MotoGP, Taramasso: "Lusail is challenging. it starts out hot and ends cool."

At just a few hours away from the start of the 4th round of the MotoGP season, Michelin Motorsports Manager Piero Taramasso took stock of the tires they've chosen for the Qatar weekend, where the thermometer is expected to range between 26° C and 37° C.

"Lusail is another challenging circuit, both because of its design and its geographical location. Although it was redone three years ago, it's quite abrasive, and the desert sand brought by the wind doesn't help in terms of wear. In terms of temperature, it starts out hot and ends cool and dark," the engineer said.

There are three symmetrical solutions for the front, while the rear proposal is an asymmetrical soft and a symmetrical medium. "For the front, we've confirmed the soft and medium, and changed the hard, which is now capable of giving more stability, since the one created ad hoc in 2024 to limit graining was discarded because it was too hard. But we still have the medium on the rear, which is preferred by everyone for the long race and by the majority for the sprint. In contrast, the soft will be more like the medium, since it had started to degrade after six, seven laps in the past edition," he explained.

The intention is to allow the rider more freedom. "In the last championship, only one rider used the soft compound and all the others had already gone with the medium in the sprint. The goal is to offer a tire that can do the race on Saturday, while always leaving the window open for the medium for those bikes that are a bit more aggressive or those who have a faster pace," he added.

Again, with regard to the Texas weekend, the manager said he was pleased with the feedback from the group. "The tires brought responded well in all situations, which means the allocation was well centered. The preferred options for the sprint were medium on the front and soft on the rear. In the GP, the only one who chose the soft was Miller, who handled himself well and ended up fifth, but I personally think the medium was the ideal tire. When the asphalt is wet, you think the soft can provide a little extra grip, but that's not necessarily always the case," he concluded.