Michelin riders dominated last October's inaugural MotoGP event at Istanbul Park - monopolising the first eight places on the grid and filling eight of the top nine finishing positions - and the French tyre manufacturer is hoping for similar success this season, as it seeks to help its riders chase down Bridgestone-shod points leader Loris Capirossi.

Designed by German architect Herman Tilke - who also created the Sepang and Shanghai circuits - the challenging Turkish race track proved an instant hit with the grand prix paddock last season, which returns to Istanbul next weekend for round three of the 2006 world championship.

"The Istanbul layout is really good," said Nicolas Goubert, Michelin's director of motorcycle racing. "It has got all kinds of turns, plus plenty of ups and downs and it's also quite symmetrical, so it's perfect and completely different in style to the other new track we went to last year. Shanghai and Istanbul are night and day to this track even though they were both designed by the same architect.

"It looks like a lot of fun and it's a real rider's track, which really challenges riders, and where a good rider can make the difference. We appreciate that because we still think that MotoGP is number one a rider's sport, unlike Formula One, where team strategy and other factors seem to matter more. During the first few practice sessions last year we saw a lot of riders missing their braking markers and so on, which suggests that Istanbul is not an easy circuit to master."

The most talked about corner on the circuit is the awesome turn 11, taken at around 260km/h - flat out in fifth gear - but as far as Michelin are concerned another corner is a bigger technical challenge.

"The very fast Turn 11 attracted a lot of comment during the weekend last year because it must be very impressive for the riders, but it's not such a big deal for tyres," he said. "It's so fast that riders don't use extreme angles of lean, plus they're not using a lot of throttle through the corner. From a tyre point of view, the triple left (Turns 7 and 8) is more critical because riders stay leaned over for a long while through there which puts a lot of heat into the tyres.

"Last year the surface was quite aggressive and the grip was quite good, which is what you expect from a new track. We haven't been back there since but we don't think the track has been used much, so hopefully the surface character won't have changed much.

"Last time we used medium-hard tyres and we'll stay in that range. Istanbul is also quite bumpy, though our riders didn't have a problem with tyre absorption. And last time we were there we noticed that it can be very cold in the morning, so you need tyres that will give grip well, even in those conditions. We still believe we have more to learn about this track because we've only been there once," concluded Goubert.

Heading the nine strong Michelin line-up in Turkey will be Qatar victor Valentino Rossi, now chasing his first back-to-back success since last October, but Marco Melandri won his first MotoGP race at Istanbul last year - and desperately needs a repeat performance after falling into the shadow of fellow Honda riders Nicky Hayden, Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner in recent races.