Beginning of the end of MotoGP’s tyre-pressure nightmare, plus Hollywood tech arrives in pitlane

“I love the tyre,” he said. “Because it’s something I really need, because I use a lot of brake entering corners, which feels super-good with this tyre. It does make the bike heavier to change direction. But I like the grip a lot and the way you can push on the tyre. Also, I think that when we are behind someone we may feel the tyre-pressure problem less.

“When I tried the tyre I was braking like a devil. My problem with the current tyre is that I can’t brake like I want, on angle, because the tyre collapses.

“I chose two slow corners [Turns 2 and 4] where I could take risks and crash and not have any issues. At those corners I forced the bike a lot to have movement from the tyre, or locking, or losing the front, but I didn’t have any of that. It’s incredible.

“I’ve spoken many times with Valentino Rossi about the Bridgestone front [MotoGP’s spec tyre from 2009 to 2015 and the reference in front-tyre performance] and this feeling seems to be the same they had with the Bridgestone.”

Sunday’s Misano winner Marc Márquez was more concerned about the tyre’s reduced agility.

“It’s a big change,” he said. “It was super-strange during the first laps, then with more laps I built confidence. The stability is super-good and the braking stability is better. But they need to work on agility, especially in changes of direction, because again the bikes become heavier [to turn], because with the aero they’ve become heavier and heavier and heavier.”

Of course, it’s important to understand that the tyre-pressure situation isn’t only of Michelin’s making. The concept of spec-tyre racing is that the motorcycle manufacturers design their machines to generate the maximum grip from the tyres, rather than tyre companies tailor-making tyres to suit each motorcycle.

Formula 1-inspired downforce aerodynamics have entirely changed the game in MotoGP, dramatically increasing load on the front tyre, especially during braking, causing extra stress and heat.

Meanwhile engine output has increased nearly 50% since the big four-strokes arrived in 2002, massively increasing the heat created by motorcycles, which can be transferred to other bikes when riders are racing in a group. The heat isn’t only a problem for the front tyre, it’s getting to the point where riders are struggling to survive some races.

During Monday’s test, Aprilia went public for the first time with its rider-sensor data system, which has been under development for some while. Trackhouse riders Miguel Oliveira and Raul Fernandez tried the system, their leathers hiding dozens of sensors which send data to a little black box mounted on the seat hump, telling their engineers exactly how they move around the bike to make it do what they want it to do.

This technology is already well known in the movie and video-game industries – actors wear bodysuits fitted with sensors that capture their movements, which special software translates into animations.

“We are planning to do this kind of thing, because the most difficult point in making computer simulations is to simulate the rider as a control system that guides the bike – that’s very difficult,” Aprilia’s MotoGP tech chief Romano Albesiano told me at the end of last year. “On the data we have now we can see where the loads are, but we don’t know where the rider is and what kind of pressure he is putting into the bike. Absolutely this is an important point of investigation.”

Albesiano isn’t wrong – this is hugely valuable information and the only real surprise is that it’s taken so long.

Rider radios were also tested at Misano and look likely to be introduced next season. The primary push behind this technology is safety, so Race Direction can inform riders of potentially dangerous situations. However, teams will most likely also be allowed to communicate with their riders, because Dorna believes this will improve the TV show.

Team-to-driver comms are popular in Formula 1, because they can add an extra dynamic to sometimes underwhelming races.

Obviously, it’s nothing less than fascinating to hear an engineer tell his driver, “Your tyres are ready – push, push, push!”, although no one has yet bettered the words of Kimi Räikkönen when he was on his way to winning the 2012 Abu Dhabi GP, “Just leave me alone, I know what to do”.