Tyre selections for Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli

A few insights into the rubber we'll race on the Riviera di Rimini

Next up it's the Gran Premio Octo di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini, and a new challenge for Michelin at a very different track to Silverstone.

The 4.2km Misano circuit has six left- and ten right-handers; a mix of slower turns and high-speed corners mixed together over a track that has a medium abrasive surface. The circuit needs a range of tyres to cope with its technical stresses and the MICHELIN Power Slick tyres for this event have been selected to match those requirements. The soft, medium and hard front tyres are all symmetrical, with the rears all asymmetrical and featuring a harder right-hand side to manage with the extra turns that go in that direction.

Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli can also be susceptible to wet weather, as was experienced last year, so the MICHELIN Power Rain tyres will be offered to combat such conditions. These tyres will be offered in soft and medium symmetric front and an extra-soft and soft rear. The extra-soft rear will be a symmetric finish, whilst the soft will have an asymmetric design with a harder right shoulder.

Michelin and the MotoGP field will take to the track on Friday 7th September to begin preparations for Sunday’s 27-lap race, as this season’s event is one-lap shorter than before.

“After everything that happened at Silverstone and here in Misano last year, we are hoping for some better weather in Italy this week," says Piero Taramasso – Michelin Motorsport Two-Wheel Manager. "Misano is a demanding track that can create quite high temperatures from the rubber, especially on the front tyres as the bikes spend a lot of time leant over, so we need to have compounds which meet these demands. In 2016 we had a very impressive performance here on our return and we hoped to improve on that in 2017, but the weather had other ideas, that said though, the rain tyres performed really well in quite difficult conditions on a low grip track in the wet and we saw an exciting race. We hope that the bad weather won’t play a part again this season, but no matter what, we are ready!”