Why MotoGP Needs The New Michelin Front Tire, And Why It Won't Arrive Any Time Soon
Submitted by David Emmett
One complaint has consistently run through the past couple of MotoGP seasons, it has been the pressure of the front tire. Pick just about any race and you will find riders saying that rising pressures and therefore (Boyle's Law) temperatures of the front tire cost them a better result. At Jerez, for example, Fabio Quartararo had been unable to do much more than follow Pecco Bagnaia home because every time he got into the Italian's slipstream, the temperature of the front tire would rise, as would the pressure, making it impossible for him to outbrake the Ducati.
At Motegi, it was Bagnaia who was struggling with increased front pressure as he followed Quartararo around, eventually contributing to his crash. Enea Bastianini had similar issues that race. In Aragon, where Quartararo had real trouble in 2021, the Yamaha rider was planning his tire pressure around his starting position, not that it ended up mattering much after he crashed into the back of Marc Marquez.
That has been a successful strategy for Quartararo and his crew throughout 2022. The starting tire pressure the team uses in the Frenchman's Yamaha M1 is determined to a large extent by where Quartararo is starting, and how they expect the race to unfold. If Quartararo is starting on the front row and believes he can get away and lead, they start with a higher pressure. If he is starting from the second row or further back, and expects to be stuck in a group trying to fight his way forward, they start with a lower pressure, anticipating extra heat and pressure in the front.
Rules are rules
The rules state that the teams have to use the minimum pressure prescribed by Michelin, 1.9 Bar in the front, and 1.7 Bar in the rear. But that is a target pressure, to be achieved for at least half the race. And it is getting harder to achieve that goal and still be competitive. The aerodynamic packages of MotoGP bikes are completely disrupting the airflow on the bikes behind them, and the combination of aerodynamics and ride-height devices is having a massive impact on braking forces.
Higher braking forces means more load is put into the front tire, and more load equals more temperature equals more pressure. Disrupted airflow from the aerodynamic packages of the bikes ahead means there is little or no cooling air on the tire on the straights, meaning the increased temperatures from braking can't be dissipated.
Crew chiefs are seeing this in the data, and in the results. Speaking to us on Paddock Pass Podcast episode 280, Miguel Oliveira's Red Bull KTM Factory crew chief Paul Trevathan said the difference aerodynamics and ride-height devices had made to the front tire was huge. "The influence on front tires is horrendous, it's massive. I would say from 2020 to now, it's gone completely crazy."
That had completely changed the choice of front tires. "Maybe in the past, we were the kings of being able to use the hard front tire, now you so to races where even Yamahas and Suzukis are having to use the hard front tire," Trevathan explained. "You bring three front compounds, and now it looks like we all sit between the medium and the hard, and many times the hard is not hard enough any more."
Spec sensors
Things are going to get even more difficult in 2023. From next year, the minimum tire pressures – which are not enforced, by agreement of the six manufacturers in MotoGP – will be monitored by a spec, official sensor, supplied by French manufacturer LDL Technology. Those sensors include an encrypted datalogging channel to prevent teams from cheating by altering the tire pressures logged during the race. With the introduction of those sensors, the minimum tire pressure rules will start to be enforced, meaning that anyone under the minimum pressure for half the race will be penalized.
That is going to be a problem. Motorsport Magazine's Mat Oxley has been following this story very closely, and after Motegi, published an article explaining just how difficult these new sensors are going to make life for MotoGP teams and crew chiefs, as managing tire temperatures will become far more difficult. The punishment for getting it wrong is much higher, and so teams will play it safe. That means that anyone stuck behind is going to suffer, their pressures going up to over 2 Bar and increasing the risk of a crash.
There has been much talk of how to solve this problem. The desirable but impossible solution is to drastically restrict the use of aerodynamic appendages and ban ride-height devices. That is impossible because the manufacturers, assembled in the MSMA, get to make the technical regulations, and some members of the MSMA want to keep both technologies in MotoGP.
New front please
The more feasible solution is for Michelin to bring a new front tire, one capable of dealing with the higher temperatures caused by the aerodynamics, and with a different carcass, creating a more consistent feel when tire pressures rise.
As luck would have it, that is exactly what Michelin are doing. "We are working to improve the temperature and the pressure control," Michelin's Two Wheel Motorsport Manager Piero Taramasso told me at Sepang in February of this year. "Now when you have the slipstream, the tendency of the front tire is to overheat. So we are working on that, to try to better control that point."
That was the good news. The bad news is that they have been working on this front tire since 2019, but circumstances have made getting the front right a moving target. The worse news is that the introduction date keeps getting moved back. And the intense MotoGP schedule means it could take even longer to test and verify a new front tire design.
