MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

For the past four years or so, there have been growing complaints about issues with Michelin's front tire. The increasing loads put on the front by the ride-height devices and by aerodynamics have raised temperatures and pressures, and the increasing size of aerodynamic wakes have made harder and harder to find fresh air to cool down the front tire by pulling out from behind the rider in front of you.

To address that, Michelin have been working on a new construction front tire. Initially, Michelin had planned to test it in 2020 and introduce it in 2021. The Covid-19 pandemic put a stop to that, with testing halted during that year, and by the time a normal testing schedule resumed, the bikes had changed so much, the role of ride-height devices and aerodynamics increased so much, that Michelin had to go back to the drawing table and redesign the front for the massive loads it now had to endure.

2024 has finally seen Michelin get a chance to build something that might work. At the Misano post-race test, a 30-minute session was set aside specifically to test the new front Michelin. 19 riders managed to put between 5 and 12 laps on the new front. And once they had two or three laps under their belt to get their heads around how the new tire felt, they could push, and give some solid feedback.

New profile, new construction

In a statement after the test, Michelin's head of two-wheeled motorsport Piero Taramasso explained what the point of the tire was, and how they saw the feedback they received from the riders. "It's a new front design, a new construction, new profile and the aim for this tire is to give more grip, better feedback," Taramasso said. "Also to be less sensitive to pressure and temperature variation. At the end, also this tire is lighter compared to the reference." The lighter tire meant less material used, and this is one of Michelin's key sustainability goals.

The feedback the riders gave Michelin was generally positive, Taramasso said. "All the riders did the test, the majority of riders liked it. It took two or three laps to get the feeling, because the feeling, the handling of the tire is different. And after that, they start to push, to push, and they reported to us that the grip level was good, the feedback, stability, especially in the fast corners."

It was a positive test, Taramasso said. "The model base is good. It was not perfect of course, so we need to do some adjustment to the tire to make it work better and also work well for all the manufacturers and all the riders. We're very satisfied, the base to start work, to make modifications is good, and it worked on all the bikes without doing many changes on the setting. So now we need to go back to France, analyze all the data and see what we can do knowing that we don't have too much time."

Split opinions

The feedback the riders gave to us was broadly similar, though opinions on the tire were split. The majority liked the tire, a few didn't, and Pecco Bagnaia was immediately a huge fan.

"I love it. Because it was something I was really needing," Bagnaia explained. "Because I'm a rider that uses a lot the brake for entry in the corner, and with this tire it was working super good, this thing. It's more difficult to change direction, it was more heavy, but I liked the grip a lot and the way you are able to push on the tire. And also I think that behind someone, with the new tire we will feel less the problem with the tire pressure. So I think it could be a good step.

The first contact with the tire had been strange, Bagnaia said. "I did the first lap in 1'36 or 1'34, I don't remember. And then as soon as I understood it, it was super good." But once he got his head around how the new tire felt, and what it allowed him to do, he felt it had massive potential.

Where some riders said the transition from braking to turning was difficult, for Bagnaia it came naturally. "I was braking like a devil," he told us, and he could turn into the corner much easier. "My problem with the tire that we have right now is that I can't brake like I want, because the front is collapsing. With the new tire, it looks like I have much more margin with this problem."

Push to test

Bagnaia had tried to push the tire to find where the limit was. "I chose two corners where I said, OK, I can take the risk, if I crash I will not have any issue, which was Turn 2 and Turn 4, that if you crash you're slow. In those two corners I forced a lot the bike to have a movement, to have a lock, to lose. But I didn't have it."

Bagnaia was enthusiastic. "It's incredible. The biggest step I tried in the last years." And even more enthusiastic when he heard that other riders had been less comfortable with the tire. "Oh yeah? So I hope that they bring it!"

Bagnaia said that it reminded him of the way Valentino Rossi described how the Bridgestone front tire felt. I asked Marc Márquez whether he thought the new front felt like the Bridgestone. He smiled and said no. The front Bridgestone was a very different beast indeed.

Márquez had liked the stability, but said the new front still needed some work. "This one was a big change, it was quite strange," the Gresini Ducati rider said. "In the beginning and the first laps, it was super strange, and then with more laps you get more confidence, and the stability was super good, but for me they still need to work a bit on that agility."

The bike was needed more effort to turn, Márquez said. "The bike becomes heavier - one more time again, we are going with the aero and everything all the time heavier and heavier and heavier. And especially on the change of direction, it was more difficult. But braking stability was better."

Turn in

Braking stability was an area that Marco Bezzecchi praised as well. Though he had only had 8 laps to assess it, he saw it as an interesting development. "Straight braking is very good for me," the VR46 rider explained. "It looks like the compound, the tire is more soft, so when you brake strong you have more tire that is touching the ground."

That extra grip made it more difficult to turn the bike in, Bezzecchi said. "When you lean the bike it's more stiff. Because the tire is more flat, so going in it's more difficult. But I have to try again. But it's interesting."

The bike still wanted to turn, he explained, but turning in on the brakes was harder. "It's not less turning. It's more difficult to go in with brakes. When you brake, straight braking, it's very good, but when you lean, there is a part where it is very hard to go in." Once you release the brake, then the bike was easy and eager to lean, Bezzecchi explained.

Alex Rins had felt something similar. The bike was eager to change direction, but turning into a corner was more difficult. "Quite strange. Changing direction, it was super nice. But going into the corner, it was a little bit difficult," the Yamaha rider told us. The performance from the front was immediately there, he said, despite not feeling immediately comfortable. "In terms of lap time, I did the same lap time in the seventh lap, but I didn't like it so much, maybe we need to work a little bit more."

More rubber, more grip

Rins had an explanation for why the bike felt so difficult to turn. "What I felt was, going into the corner, it looks like more rubber is touching the floor, and this one was a little bit difficult to turn." It was just a matter of getting used to the different feeling of the tire. "If they bring, we need to get used to it, 100%."

The one rider who really didn't like the new Michelin front was the rider with the least experience of Michelins. "To be honest, I don't really like it at all," Pedro Acosta told us. "The grip is not bad on the edge, but then in the braking it's quite soft, it feels like the soft that we have now, but with more grip."

Acosta felt that that softness, combined with the grip, constrained him in the way he wanted to ride. "Hard to say that I like it, because I was in handcuffs in the braking, so for this difficult to say something." The Tech3 GASGAS rider was keen to hear what other riders and engineers had to say to put his own feelings into perspective.

Solved at last?

Can Michelin's new front tire be called a success? From the lap times and everything we saw and heard, it is a massive step forward. The teams will need to work on the setup of the bike to adapt it to the new tire, but the bikes won't need to be redesigned to accommodate it. That, in itself, is significant.

Will it solve the problem that it has been designed to address? Without seeing it in a race, it is very hard to say. Only when riders spend 20 laps chasing each other will the tire really see the stresses and loads involved in racing. But from the data gathered at the Misano test, it has got to be better than what we have.

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