The Michelin Motorsport team are heading to Italy after an impressive round at Aragon last weekend. The 14th round of the MotoGP will take place at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli which is situated close to the coastline of the Adriatic Riviera. The circuit has been a permanent and popular fixture on the MotoGP calendar since its return in 2007. Following Covid health motorsport restrictions and a limited capacity of 10,000 last year, the 2021 race will welcome back an increased number of spectators with a very welcome 23,000 coming to cheer on their racing heroes each day.
The 2.626 mile circuit has a technical layout with ten right hand turns and six left hand turns which makes it one of the most intricate on the calendar. The course is packed with high speed curves and corners, slow turns and a short 0.329 miles straight. This layout puts very specific demands on the front tyres. For this circuit Michelin have chosen to use their Power Slick range, they have been designed to give riders the optimum performance characteristics for this track.
The Misano 2021 slick tyre allocation for MotoGP will feature Soft, Medium and Hard front options, with all options being symmetric. While the Soft, Medium and Hard compound rears will all be asymmetric, with a harder right side to cope with the greater number of turns in that direction and the subsequent increased stress exerted on that side of the tyre throughout the 27-laps of the race.
Historically known as the ‘San Marino Grand Prix’, the circuit’s location near to the coast and the time of the year of the event has led to many wet days in recent years, and with this prospect the Michelin Power Rain tyres will be in the allocation as always. Soft and Medium symmetric fronts and asymmetric Soft and Medium rears, again with the harder right side, will give the riders ultimate grip in the wet in the event of any precipitation.
In-line with the Michelin Group’s ‘All Sustainable’ strategy, to highlight and illustrate the advances in sustainability with the MotoE slick tyres, Michelin will, for the second time this year, be welcoming visitors to experience its interactive Regen’Lab demonstration module in the MotoE paddock throughout the weekend. The MotoE riders, Michelin will have the usual allocation of Slick and Rain tyres, with the innovative Michelin Power Slick range manufactured using a higher percentage of sustainable and recycled materials – 33% in the front tyres and 40% in the rears.
Speaking about the race weekend, Piero Taramasso, Michelin Two-Wheel Motorsport Manager, said: “In the past, the track surface at Misano was always quite difficult to read, but since it was resurfaced it seems more consistent in its grip levels. This helps us to choose the optimum tyre allocation for the MotoGP riders, and to help ensure exciting racing, and give all teams an equal chance to take the chequered flag – which has been one of the strong points of our range of Michelin Power Slick tyres this season.”
The MotoGP track action will commence on Friday 17 September with two Free Practice sessions, and this will be followed on Saturday with two more before the excitement of Qualifying. The Sunday race day will see the Gran Premio Octo di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini get underway at 14:00 local time. In MotoE there will be two Free Practice sessions on Friday, but this will be followed on Saturday by EPole during the morning and Race 1 at 16:20. Race 2 will take place at 15:30 on Sunday afternoon.
