During the French Grand Prix, we had the opportunity to meet Nicolas Goubert, Deputy Director and Technical Director of the competition at Michelin.
We of course talked about the tires available at Le Mans, but we also wanted to come back to the formidable industrial operation launched by Michelin, following the disappointments that occurred during the Argentine Grand Prix.
Nicolas Goubert, during our previous conversations, you told us that it took roughly three weeks to build new tires for the MotoGP grid. There, we saw something quite extraordinary, with tires built and delivered to the USA in less than a week. How did the operation go, and how long does it take to make a tire by hand?
Nicolas Goubert: “Let’s say that, in an exceptional situation, exceptional means. Indeed, in Argentina, it did not happen the way we had planned. Normally, when things are going normally, we plan to re-make tires in three weeks. There, the exceptional situation forced us to mobilize exceptional resources. To make a tire, it takes approximately 45 minutes. At this point it is still hot, but it will cool down on its own. Obviously, we have a certain number of machines working in parallel. There, the event having occurred on Saturday, we knew what had to be done on Saturday evening, since we had made the decision to release other architectures for Sunday. And for the weekend that followed, it was the same decision.
We therefore immediately contacted the factory so that they could get ready to produce from Monday. »
Didn't you work on Sunday?
" No. It takes specific skills to be able to modify plans, so we didn't start working for this event on Sunday. The tires started to be built on Monday, and until Friday in fact, since the last shipment left France early Friday afternoon. It's been almost a week. »
How many tires have you made?
“There are two specifications and seven tires per driver, or around 260 tires. »
Did this concern a lot of people?
“Yes, it mobilized quite a few people at the factory and quite a few people from other departments which are not integrated into the factory. Plus people in logistics. It was a lot of teamwork. This mobilized a lot of resources on the ground (in the USA) because the tires were often delivered late in the evening, often at ten or eleven o'clock, and the assembly team had to be able to fit them for the next day...
So it was a week that could be described as “hot” and tiring for a lot of people (laughs). »
