Jorge Martin’s tires in Qatar remain a mystery

If the championship is open until the last promise, as the crown rested on Pecco Bagnaia’s head in the last MotoGP World Championship, it will be the details that will ultimately decide the world crown, but the important details will be remains unresolved. , what happened to Jorge Martin’s rear tire in the long race in Qatar and caused him to lose some very important points (14 points compared to Bagnaia), considering the championship decision in Valencia What became.

In a recent interview with La Gazzetta dello Sport, Piero Taramasso, Michelin’s Head of Motorcycle Competition, said what he had already said during post-race testing in Valencia, where the 2024 pre-season began. , claimed there was nothing abnormal and focused. Responsible for Martin’s poor start in that race.

“We analyzed the production process, quality control, transportation route, tire history, whether it was heated or not. There are no problems with production or quality. That’s clear. A tire that doesn’t work is a tire.” “I was two seconds slower on the first lap,” said the Italian.

And he went on to analyze Martin’s lap-by-lap progress: “At Bagnaia, the first six or six laps were good from four to seven wheels. “The tire doesn’t work, this is impossible. The rest is race factors, first the rear, then the front and the tire falls off, which makes the tire 2 seconds slower” at the end. “

Talamasso is troubled by the suggestion that there was a conspiracy: “If we talk about a conspiracy, we deliberately distributed defective tires… This is ridiculous. The easiest way to blame it is on the tires. It’s an excuse. It’s a shame that no one noticed the 36 records”, or that they chose the right compound in new asphalts in Indonesia, Qatar, Valencia, etc., but this is a good result that we have rarely seen is.

To protect pilot Gino Borsoy, Pramac Ducati’s team manager responded to Taramasso through “As”. “I don’t want to comment on something that we probably haven’t discovered yet, but Martín won the race the day before and he won the way he won. It was a very strange race, far from Jorge’s race. level of potential. The analysis was carried out by Pramac and Ducati and the result was the fact that there were no errors or problems in terms of driving and setting up the bike. ”

“To this day, we are still waiting for a response from Michelin requesting a more complete analysis. An initial analysis of the structure of the tire has been carried out and Michelin says there were no manufacturing mistakes and we are also ‘ It wasn’t, but we are still waiting for the full analysis of the compound. A month after the race, we are still waiting for it, ”says Borsoy.