Michelin makes major tyre change after Motegi MotoGP Sprint

Michelin has withdrawn the soft rear tyre from Sunday’s Japanese MotoGP allocation following problems during the Motegi Sprint.

The medium remains available, alongside the reinforced hard rear that has yet to complete a lap this weekend. The hard is now Michelin’s "recommended option" for the GP.

Several riders suffered major issues with the soft during Saturday’s 12-lap Sprint, including Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia.

However, Jack Miller, one of only two riders to use the medium, revealed that his tyre also suffered “a lot” of blistering and predicted everyone could be forced onto the hard.

Miller said he could “almost guarantee” such an outcome, warning that using a tyre no rider has yet tested at Motegi could turn Sunday’s race into a “lottery”.

Pramac Yamaha team-mate Toprak Razgatlioglu agreed with that assessment.

'Michelin has withdrawn the Soft rear'

However, Michelin has stopped short of making the hard mandatory, with the medium still permitted.

At present there are also no changes to the race distance, and no compulsory mid-race pit stops, but warm-up has been doubled from ten to twenty minutes.

A Michelin statement confirmed: "Michelin has withdrawn the Soft rear from the race allocation. The Medium remains available but will require careful management, while the Hard rear, featuring a reinforced casing, is Michelin’s recommended option for riders looking to maintain a strong pace throughout the race."

"Riding style, tyre management and bike setting"

Michelin's Piero Taramasso explained: "Motegi is quite an aggressive track, quite demanding layout, and also it's a new asphalt, and we never tested here. 

"We came with three solutions on the rear: the soft and the medium with the standard casing, and the hard one with the stronger casing, the same as Austria, because we were expecting some problems with very high rear temperature.

"Yesterday and this morning, we tested the tyres. We checked the temperature. It was quite high in general for most of the bikes, at the limit. But we decided to use [the soft], to try in the sprint for 12 laps. We said that it was manageable.

"But the sprint race was very, very fast. It was nine seconds quicker [than last year]. Also this morning in qualifying, the lap record was broken by six-tenths. So quick pace, high temperature - the track was 40 degrees for the sprint.

"One important point is also that in a sprint, there is no fuel consumption problem, so they have full power. Riders, they start like crazy with full gas from lap one to the end. So this situation puts a lot, a lot of energy on the tyre and causes spinning. All these things don't help.

"In these conditions, you have to manage the tyre. Some riders, some bikes, they manage better than others, because the goal is to put less energy in the tyre, less temperature, and try not to spin a lot.

"And then at the end, some riders faced quite large blistering - for example, two Aprilias and one Ducati. Others, the Ducati, Marc [Marquez, the Sprint winner], nothing. His soft was good. KTM, all the bikes were fine. Honda, only one bike was facing that.

"So the situation is really related to riders' riding style, tyre management, and bike setting.

"Anyway, we analysed all the data, the tyres, and the solution for tomorrow is that the soft rear will not be allowed in the race.

"We can leave the medium, the medium is a little bit more resistant... but it needs to be managed.

"And if you don't want to manage, if you want to push from the beginning to the end, you have the hard option with the stronger casing.

"This is what Michelin recommends for tomorrow."

The decision leaves teams facing a dilemma: Gamble on managing the medium or switch to an 'unknown' hard rear, with only the warm-up to gain pre-race data.

In an added twist, the reinforced hard rear is the same tyre that caused grip problems for Ducati at the Red Bull Ring.

Ducati won the Motegi Sprint with Marc Marquez, who is now just seven points behind Aprilia's title leader Martin.

As Taramasso noted, Marquez didn't report any of the tyre problems that forced team-mate Bagnaia to pit one lap before the finish.

Martin's team-mate Marco Bezzecchi was the other rider to join Miller on the medium, which he had used to be fastest in final practice.

However, he wasn't able to repeat his morning pace and finished in sixth.

"My wear on the medium didn’t look too bad, but 12 [more] laps on the medium is still a lot, so it’s a bit of a jump on the unknown," Bezzecchi said.

“I will do what they advise us to do. I will analyse, and if I think it’s the best choice, I will go with the medium.”

After Friday practice, some riders had suggested the soft could be used for the grand prix, due to the lack of degradation, making the Sprint blistering something of a surprise.