I first asked Taramasso about the new front tire at the Sepang MotoGP test before the start of the 2020 season. "It’s true we are working on a new front, new construction," Taramasso told me. "For sure it will help to rebalance the bike without touching any settings. But unfortunately, will be ready just for 2021. So we will do all the tests in 2020 to be ready next year."
Delay, delay, delay
The Covid-19 pandemic which was about to engulf the world and completely disrupt all social activity, including MotoGP, put paid to that plan. The 2020 season was greatly delayed, and much abbreviated, and restricted to just a few circuits. Testing was pretty much scrapped. 2021 was better, but there too, testing was still limited.
But while testing was limited, a revolution in motorcycle design was underway. Aerodynamics grew in importance, and the simple holeshot devices morphed into dynamic ride-height devices which could be used multiple times a race.
This had a massive impact on what was required from a front tire. "We realized in the past two seasons that bikes are changing," Taramasso explained to me at the Sepang test in 2022. "They are putting more and more weight on the front, with the winglets, and riders are braking very very hard. So the load is changing, so we had to also change the development to adapt to that."
This forced Michelin to change their target date for introduction. "We are still working on the front. We will make some adjustments, and the tests will be done in 2023, to be introduced for 2024," Taramasso said in February.
When I spoke to Taramasso again in April at Portimão, he feared a further delay could be possible. "What we would like to do is next year try a new front tire and then we will see if the tests go very fast and the results are positive, then we can introduce in 2024. If not, we may need 2024 to test and introduce it in 2025."
Why the delay? Quite simply, the front tire is too important to change without extensive testing. And a lack of testing time and the rapid development of MotoGP bikes was making it hard to ensure the stronger carcass of the front tire would do what Michelin hoped, and allow the riders to continue to ride as they are used to.
The front is central
"Everything is changing, and when you change the front end, you change the bike completely, you change the feeling for the rider, you change the confidence," Taramasso told us at Portimão. "You need to do a lot of tests in different tracks, different conditions, cold, hot. So it takes more time to validate than a rear tire."
Paul Trevathan emphasized the importance of the front tire to riders. "The front tire is the holy grail to the motorcycle world," the KTM crew chief told us on the Paddock Pass Podcast. "For a rider sitting on that beast, if he doesn't have the feedback from that front, then he doesn't know where to push, he doesn't know how hard he can push. It's a very peculiar thing, and unless you're very deeply involved, it looks so much easier on the outside than it really is."
Trevathan also pointed to the particular way the Michelin front tire worked, especially in contrast to the front tire from the former spec tire supplier Bridgestone. "I would say, especially coming from Bridgestone to Michelin, the one thing that Michelin didn't have that the Bridgestone did have was the feedback, the Bridgestone front tire had massive feedback to the rider." That meant that the feel was consistent across compounds, from soft to hard. The feedback was always the same.
Feedback is everything
The Michelin is very different, according to Trevathan. The Michelin front works very well, but doesn't give the rider the same feedback. You have to have faith that it will stick, and it usually does. "With the Michelin, you have to go through this, like, black area, where you think, is it there or is it not?" Trevathan told us. "But you have to push on it to understand that you go through this phase and then all of a sudden, the tire is there. It's really vague on its feedback back to you."
This is where increasing tire pressures makes it so hard for riders to cope. With the front Michelin already feeling vague, the change in characteristics during the race, either stuck in traffic or riding alone, makes it even harder for the rider to trust. "We see in the race you can maybe gain 15°, 20°C, you can gain 0.2 Bar of pressure, if not 0.3. But of course, if you haven't tested it or the rider still doesn't know that feeling, it's a really difficult thing."
It was easy for engineers and crew chiefs to tell a rider not to worry about it, Trevathan said, but they didn't have to ride the bike in that condition. "As a technician, you'd say, OK, go for it, it's going to be fine. But ****, I don't sit on that bike." This is why riders would have bad results, he explained, because they didn't feel they could trust the front tire. "This is the aspect where, if they are in handcuffs, they just will not push, they will not make the lap time, they will not go forward."
Testing, testing
With the front tire such a key part of the equation for solving the braking and overtaking problems in MotoGP, and the feel of the front so central to the experience of racing a motorcycle, testing the new front tire is of paramount importance. And here is where MotoGP's plan to expand the calendar, switching focus from testing to racing, is proving to be a massive obstacle.
Testing is already limited, but from 2023, the number of test days for MotoGP riders will be cut from eleven to eight days a season, including five days of testing split over two tests before the start of the season, two one-day tests after races during the season, and a single day of testing after the final race of the year.
Piero Taramasso expressed concern that this reduction in testing would impact Michelin's test plan for the new front tire. "For sure it affects it. Eight days is not too much. We also need to test in other tracks, which are not on the schedule, so we have to see how to arrange that," he told me at Portimão.
