Pirelli's 2022 Diablo Rosso IV Corsa is a real world easy to manage trackday tyre

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If you put adventure and dual-purpose rubber to one side there are three basic motorcycle tyre types for the road. Sports touring, sports and trackday. That all sounds simple enough, but there’s actually a fourth – and that’s where the Pirelli Diablo Rosso IV Corsa sits. 

Wedged between sports and trackday rubber are hybrid fast road/trackday tyres. They’re designed for extremely spirited road use on your sportsbike, but sticky enough to keep you shiny side up around a circuit.

In Pirelli’s case that tyre is the Diablo Corsa, which has been around since 2003. In recent times it’s evolved into the Diablo Rosso Corsa and Diablo Rosso Corsa II and new for 2022 is its replacement: the Diablo Rosso IV Corsa. It actually sounds better the way the Italians pronounce it: ‘Quattro Corsa’.

By the way Pirelli haven’t called it the Rosso Corsa III, as you’d expect, to keep it in line with the sports: Rosso IV. They’re about 50 quid more than those and £15 more than the racier Super Corsa SP from a typical tyre retailer.

Like every new generation of tyre from any manufacturer the Rosso Corsa IV Corsa moves the game forward in terms of construction, compounds and profiles to make it better suited to the job in hand. But there are only two things you really need to know, if you fancy rubber like this for your sportsbike or sporty naked.

Firstly, the semi-slick tread pattern is almost the spitting image of the Pirelli Super Corsa SP and looks suitably racy.

Secondly, the front and rear are both dual compound. The middle section is all about durability, stability and wet weather grip and the edges are sticky for cornering grip (the rear shoulders use Pirelli’s SC3 racing compound rubber). 

We got to try them on an BMW S1000R on the road and an S1000RR on track at Mugello – a tough challenge for a road tyre if there ever was one. On the road, they’re perhaps a little bit of an overkill, unless you go around biting the screen a lot.

For most riders the Rossi IV is more than capable enough and a little bit more durable and better in the wet. And if you do a lot of cold and wet riding and wet and need big tyre life, their Angel GT II is the one to go for. 

Where the new Rosso IV Corsa really shines is around a circuit. They’ll take a couple of laps of a Brands or Donington to get up to temperature and after that you can treat them as a trackday tyre.

The best compliment you can give them is you’d be hard pushed to tell them apart from a Super Corsa SP on a road bike, aside from the steering response is very slightly milder and the ride slightly firmer.

Best of all you can run road pressures (we were running 36psi front and rear) and you don’t need to mess about with tyre warmers. They warm up quickly and it’s easy to keep the heat in them. 

Pirelli’s new Diablo Rossi IV Corsa is a sticky, real world road tyre and easy to manage trackday rubber, all rolled into one.

• Price: From £313/set
• Available: Now
• Tester: Michael Neeves
• Where: Italy – Tuscan roads and Mugello circuit
• When: Wednesday 6 April 2022
• Bike: BMW S1000R, BMW S1000RR
• Sizes: Front: 110/70 x 17, 120/70 x 17. Rear: 150/60 x 17, 180/55 x 17, 180/60 x 17, 190/50 x 17, 190/55 x 17, 200/55 x 17, 200/60 x 17
• Weather watch: Sunny. Temp: 18°C

Cut through the jargon with MCN’s tyre explainer video:

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