bichel
01-08-2009, 12:21 PM
MotoGP will follow current motorsport trends and initiate a one make tyre rule for 2009. Rights holders Dorna insist that the move was made for cost and safety reasons. They say that recent competition between Bridgestone and Michelin has dramatically increased corner speeds with serious consequences for rider safety.
But the issue of the recent MotoGP spectacle was certainly another factor in Dorna's wish to move to a single tyre supplier. During the past two seasons there has sometimes been a huge discrepancy in performance between different tyre brands resulting in poorer quality racing at the front of the pack. The debate reached its climax on Saturday night at Motegi with several teams deep in negotiations with Michelin in a last gasp bid to maintain open competition between tyre manufacturers. Most teams agree that open competition is desirable and the tyre companies, only Bridgestone and Michelin this year, agreed that the single tyre rule would be avoided if they could share the 2009 MotoGP grid at a 60/40 percent split. Most teams, it seemed, would want Bridgestone tyres which leffMichelin with the task of finding eight bikes of a projected 2o-strong 2009 grid to run on their tyres.
This is when things started getting strange. Ducati, the factory that did more than anyone else to establish Bridgestone at the top, were negotiating furiously with Michelin to run all five of their bikes on the French ty,res. Ducati, apparently, are concerned that Bridgestone's development is increasingly aimed at Valentino Rossi. They quit Michelin at the end of 2004 for similar reasons - to beat Rossi, they had decided, they needed different tyres from Rossi.
606
Kawasaki too were in negotiation with Michelin, with thoughts of running their planned three machines with "the company that has won 26 premier-class crowns in the last three decades. If both Ducati and Kawasaki switched to Michelin that would be eight bikes on the 20 bike grid and open competition would continue. But it didn't. Ducati's prime sponsor Marlboro jpsisted that Ducati stay with Bridgestone, because the tobacco baron runs joint promotions with Ducati and Ferrari and prefer a neat\rossover of technical partners: Shell, Bridgestone and so on.
After the one-tyre rule decision is taken, a big question comes in front now if everyone is running the same tyres, will they have the same tyre performance? Possibly not because different bikes and machines need different tyres. Rossi's crew chief Jeremy Burgess has always been against a single-tyre rule. "If you have the guys at the back of the grid trying to run the same tyres as the guys at the front of the grid you're going to have a lot of crashes," he said.
Bridgestone won the contract to service MotoGP's single-tyre format from which means that there will be no more Michelins competing in MotoGP. Along with the one-tyre format, one more change that happened in the case of tyres was that there will no longer be qualifying tyres in MotoGP. Bridgestone have indicated that they will not supply super-sticky qualifying tyres, designed to last only a lap or two to give riders the best possible grid position. The end of qualifying tyres is just one change to the tyre landscape. Bridgestone has suggested that MotoGP riders will also have less tyres to play with than their current allocation of 40 tyres per weekend. It is all part of a drive to reduce costs.
But the issue of the recent MotoGP spectacle was certainly another factor in Dorna's wish to move to a single tyre supplier. During the past two seasons there has sometimes been a huge discrepancy in performance between different tyre brands resulting in poorer quality racing at the front of the pack. The debate reached its climax on Saturday night at Motegi with several teams deep in negotiations with Michelin in a last gasp bid to maintain open competition between tyre manufacturers. Most teams agree that open competition is desirable and the tyre companies, only Bridgestone and Michelin this year, agreed that the single tyre rule would be avoided if they could share the 2009 MotoGP grid at a 60/40 percent split. Most teams, it seemed, would want Bridgestone tyres which leffMichelin with the task of finding eight bikes of a projected 2o-strong 2009 grid to run on their tyres.
This is when things started getting strange. Ducati, the factory that did more than anyone else to establish Bridgestone at the top, were negotiating furiously with Michelin to run all five of their bikes on the French ty,res. Ducati, apparently, are concerned that Bridgestone's development is increasingly aimed at Valentino Rossi. They quit Michelin at the end of 2004 for similar reasons - to beat Rossi, they had decided, they needed different tyres from Rossi.
606
Kawasaki too were in negotiation with Michelin, with thoughts of running their planned three machines with "the company that has won 26 premier-class crowns in the last three decades. If both Ducati and Kawasaki switched to Michelin that would be eight bikes on the 20 bike grid and open competition would continue. But it didn't. Ducati's prime sponsor Marlboro jpsisted that Ducati stay with Bridgestone, because the tobacco baron runs joint promotions with Ducati and Ferrari and prefer a neat\rossover of technical partners: Shell, Bridgestone and so on.
After the one-tyre rule decision is taken, a big question comes in front now if everyone is running the same tyres, will they have the same tyre performance? Possibly not because different bikes and machines need different tyres. Rossi's crew chief Jeremy Burgess has always been against a single-tyre rule. "If you have the guys at the back of the grid trying to run the same tyres as the guys at the front of the grid you're going to have a lot of crashes," he said.
Bridgestone won the contract to service MotoGP's single-tyre format from which means that there will be no more Michelins competing in MotoGP. Along with the one-tyre format, one more change that happened in the case of tyres was that there will no longer be qualifying tyres in MotoGP. Bridgestone have indicated that they will not supply super-sticky qualifying tyres, designed to last only a lap or two to give riders the best possible grid position. The end of qualifying tyres is just one change to the tyre landscape. Bridgestone has suggested that MotoGP riders will also have less tyres to play with than their current allocation of 40 tyres per weekend. It is all part of a drive to reduce costs.