Priorities
Paul Trevathan sees further complications for testing. Testing front tires came very low on the list of priorities for factory MotoGP teams. "Man, you don't believe how painful this is," he said. "Nobody wants to put a front tire on that's new first. You go to eight days of testing. You have everything that the factory has brought, and then you have a couple of test tires from Michelin. And trust me, they are LAST on the list of the things that you attack in that weekend. So Michelin probably have to rely more on the satellite guys to get that first input, because every factory rider is too busy with other things."
All this makes it that much harder to introduce a new front tire, Trevathan explained. "So the delay process of bringing a front is massive. It's double if not three times of rear tire." There was also the importance of the front to grip. "If the rider crashes on a rear, he has it in his hands. If he loses the rear on entry, if he loses the rear on exit, it's still in his hand a little bit, he's still got the throttle. But if you lose the front, you've got nothing. So the riders are really really reluctant to go there."
The restricted number of test days has another impact on introducing a new front tire. Not only does it have to be tested, it needs to be tested at a variety of tracks and in a variety of conditions, Trevathan explained. "We need a new front tire, this is absolutely sure. But how the hell Michelin is supposed to do that with the way that we have, the test days that we have, with guaranteeing that it works in different temperatures, different track conditions, every asphalt is different, every bike is different."
Trevathan believes Michelin is facing a massive challenge. "It's a massive task, and it's something that I don't envy and I have no idea how we can help them, unless there's a specific testing protocol put in place that we can do it and bring it forward. Otherwise, those poor guys are in handcuffs, just like we are," he said.
A petard of their own
What is the solution? Test riders can do a lot of work, but only up to a point. Test riders can validate the tires work, and can start to provide data for how teams might have to tweak setup, but they can't help the contracted riders, the regular line up of MotoGP riders, get their heads around the new front tire. In the end, the riders have to understand the new front, and figure out how to get the best out of it. That can only be done by them using it.
One possible solution is to add in extra sessions on race weekends, with the specific intention of testing the new Michelin front. The French tire maker already did this back in 2019. "This was in Phillip Island to validate the rear tire. So this might be another possibility," Taramasso said.
There are two major problems with this approach as well. The first is insurmountable, and a common factor at every race. The weather is unpredictable, and so there is no guarantee that the track will be dry and warm enough to provide usable data at the time the test session is planned.
More racing, less testing
The second problem with this idea is one of Dorna's own making. In addition to the calendar being expanded to 22 races for 2023, each race weekend itself is much more crowded. The introduction of sprint races on Saturday leaves very little time to add in an extra session over the course of a weekend, without extending the weekend by another day.
Sprint races also add yet another hurdle for testing tires. With effectively less track time to work on setup for each weekend, and qualifying counting double – grid positions will be set for both the sprint race and the grand prix on Sunday, and will weigh extra heavily in the outcome of the sprint races – time on test days will be even more precious. Factories, especially, will be even less keen to spend time on tires, rather than on new parts and setup at each test. And if the weather cuts into the amount of usable track time, testing the front tire will fall even further down the list of priorities.
That MotoGP desperately needs the new front Michelin, and needs it to work well is abundantly clear. But Dorna has made a rod for their own back with the reduction in testing and the weekend schedule. And the factories are shooting themselves in the foot by prioritizing their own new parts rather than a new front which might solve some of their problems.
Caught in a trap
And so MotoGP finds itself stuck in a vicious circle. Next year, teams and riders will be punished for having front tire pressures which are too low, with a potentially significant impact on the championship. But the teams are forced to risk running low pressure, because the bikes are simply not competitive if pressures rise too high. And because all their attention will be focused on fixing their immediate problems, there won't be any spare capacity to test a structural solution, a new, stronger, less temperature-sensitive front tire from Michelin.
It is understandable that riders, teams, and factories are reluctant to waste time on a new front tire: their jobs, bonuses, and futures rely on results this year, this weekend, this race, rather than potentially in two years time.
The stakes are even higher for Dorna, however. Their product is suffering as a result of the lack of overtaking, and the lack of overtaking is a direct result of the existing Michelin front not being designed to handle the aerodynamics and ride-height devices fitted to the current generation of MotoGP machines. Either the aero and devices have to go, or the Michelin front has to be brought in as fast as possible. But a new front tire needs testing, and the expanded calendar and weekend schedule simply doesn't leave any space for that to happen.
MotoGP is caught between a rock and a hard place. And there is no obvious road ahead. MotoGP needs a new front Michelin in 2024, but the way the series is designed means that 2025 may prove to be too optimistic. The series faces some hard choices over the next few years.