally by giving away 100 racing tyres to the 25 highest-placed amateur competitors at the end of the event. Scheduled to take place from 18 to 22 January 2010, the rally will begin in Valence, France, Michelin said in an 18 Oct press release.

The release points out that Michelin has been involved in motorsports ever since 1895, when the car it had specially built for the Paris-Bordeaux-Paris race, the Eclair, proved to the public that pneumatic tyres could be used on automobiles which, until then, had used solid rubber tyres. This led Edouard Michelin, co-founder of the Group, to confidently proclaim after the race: “In ten years, all cars will be equipped with tyres.” A century later, his words ring truer than ever.

Michelin says it has been a constant force in road and race track events since the pioneering days of racing. The Group continues to use motorsport as a real-life laboratory for validating its technological innovations in the most extreme conditions before transferring them to street tyres. The company adds that racing also helps improve the performance balance of its products and reduce their environmental impact. Motorsport continues to be a powerful stimulus for Michelin in meeting the challenges of the 21st century.

The 79th Monte Carlo Rally - the first event of the 2011 Intercontinental Rally Challenge - will allow Michelin to once again showcase its technological know-how, which has been part of the brand's genetic code for more than a century.