While most riders and teams have been taking a bit of a break during MotoGP’s summer recess, Michelin has been hard at work, aiming to commence the final seven rounds of the 18-round season. MICHELIN AND THE TECHNICAL CHALLENGE OF BRNO “Our program of development is continuous and our target is obviously to achieve ultimate performance,” says Jean-Philippe Weber, Michelin’s chief of motorcycle racing. “We will return to the types of construction that we used at places like Qatar and Catalunya, these are constructions that deliver a much wider working range than those which we used at Laguna Seca. So we will use the type of construction that has already brought us success this year, with front and rear compounds adapted to Brno. “We tried out the new surface at Brno on 17th and 18th of June with our test riders Erwan Nigon (Honda RC212V) and William Costes (Yamaha YZR-M1). Those tests told us that the track is really aggressive on the front tire but not so aggressive on the rear tire, which means that the new tarmac isn’t particularly aggressive but that the combination of the layout and the new tarmac does work the front very hard. Brno is a very undulating circuit and features quite a few downhill corners, which have always made front-tire performance particularly important, a bit like Mugello. The different loads experienced through the uphill and downhill sections also complicate the task of rear tire choice at Brno. “Based on the tests we will bring some new compounds to the Brno race weekend, designed to offer the best grip and endurance. The resurfacing job seems to have been done well, but we will have to wait and see what our MotoGP riders make of it, because they’ll be going even quicker. We certainly think the new surface will make the track considerably faster than it used to be because the old surface was in quite a bad state. It will be the first time that MotoGP riders have used the new surface, so it will be important to have a wider range of tires, with a bigger step from, say, tire one to tire five than we might have at some other tracks.” Recent winners of the Czech GP 2007 Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici), 43:45.810 2006 Loris Capirossi (Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici), 43:40.145 2005 Valentino Rossi (Gauloises Yamaha Team YZR-M1-Michelin), 43:56.539 2004 Sete Gibernau (Telefonica Movistar Honda RC211V-Michelin), 44:03.480 2003 Valentino Rossi (Repsol Honda RC211V-Michelin), 44:18.907 2002 Max Biaggi (Marlboro Yamaha Team YZR-M1-Michelin), 44:36.498 2001 Valentino Rossi (Nastro Azzurro Honda NSR500-Michelin), 45:01.044 2000 Max Biaggi (Marlboro Yamaha Team YZR500-Michelin), 45:31.918 BRNO DATA Track length: 5.403km Lap record: Loris Capirossi (Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici), 1:58.157, 164.618km/h-102.289mph (2006) Pole position 2007: Casey Stoner (Ducati Marlboro Team Desmosedici), 1:56.884 Michelin MotoGP riders 2008 Randy de Puniet (Honda LCR RC212V-Michelin) Andrea Dovizioso (JiR Team Scot Honda RC212V-Michelin) Colin Edwards (Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1-Michelin) Nicky Hayden (Repsol Honda RC212V-Michelin) Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda RC212V-Michelin) James Toseland (Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1-Michelin)