The final official MotoGP test finished on Friday in Qatar and the focus on the final day was the new Michelin tyres.
Testing leads to many questions and the newly assigned tyre manufacturers for the 2016 season Michelin, have a lot of answers to find ahead of the opening race on March 20.
Riders were comfortable with the electronics settings by day two of testing and looked to simulate a race as close as possible to ensure the best possible start to the season. Mixed reviews came back about the tyres with the majority of riders feeling they did not have enough of an allocation for testing.
This meant that testing came to an end sooner than expected for a lot as continuing may have caused accidents. Riders including Valentino Rossi (Movistar Yamaha), Andrea Dovisioso (Ducati), Aleix Espargaro (Suzuki Ecstar) and Jack Miller (EG 0,0 Marc VDS Honda) all lacked confidence in the front tyre due to excessive wear, Aspar Moto GP Team rider Yonny Hernandez spoke of how finding a defective front tyre was causing the front to fold thus ending his test.
MotoGP 2015 Champion Jorge Lorenzo set the fastest time of the test, he said: “It was a very positive day because we improved out lap time a lot and we did a complete race simulation; that has been very good because I did a few laps in the 1’55s even with not the best front tyre. With the softer one with which you could be much faster we had some graining. This tyre will probably not be available in the race weekend because Michelin is planning to change its tyre allocation to one tyre that’s a little bit harder and one that’s not so hard as the one I used for simulation. With the intermediate tyre on the front I could have been even faster so I’m happy with the fastest lap time and the simulation and we are ready to be competitive for the race.”
However it was not all negative for tyre manufacturers Michelin as Smith’s Spanish teammate Pol Espargaro felt confident.
“We were also able to finalise our tyre choice and the tyre that I used was good. In fact, we rode two laps more than race distance. The only inconvenience of the simulation was the interruption because of the red flag. However, when I pitted, we didn’t touch the bike at all and when I went out again, I was able to improve my time. Actually, I rode my fastest lap after having covered the full distance, which is something that I was never able to do with Bridgestone tyres, but with Michelin, I can.”
With less than two weeks to go Michelin will have to pull out the stops to keep the riders happy and will learn how difficult it is to be official manufacturers for the Moto GP class.
Michelin Technical Director Nicolas Goubert said: “We have finalised our choice of front and rear tyres. The track conditions evolved considerably over the three days in Qatar and we occasionally noted too much wear on the soft-compound version of the front tyre. We will consequently need to adjust its specification a little in order to make it stronger. We didn’t have any issues whatsoever with the hard version though and the tyre that will be available to the riders in less than two weeks’ time will be identical.”
