One Tire to Rule Them All.
Pirelli supplies the entire DTM grid. But how do you give everyone a chance to win without making the racing predictable?
“We used to be excited when we won. Now we are excited to put everyone into a winning position.” — Matteo Braga, Pirelli
It's a rather unusual statement from someone working in an industry where winning is quite literally the entire point. When Pirelli made its DTM debut as the championship's exclusive tire supplier in 2023, Braga reported that more than 15 cars were separated by less than half a second in qualifying. The entire field was covered by just one second. Different manufacturers. Different engineering philosophies. An entire grid separated by fractions of a second.
Of course, that's not Pirelli's achievement alone. The DTM's Balance of Performance regulations, the teams and the drivers all contribute to those incredibly close margins. But providing a tire that works competitively across every vehicle concept is a crucial part of making it possible. Historically, tire manufacturers fought each other to develop the fastest rubber. Winning a race on your tires was a victory of its own.
Today, the DTM operates with a single supplier. Instead of beating another tire manufacturer, Pirelli has to provide an entire grid with a fair foundation to compete. During the 2026 DTM finale at Hockenheim, we spoke with Matteo Braga, Pirelli's Circuit Activity Manager, about what that responsibility actually means. Because bringing the competition closer together is one thing. Making sure there's still enough room for someone to make the difference is another.
Different Beasts. Same Rubber.
Porsche. Ferrari. Lamborghini. BMW. AMG. McLaren. Ford. Aston Martin. Different engines, different weight distributions and entirely different driving characteristics. Some have their engines up front, others in the middle, while Porsche continues to insist that hanging one out the back is a perfectly sensible idea. Yet they all have something in common. Pirelli. But supplying the same tire to such different machines presents a fascinating engineering challenge.
A front-engined Mercedes-AMG GT3, a mid-engined Ferrari 296 and a rear-engined Porsche 911 don't ask the same things of their tires. Their weight distribution, aerodynamic balance and suspension geometry influence how the tires are loaded under braking, through corners and during acceleration. Grip isn't simply a question of how much weight is pressing down on the rubber. Tire grip doesn't increase proportionally with vertical load. Temperature, pressure and the way a tire deforms under stress all affect how much performance it can deliver.
Then there's temperature. Every racing tire has an operating window in which it performs best. Too cold, and the available grip suffers. Too hot, and performance can deteriorate. In the DTM, where tire warmers are prohibited, bringing the rubber into that window quickly becomes particularly important. That's before you even consider the weather. A DTM weekend can bring anything from a cold morning at 10°C to afternoon temperatures exceeding 30°C. Track temperatures can vary even more dramatically.
When the rain arrives, the challenge changes entirely. While dedicated wet-weather tires take over from slicks, Pirelli still has to ensure that its products deliver predictable performance across an enormous range of conditions. Developing a fast racing tire is one thing. Developing tires that work consistently across different cars, circuits and weather conditions is quite another. For the 2026 season, Pirelli developed a new P Zero tire specifically for the championship, manufactured at its technology hub in Breuberg, Germany.
Its development focused on rapid warm-up, high grip and controlled performance degradation. Braga explained that feedback from the manufacturers plays an important role in understanding how the tire behaves across the different vehicle concepts. The objective isn't to make eight different manufacturers drive like the same car. It's to give them a common foundation on which their differences can actually matter. Combined with the DTM's Balance of Performance regulations, that foundation helps create remarkably close competition.
But when lap times are already separated by fractions of a second, the smallest differences become increasingly important.
