WRC FACTBOOK 2021 HIGHLIGHTS 35 PIRELLI BACK AT WRC’S TOP LEVEL Pirelli returns to the top level of rallying in 2021 as the FIA World Rally Championship’s exclusive tyre supplier, equipping the quickest World Rally Cars to have ever competed on gravel, asphalt, snow and ice in a four-year agreement. The Italian company, which is based in Milan, supplies tyres for the headline World Rally Car category as well as the WRC2 and WRC3 support series. Cars fitted with Pirelli tyres have been competing against the clock around the world for more than 110 years, ever since Prince Scipione Borghese won the Peking to Paris race in 1907, driving an Itala 35/45 HP. The company has been involved in the WRC more or less continuously since the series was inaugurated in 1973 and returns for 2021 having already celebrated 181 WRC wins and 25 world titles. Among the great names to celebrate titles with Pirelli are Ari Vatanen, who became the first and only driver to win the world crown as a privateer in 1981, and Juha Kankkunen, who claimed the first championship of the Group A era in 1987. Pirelli tyres were fitted to the first Japanese car to win the WRC, the Toyota Celica of Carlos Sainz, in 1990 and 1992. Another iconic Japanese car, the Subaru Impreza, was later driven to world titles by Colin McRae, Richard Burns and Petter Solberg.