Round six of the MotoGP™ World Championship sees Michelin pay a visit to Italy and the Gran Premio d’Italia Oakley, with this sensational venue providing a vigorous workout for the tyres.
The Mugello circuit is widely regarded as one of the most spectacular race tracks in the world, with its six left and nine right corners a fantastic mix of curves, elevation change, hard braking and a spine tingling fast straight where the premier class riders will reach speeds in excess of 350km/h.
Combine this mix and what you get is high stress for tyres, which Michelin have considered when choosing their compounds for the Italian GP. The front and rear soft, medium and hard tyre choices will be ideally matched to meet Mugello’s demands, which is why the medium and hard slick compounds will have a harder right-hand shoulder to try and increase the all-round performance that side of the tyre needs.
The Tuscan hills can bring wet weather to Mugello, so Michelin will have the Power Rain tyres in soft and medium compounds for the front and rear available should any rain arrive. The two rear rain tyres will have an asymmetric design, featuring a hard right shoulder, with both of the fronts symmetric.
Piero Taramasso, Manager of the Two-Wheel Motorsport Group describes how tough Mugello is on tyres and hints that we could see some lap record times being set this weekend:
“After the excitement of Michelin’s home GP, we now head to a track that has its own special place in people’s minds, but is a very complex and demanding one for Michelin. The tyres need to work very hard through the variations of corners and then give good stability under heavy braking, as well as impressive drive and high-speed performance on the long straight. We had to take all these factors into consideration when we chose the compounds for the allocation earlier this year and with so many factors this was one of the most difficult tracks to plan so far ahead for. We had a test at Mugello just before Le Mans and that confirmed a few things, we also had some very fast unofficial lap-times, so it would be good if those could be replicated when we go there for the race weekend.”