Painstakingly applying vinyls of new tyre supplier Michelin to the team truck, Tim Sugden is the essence of a hands-on team manager. Yorkshireman Sugden, himself a veteran of 8 starts at Le Mans, has been at the helm of JMW Motorsport since its foundation by Jim McWhirter in 2009 and with the team now in its sixth season of competition in the European Le Mans Series – which they won in the curtailed 2012 season – knows a thing or two about what it takes to win. But the changes aren’t limited merely to vinyls;
2014 marks something of a step into the unknown as JMW’s long-standing partnership with Dunlop comes to an end and Michelin take over on the tyre front.
“It’s a bit of a double edged sword,” says Sugden. “We’ve had six years with Dunlop and we’ve been absolutely delighted with them; we had a brilliant working relationship with them which has brought us an awful lot of success over the years and it was a shame when that relationship ended.
Tyre Talk with Tim Sugden
by James Newbold