Michelin’s unfavoured Japanese MotoGP back-up tyre ‘could’ve done three races’
Brad Binder says his bike was setup too conservatively for Michelin’s back-up tyre at the Japanese MotoGP.
Brad Binder feels he and his team went too conservative on bike setup at the Japanese MotoGP, anticipating a fragile rear tyre.
Like the rest of the MotoGP field, Binder chose the hard-option rear tyre for Sunday’s Japanese Grand Prix.
The hard was a combination of the soft-option’s compound rubber with the harder, heat-resistant construction of the tyres that were used in Austria. It was taken as a kind of safety option by Michelin, which wanted to cover off any potential problems with the standard tyres that could crop up with Motegi’s new surface.
In the Sprint, such issues did arise on the soft-compound tyre, with some riders encountering blistering that resulted in the centre of the tyre chunking.
Those problems led to the soft rear tyre being removed from the allocation for Sunday, with Michelin recommending riders use the hard in the full-distance race.
Because it was viewed as a back-up tyre, the hard hadn’t been tried by anyone before Sunday, so everyone tried it in the extended Warm Up on Sunday morning, and the impression was positive enough that all 22 riders chose it for the grand prix as well.
But because the tyre was still quite unknown, with no one able to do close to race distance on it on Sunday morning in the 20-minute Warm Up, it was tricky to have the correct setup for the race.
Brad Binder fell on the conservative side of the setup, he felt afterwards, his Red Bull KTM Factory Racing team having expected the tyre to be fragile in the centre, which turned out not to be the case.
“We did the warm up on the hard rear tyre,” said Binder after the Motegi race.
“Straight away out the pits already I was like ‘These aren't bad’. So I was pleasantly surprised, it was pretty good actually.
“In the race, everything was quite okay. I mean, I think we toned everything down a few steps thinking that we need to save the centre of the tyre.
“The reality was I think we could have done three race distances on it.
“So, it wasn't really the finest move we've ever made, but it happens, and unfortunately the best I managed today was 11th. So, not a great Japan.
“I thought it would have been a little bit better, to be honest, but I think I kind of screwed myself a little bit when I threw it down in Q1 – definitely made the rest of my weekend more challenging.”
Alex joined the Crash.net team in August of 2024 having covered consumer and racing motorcycle news at Visordown for two years.
