MotoGP Sepang Test: Just a little tire story…

In Sepang, last Thursday, the red lights came on at 18 p.m. to signify the closure of the track and the engines fell silent immediately.

While the last riders did a final debriefing, the mechanics put the motorcycles in their transport crate for Qatar and began to dismantle the boxes.
But the most active place in the paddock was then the box occupied by Michelin, where each team representative had brought all the MotoGP rims to have the tires dismantled, whether they had been used or not.

Indeed, there is no question for the men of Clermont-Ferrand of leaving a single tire “in the wild”, at the risk of seeing the competition take advantage of the high technology which characterizes French products. We know what we're talking about at Bibendum, since an envelope has already been stolen in the past, just before the immediate competition took a leap forward...

Each tire is therefore carefully referenced and brought back to France and, for this, stacked in an air-conditioned container at 22° which will only be closed and sealed late at night, before being loaded onto a cargo ship bound for Le Havre.

To make the story more romanticized, we could have said that this cargo ship will perhaps cross paths with the one bringing the rubber for the Qatar tests, but in reality, the tires that will be used in Qatar have already arrived there.

In any case, tribute to these men who work in the shadows, and it is often in the first sense, without whom our passion could not be satisfied!