MotoGP Tire (Tyre) Rules

 
So, I've been reading and listening about the single tire supplier for
MotoGP and there's one thing I can't quite figure out.  They say that
Bridgestone will supply something like 4 different compounds and a
couple different constructions.  But, are they going to do like F1
where B'Stone decides which two compounds to bring to each event and
the riders only get to choose between them, or will the riders get
their choice from all the compounds and constructions at each event?

I have to say, the more I hear about how the tires rules are going to
operate the bigger I think this mistake gets.  Why couldn't they have
just taken the sensible route that nearly EVERYONE likes of simply
letting the riders make their tire choices on Friday evening instead
of Friday morning.  It never made any sense to make them choose tires
before taking a single lap.

I gotta agree with Lorenzo, who says he's most concerned about who
will be doing the development work with Bridgestone.

 
I think this can be made to work, just as the Pirelli rule in WSB has
been made to work. The main thing is that there'll be a set of tyres
available with no favouritism and the same tyres available to all.

But I think there is an issue above and with testing in general. I've
never really been able to work out how testing happens away from the
race weekend. We know Ducati have Guareschi and Canepa riding pretty
much all day every day. Honda have people doing the same thing. In the
past there's been a Ducati-Bridgestone group doing testing. These guys
have to use tyres so presumably they'll have to pay for them. Design
feedback is going to go both ways as the teams try and adjust the bike
to the tyres. And Bridgestone develop the tyres to the bike. This all
before Stoner or Rossi or DaniP actually ride the bike. If the test
teams know what they're doing they'll be creating what they know Stoner
or Rossi or DaniP want. Then there's testing by the riders themselves.
Do they ever ride the bikes away from the official tests and races? How
much time do they spend doing that?

That begins to look like a very large number of tyres. Will any team get
them for free under the new regime and be sponsored by Bridgestone? Will
any of the teams get preferential treatment during testing?

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 Dave wrote:

One part of this that I really don't know is how much full-service tire
support costs the tire manufacturers, that being the driving force
behind the reduction in supply. Recall that Michelin simply didn't have
the right tires at Laguna and Sachsenring this year, at least in a
sufficient supply, and it had little or nothing to do with the Thursday
allocation choices. That says they just aren't willing or able to
manufacture or bring a sufficient supply to allow for optimum choices on
Thursday or Friday.

Another unknown is how much a specific tire impacts MotoGP machines and
riders, who are used to getting exactly what they want and need, at
least at the sharp end. It may not be the case that anyone is used to
that situation in SB anywhere, and certainly the machines aren't
materially developed to the tires. But when you think about the
Honda-Yamaha tire balance in 04-05, after Rossi shifted over, we saw
chronic chatter problems on the RC211 and a lot of talk about "the
Yamaha tire".

It certainly seems Bridgestone is unable or unwilling to supply full
support to the entire grid, in the manner that they and Michelin have
been doing to date. An interim level would be to supply more limited
support but still do some level of shaping for individual riders or
machines, which strikes me as a very dangerous situation, puts
Bridgestone in a position to decide who wins and loses.

The other end of the spectrum is a true spec tire, which leaves all the
riders and factories left to adapt to that, find a way to get the most
out of it. That's likely the most fair, but it also seems to run
contrary to a major aspect of MotoGP racing, prototype racing at the
highest level. It would be much like WSB to this point, which has been
very good riders and bikes racing on crap tires, relatively-speaking.
The Great Equalizer - who needs rain?

In the end there is no perfect answer to this issue, because tires are
so very important and yet no one seems to care much about them. I mean,
we accept the best machine winning or the best rider winning, but
obviously there seems to be an issue with the best tire winning. Not
interesting or sexy enough, I guess...