Pirelli Dragon Supercorsa Pro - Review Hot

This Pirelli is a crossover product designed for Hypersport machines, trackday and fast road riding. With its track biased shape the Supercorsa certainly encourages fast turns and offers high levels of grip in the dry and when up to temperature in the wet also.

Pirelli Dragon

Initial Thoughts

Trying a tyre that has one foot firmly planted in trackday's and the other on the road is always going to yield a different result to a regular road tyre, track tyres have to endure higher temperatures over sustained periods in order to offer consistant performance all the time, one shortfall though is that on the road you may not actually get the tyre to a working temperature - no matter how much like Rossi you think you ride!

The Pirelli Dragon Supercorsa Pro offers a massive amount of dry grip leading you deeper into corners, later on the brakes and ultimately hooning around at your favourite pace, the profile of the tyre really coaxes you into hitting the bends and while they are not as stable as one of their road biased cousins they certainly inspire that 'hero' feeling when everything comes together. In the wet however they are a different story on public roads, generally taking a smidge too long to heat up before getting the grip down where you need it and as taking it steady is the order of the day they can be quite a pain to get working.

When they are working though they are superb, certainly more of a tyre for track riding with tyre warmers getting them ready if the weather is wet and slippy. I was fortunate enough to not encounter as many wet days on these as I have on other models which has left me to really get the most out of them, the edges of the tyres slightly bobbled from high speed cornering and unfortunately thecentres squaring off as more motorway miles have to be done on them and this is their ultimate downfall.

Wear rates were high across the entirety of the tyre and with only 2900 miles on the clock before I had to replace them they are not the most economical of tyre, on the track where outright grip is paramount they are superb but if you are looking for a long lasting tyre that is your compromise.

Construction

- Racing Tyre, homologated for public roads use, derived
from top race winning pirelli product
- High-speed and braking stability thanks to radial
construction with patented 0° steel belt
- Outstanding handling and excellent response and control
thanks to optimised contour profile

The Dragon Supercorsa Pro has been superceded by the newer Diablo Supercorsa Pro tyre but is still available at certain stockists