P90
PRODUCT REVIEW I
PIRELLI DIABLO ROSSO CORSA
T
he name Pirelli Diablo
Rosso Corsa should be
familiar to anyone with a
sport bike bone in their body as
it's been Pirelli's canyon carver
tire since coming out way back
in 2003.
Over the last 19 years the
Diablo Rosso Corsa has evolved
to the Rosso Corsa II and now
the Rosso Corsa IV, forgoing
the third iteration to keep the
nomenclature consistent with
the Diablo Rosso IV, which is
the tire just below the Corsa on
the sporting scale.
The Corsa IV is the sportiest
tire Pirelli makes that isn't pri-
marily used for the racetrack
(if you want straight-up racer
performance you'll be looking
at the Super Corsa SP, which
gives outstanding grip but not
the kind of longevity you'd
want from a street tire).
Pirelli claims the new tire will
offer higher grip in dry condi-
tions thanks to a revised tread
pattern that has a larger slick
surface footprint (the solid gap
on the tire between the tread
pattern).
The important part is the
Diablo Rosso Corsa IV is a dual
compound tire in both the front
and rear constructions. Mod-
eled on the Super Corsa SP, the
middle section of the tire is all
about sustaining big road miles
without undue wear. The stiffer
center is also heavily focused
on wet weather performance
and stability, although I'd prob-
ably avoid long trips in the rain
on a tire focused to this degree
on sport performance.
The sides of the Diablo Rosso
Corsa IV are much softer and
focused primarily on cornering
grip, feedback and agility.
The front tire is full silica
compound that takes up rough-
ly 45 percent of the section
width in the center of the tire.
The center part of the rear tire
is a full silica compound to help
reduce warm-up times but the
side compound is 100 percent
carbon black, which offers ex-
cellent support for high horse-
Front-tire grip and feel
on the racetrack is superb,
especially given it's
not Pirelli's sportiest
tire on offer.
