Tyre supply in the Rotax Max Challenge 2023

Important information regarding tyre supply in the Rotax Max Challenge 2023

As you all know we have had close calls with material supply in karting since the start of the pandemic. This situation has been aggravated by the conflict in Ukraine – Ukraine and Russia are both suppliers of raw materials for tyre manufacture and Germany is heavily reliant on Russia for energy. The demand for Mojo D5 tyres has continued to grow worldwide and while Heidenau are investing in increased capacity this does not happen overnight.

During 2021 and 2022 Heidenau and Rotax have managed to keep us going tyre wise but at many times far too close for comfort. This problem is not unique to Southern Africa but has been experienced worldwide. For these reasons Rotax have in consultation with all their distributors decided that certain regions would be changing to an alternative tyre brand and compound for at least 2023. These regions have been carefully chosen for their geographic locations to minimise the impact on racing, for example in Europe where cross border activities are common, with many championships having competitors from neighbouring countries participating, clearly European countries must all stay on Mojo D5.

Vega XH3 will be allowed in Southern Africa to race from 1 December 2022 in Junior Max, Senior Max, DD2 and DD2 Masters. EMR Karting is expecting delivery of Vega XH3 tyres around 28 November 2022 and we will keep you posted. NB! Bambino, Micro Max and Mini Max all remain on Mojo C2 and the only wet weather tyre allowed will remain Mojo W5 (and older compound Mojo wets) allowed in 2023 onwards. EMR Karting has sufficient stock and is expecting delivery of Mojo’s in December 2022.

Why has Vega XH3 been specifically chosen?
Vega is one of the largest and universally recognised kart tyre manufacturers. The XH3 tyre was chosen against several options on the following points:

• CIK FIA Homologated and a supplier to the CIK/FIA World Championship means consistency of both quality and availability
• Vega XH3 is an “option tyre” (as opposed to Vega XM “prime tyres” – highest performance) meaning that it has passed the rigorous testing requirements of CIK including the ability to race for 250km on the test circuits
• Vega XH3 was used in the 2022 OKJ World Championship as well as in several countries in KZ2 and other senior categories with great success
• EMR in collaboration with Vega will be monitoring the tyre barcoding in the same way as always with the Rotax scanning system of tyre control at important events to ensure that everyone is on the same batch of tyres and protect against illegal imports of “fresh” tyres

This change has no effect on competitors qualifying in the SARMC 2023 for the Rotax Grand Finals and a letter of authority from Rotax is attached. Heidenau will be supplying two sets of the tyres that will be used at the 2023 RMCGF to the winners of the relevant classes in the 2023 SARMC Series for testing prior to the event.

CLICK HERE TO READ THE OFFICIAL BRP ROTAX STATEMENT