This weekend, MotoGP heads to MotorLand Aragón, a circuit with almost unique characteristics and which can also be difficult due to ambient temperatures, especially in the early hours of the morning. Piero Taramasso, director of Michelin – the sole tire supplier – spoke of the complexities the Spanish round could bring. Riders will have symmetrical front tires in all three dry compounds and two for wet. At the rear, meanwhile, the soft and medium slick and rain tires will be asymmetrical with a stiffer left sidewall, while the hard tires will be symmetrical.
In the tire maker’s official preview, the official highlighted the challenges the teams might face due to the temperature issue: “Unlike the upcoming hot weather in Asia in previous years, some sessions here in Aragon have been delayed due to very cold morning temperatures – sometimes below 10°C – so this is something teams need to be prepared for in terms of tire choices for the morning free practice sessions.
As for Michelin himself, Taramasso admitted that it was a difficult track: “The design of the circuit has always been a challenge for our tire designers due to its mixture of corners, from slow and tight to fast and smooth, and the two straights where the speeds of MotoGP motorcycles are very high. When you combine these factors with the potential for extreme tire temperatures, it places very specific demands and considerable strain on the tires.
According to the Frenchman, it is in this spirit that the choice of tires was made, with several objectives: “For these reasons, we have chosen to allocate tires capable of withstanding harsh conditions and operating over a range of temperatures as wide as possible.
