After a whistle stop tour of to the Qatari desert and The Americas, the MotoGP paddock is back in Europe this weekend for Round 4 at Spain’s famous Jerez circuit.
Last year’s race winner Valentino Rossi will be hoping for the same result in 2017 as he looks to extend his championship lead, whilst teammate Maverick Viñales will be looking to atone for his 2nd lap crash in Texas two weeks ago. Jerez has also been a happy hunting ground for Jorge Lorenzo in the premier class, and he will be hoping to get to grips with the Ducati on home soil.
The varying layout of the 4.423km Jerez circuit has set the scene for some memorable racing with it’s camber changes, fast sweeping curves and hard-braking zones offering many overtaking opportunities.
With relatively low levels of mechanical grip available from the Jerez asphalt, Michelin will be supplying tyres to cope with these difficult conditions. The allocation will consist of the soft, medium and hard front slick, with soft (symmetrical), medium (asymmetrical design featuring a harder right-hand-side) and hard (symmetrical) compounds on the rear. Both the front and rear tyres will be identified by a white band on the tyre sidewall of the softer version, no band on the medium and a yellow band on the harder specification. In the case of any wet weather, the front and rear soft (blue band) and medium (no band) compound Power Rain tyres will also be available.
Piero Taramasso – Michelin Motorsport Two-Wheel Manager said:
“After all the fly-away races it is good to be starting the European leg of the season and travelling to venues that are closer to home, which have with easier logistics. Jerez is one of the tracks that we are targeting for improvements this season. It is a low grip circuit, with many directional changes, as well as being quite narrow. The diversity of the corner layout means that we need to offer a tyre with a balanced character to provide good handling from low speed through to high speed corners and from flat turns to changes in elevation, so this makes it quite technical in all aspects. We have a range of tyres that will give us the sort of progress we are looking to make and then on the Monday at the test we will be supplying some new options, as well as giving the riders some existing alternatives to try out and make comparisons with the tyres we already have in the range. Jerez itself is an amazing event, full of excitable and colourful fans and it’s a race that has given some memorable battles and is certainly a great place to start at in Europe.”
Practice kicks off tomorrow morning, so don’t forget to tune in!
