MotoGP | Michelin: the minimum value of the front pressure drops to 1.80

MotoGP has recently restarted its engines for the last pre-season test in Qatar. The first outing of the season, in Sepang, highlighted growing performance and some innovations introduced by Michelin were also evaluated on the tire front. The most important, however, will be operational from the Lusail trip because, after the many requests from teams and drivers, the French company has decided to intervene on the minimum pressure values ​​to be respected for safety reasons, given that from this year there will be no there will be more warnings or penalties in time, but real disqualifications should start to take place (however, there could soon be some news on this issue too from the FIM and the Race Direction).

Manager Piero Taramasso confirmed to Motorsport.com that a very in-depth analysis was carried out in Clermont-Ferrand in recent months and that this led to the decision to reduce the minimum value of the front tyre, the one that creates the most problems of raising the temperature and pressure especially when traveling by train, bringing it from 1.88 to 1.80 bar. A value that should allow everyone to have more margin, while always remaining in the field of safety.

“This winter we re-analysed all the data from last year and redid all the severity tests with circuit-by-circuit simulations. After this process we decided to reduce the pressure value from 1.88 to 1.80 bar. This will give a little more margin for the technicians and drivers, who will be able to stay between 1.8 and 2.1, having a good range to have the front pressures under control”, explained Taramasso to Motorsport.com.

“In exchange, however, we asked to respect it for 60% of the distance of the Sunday race and not for 50% like last year, because we are taking a little more risk. This news was welcomed by the organizers, the team and drivers. It will be like this starting from the Qatar test and it will be like this for the whole season”, he added.

This is obviously the most important news but, as mentioned, at Sepang Michelin obtained important feedback regarding the introduction of the new compounds that will become part of the allocations this season.

“At Sepang we have already used the 2024 range, which features new compounds on both the front and rear. These compounds were tested and validated in 2023, at Misano and Valencia. The objective was to guarantee the same level of grip, but also more consistency in performance. We used them in Sepang successfully, because the times were very good, but we also found a lot of consistency, so the teams were able to work for a long time with the soft on the rear and the medium on the front, that was the ideal combination.”

“The times were one second better than the 2023 Sepang tests and this means that the tire model we have has not yet reached its limit: even if the riders push harder and harder and the bikes are increasingly competitive , they always manage to keep up. That's good news.”

Going into the specifics of the solutions tested in Malaysia, the new hard front compound was particularly successful: “We tried a new front compound, which we call 'hard plus' and it is a little harder to compensate for the fact that the bikes are more aggressive on the front and put more and more load on the front. It's a solution that worked very well, because the drivers were happy. We will also try it again in Qatar and if it is confirmed we will already be able to introduce it in 2024 starting from the Spanish Grand Prix, Jerez, seeing it on about ten circuits.”

However, the new construction will have to be re-evaluated, again for the front, which should make its debut next year: “Then we also proposed the 2025 front, but unfortunately we had few results on this one, because only one person tested it driver in the Shakedown and four others in the official tests. Furthermore, the results are not consistent, because they go in different directions. Last year we had already provided it to all the manufacturers to try it in private tests with the test drivers, but they were often penalized by the unfavorable weather. Unfortunately we are late on this front, so we will have to evaluate how to move forward with this solution, which is a new construction.”