It was not only the MotoGP teams and riders who worked on innovations during the three days of pre-season testing in Sepang. Michelin, the exclusive tire supplier, also had new solutions to work on, which Piero Taramasso spoke about to the press.
The director of the motorcycle competition division thus summed up these tests: ‘At the end of the three days, I would say it was a very positive test. The standard allocation we gave the riders is based on what they used here last season. There is a different compound on the front and a different compound on the rear. We validated these compounds last season in the Misano test and in Valencia. This new rear tire compound is designed to have better consistency. The one designed for the front is to take the first step towards the 2025 tire. We decided to take a step in the compound in 2024 and the second step in the carcass and construction in 2025. This was the running tire, which they used all three days to check the new bikes, to test, to test different solutions’.
According to Taramasso, there was also a new harder compound for the front wheel: ‘In addition, we brought a new front tire, a new compound called D, and we also call it the hard “plus” because it is a hard compound, a little extra hard to compensate for the front of the bike, which is becoming more and more aggressive’.
As for the main tire for these tests, the Michelin leader explained that it pleased from the performance, improvement margin, and consistency point of view: ‘The running tire was very good, with this tire all the riders set their lap time and as you can see the times were very, very fast. On the last day, ten riders were faster compared to last year’s record. And also compared to the IRTA test they were one second faster. So the performance is here, we see that this tire model is still not at its limit because they can attack more and more. And also the consistency, which was something we were looking for, exists. With the soft tire, they were able to do 20/25 laps and sometimes the best lap is after six, seven or even eight laps’.
