To put together the fabulous spectacle we witnessed this weekend in the Netherlands, all the MotoGP riders wore their special tire combinations.
If, at the rear, no one had opted for the medium tire, the soft tire and the hard tire had been chosen roughly in the same proportions (11 soft, 12 hard).
But where things may seem strange is that the Hondas of Marc Márquez, Cal Crutchlow and Dani Pedrosa were equipped with soft rubbers while the Ducatis of Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci sported hard rear slicks. A rather unusual fact, given past races.
Explanations from the person concerned…
Marc Márquez : “It was strange because normally, during the last races, we used a hard tire and everyone else a soft tire. And at this race, it was the opposite; there were a lot of people in hard and we had a soft. But this time, if you had checked the allocation in depth, the soft, on some points, was harder than the hard. Yes, it is like that. It's sometimes hard to understand, but the soft had a few harder areas than the hard. And luckily I chose the soft because I felt more comfortable in a few corners. With the hard, yes, I was able to go fast, but I felt greater deterioration.”
So what is this mystery of the soft tire being harder than the hard tire? And why didn't anyone choose the medium rear tire?
We will try to obtain a response from Michelin very soon…
