Since Marc Marquez is officially injured and convalescing, once again affected by diplopia from which we never know the time of recovery, the search for responsibilities has been underway at Honda. And statements made before the eight-time World Champion's condition was the aforementioned now sound very different. So much so that at Michelin, we decided to respond. And quite clearly.
Four falls including a terrible one on Sunday morning which led to this diplopia after concussion, this is the terrible Indonesian assessment of a Marc Marquez now unable, again, to pilot. We must take stock in view of the issues. And this point starts from this tire allocation brought by Michelin who brought out Honda of its diagram and visibly Marc Marquez of its hinges. Because the eight-time World Champion never gives up.
In view of what is happening, the words of Pol Espargaro, his teammate, pronounced after the accident of Marc Marquez sound very different. The Spaniard then said: “ if Marc had really been injured, Michelin would have taken all the blame. Marc was lucky not to get hurt, but if he had, this would have been the result of a bad decision by a supplier ». Alberto puig, in his assessment of Mandalika, also clearly indicated that he would like to have a discussion with Michelin about what happened in Indonesia.
You don't have to be a great cleric to imagine that we are gradually pointing out all the responsibility for the misfortune of Marc Marquez on Michelin . A trend that Piero Taramasso, responsible for the Auvergne brand in the paddock, wants to stop in its tracks. He says thus about GP One : " I'm surprised, I spoke to Puig because he wasn't at the tests and I explained the whole situation to him, why we had made this choice, I tried to give him all the information he didn't have. probably not. All the technical staff of the teams and the overwhelming majority of drivers understood and in fact no one else complained. I'm surprised that he alone didn't understand the motivation for this change between practice and the Grand Prix. ».
Michelin: “nous avons analysé les données de crash et je peux exclure que cela soit dû aux pneus"
And he insists: “ we always put safety first, even when it comes to performance. The test tires would not have lasted the race distance because the temperatures were very high and none of the compounds worked, all the drivers and teams noticed. At the end of testing I spoke to all the technical directors and team bosses, explaining the situation to them and telling them that there would be a change for the GP. The only possible technical solution was this carcass that we had already used in 2017 and 2018, we coupled it with the compounds used in the tests so as not to upset everything. These carcasses are capable of lowering the tire temperature by 15-20°, which was what was needed ».
Et Piero Taramasso complete with this essential sentence: “ we analyzed the crash data and I can rule out that it was due to the tires ". Furthermore, in Indonesia, Honda was the only manufacturer not to have found a solution for the new slick tires Michelin with a harder carcass. Even the rain on Sunday did not help the Japanese.
