An Inside Job

Increasingly, tyre manufacturers are heading indoors to speed up development. We take a look at the facilities they use

THE DOOR-SIZED ROLLER SHUTTER Traises double quick, as if impatient, and I step through. Snow crunches beneath my feet, the chill hits my face and I grin. I'm standing in a space about the size of a decent supermarket, its surface carpeted in snow. Nearby are a couple of cars and I can see a circuit marked out around the perimeter with thin orange poles. It's -10deg C in here. The crazy thing is that just a few minutes earlier I was outside, gently baking in 20-degree June sunshine.

We are in northern Sweden, close to the Arctic Circle, at a test facility owned by a company called Arctic Falls. The northern reaches of Scandinavia are the go-to winter-testing destination for European tyre makers and car manufacturers. In 2017 Pirelli opened its own, extensive, 130-hectare proving ground just down the road at Flurheden, but it has helped in the creation of this indoor facility by committing to a certain amount of annual usage.