MotoGP | Taramasso: “Sachsenring requires asymmetric tyres”

After a Dutch Grand Prix dominated far and wide by Pecco Bagnaia, who once again highlighted the great leap in terms of performance and consistency that MotoGP has made in 2024, this weekend the Sachsenring hosts the German Grand Prix, the last event before the well-deserved summer break. A short, very narrow circuit with many altimetric variations, but particularly treacherous due to its left-handed layout, which includes just three right-hand turns, with the 11th arriving after a sequence of seven left-hand turns. Characteristics that require a special tire allocation, as Michelin manager Piero Taramasso explained to us.

“The Sachsenring is a demanding track for tyres, because it is a particular circuit, very asymmetric, which puts a lot of stress on the left side and very little on the right. You lean a lot to the left and this generates a lot of temperature on that side. For this reason, as has already happened in the past, we are forced to bring three asymmetric solutions also for the front, as we also do at Phillip Island and Valencia. Obviously the rears are also asymmetric”, Taramasso told Motorsport.com.

In terms of compounds, what kind of choices did you make?
“The solutions are the same as in 2023, because they worked well. The soft front is one of the softest in our entire range, because it can be quite cold in the morning, so it can be used on Friday or Saturday morning or with a damp track, but it has never been a solution for the race. The medium and hard are both valid options, because they have more consistency, even if last year the most used was the hard. Also for the rear, the centering is the same as in 2023, when they used the soft in the Sprint and the medium for the long race. These are solutions that both we and the teams know well, which work well on this very particular circuit”.

What are the most critical points of the Sachsenring?
“Definitely Turn 11, the famous ‘Waterfall’, because it’s the first right after a long sequence of left-handers. It’s also a downhill corner, so it’s essential to provide tyres that are able to maintain the temperature on the right-hand side when you get to that section of the track. But as I was saying, what we bring are tyres specifically for the German track, so we haven’t had any problems from this point of view.”

You mentioned low temperatures in the morning, but the weather also changes quickly there and you may have to deal with rain…
“I looked at the forecast and it should be dry. It shouldn’t be too hot, because we’re talking about lows of 12 degrees and highs of 22, but no rain. But this year we’re also going into later summer, while in 2023 we raced in mid-June at the Sachsenring and maybe these 20-day gap will help.”

We have just archived the Assen weekend, which was once again full of satisfaction for you…
“The Assen weekend was conditioned by the ups and downs of temperature, that was the difficulty to manage in terms of weather. One day it was cold, one day it was windy, one day it was sunny, so the tyres behaved differently and the focus was on maintaining the temperature and pressure in the front. The Dutch circuit doesn’t have many hard braking sections, so the front isn’t stressed much. However, the allocation we brought proved to be well-focused, because both the three fronts and the two rears worked well. And we came really close to seeing all five solutions used in the race on Sunday. Only the soft front was missing, but I can assure you that there were several riders who were considering it, because it had performed well on both Friday and Saturday and made the bike turn better. It also helped precisely because of the temperature and pressure issue. In the end, however, the majority choices were hard front and soft rear for the Sprint and hard front and medium rear for the long race”.

In addition to the feeling, things went really well also in terms of performance…
“Yes, all the records were broken: the absolute one for the circuit, the one for the fastest lap in the race, and the one for the race distance, which was 30 seconds less than last year. However, the previous record was beaten by 18 seconds and had stood since 2022, because in 2023 it was very hot, with almost 50 degrees on the asphalt. However, once again the tyres proved to be very consistent and this was the objective we had set ourselves this year, to allow the riders to push from start to finish”.

In your opinion, was Martin’s choice to use the front medium in the long race to try to keep up with Bagnaia’s pace the right way?
“Yes, for me he made the right choice, because he held up well until the end. He was happy with the feeling he found and didn’t feel a drop. From my point of view, it allowed him to get closer to Pecco compared to the gap we had seen in the Sprint, which seemed a little bigger to me”.

You mentioned the front tire pressure issue earlier and there was actually a penalty for Marc Marquez in the long race. We even saw him signal Di Giannantonio to pass so he could get behind him and raise the temperature: was he really on the limit?
“Marc understood that he was at the limit, but then the riders have alerts on the dashboard that warn them if the pressure value is too low. He understood that being in front would certainly have a penalty, so he decided to let him pass, knowing that when you are in the slipstream both the temperature and the pressure of the front tyre tend to increase. He was unlucky, because in the end he only got the penalty for one lap and for a value that was really below the minimum. It was a small thing but, as I was saying, the pressure of the front tyre was the theme of the whole weekend. But in fact the choice of the compound for Sunday, when there was also quite a cold wind, was not easy. However, in general, it was one of the calmest weekends in terms of tyres since we returned in 2016”.