After back-to-back races in Italy, Michelin have travelled straight to Spain for the third race in a triple-header as MotoG heads to Montmeló near Barcelona for the Gran Premi Monster Energy de Catalunya and the eighth round of this shortened fourteen-race season.
Originally scheduled for June of this year, the race at the 4,627m Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya was rescheduled for late September following the worldwide pandemic. Montmelo’s layout was changed and the track resurfaced in 2018, and this highly abrasive circuit features fast and sweeping corners, a straight over a kilometre long and several elevation changes. It’s one of the favourite circuits on the calendar amongst riders, and regularly serves up exciting racing and a fantastic atmosphere. Sadly there will be no noise from the crowd this year due to health protocols surrounding the pandemic, meaning there will be no track side spectators.
Michelin have selected a range of tyres that is ideally suited to meeting the demands of the circuit, and with weather conditions expected to be similar to those that would have been experienced in June, the data from previous races and tests proved invaluable when choosing the best compounds for their range of Power Slick tyres.
Front and rear slicks will be in the usual soft, medium and hard versions, but the soft and medium fronts will be symmetric, whilst the front hard and all the rears will incorporate an asymmetric finish with a harder compound on the right-hand-side.
With the arrival of autumn in Catalunya rain is something of an unknown factor. If wet weather does arrive the range of Power Rain tyres in the allocation will be a soft and medium symmetric front, with soft and medium asymmetric rears, again with the harder right shoulder.
Piero Taramasso – Michelin Motorsport Two-Wheel Manager commented:
“It seems strange to head to Barcelona as the autumn is arriving and not in springtime, but we are expecting similar conditions to what we would have had if the race had been on its original date, so the range of tyres we have supplied is the same as we would have used if the original calendar had stayed in place. The track is one that gives a really good workout for the tyres, due to its comprehensive layout that features fast corners, a long straight, hard braking and is also very tough on the right-hand-side of the tyre, due to the long corners that go in that direction. This means that what we bring to Barcelona has to do a bit of everything, but has to do it very well and we certainly have a range of tyres for that.”
