MONTMELO OFFERS UP ANOTHER NEW CHALLENGE FOR MICHELIN

Michelin takes the short journey across the Franco-Spanish border this week and heads to the heart of Catalunya as round seven of the MotoGP™ World Championship makes base for the weekend at Montmelo near Barcelona for the Gran Premi Monster Energy de Catalunya.

One of the more modern tracks on the calendar, the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya first became a MotoGP venue in 1992 and has remained a popular and regular event since then. With elevation changes, a kilometre-long straight, fast turns, hard braking zones and an imposing grandstand on the start/finish straight that provides an incredible acoustic backdrop on race-day, Montmelo is a must for any true MotoGP fan. Through fast, flowing turns where the edge of the tyre will be pushed to the limit, the rear MICHELIN Power Slick tyres will certainly be given an intense examination and to cope with these circumstances they will feature an asymmetrical design over all three compounds, with the right-hand-side having the harder rubber to manage the demands that the high-speed, sweeping corners will generate. Grip levels at Montmelo can also be compromised as the temperature rises, this along with the bumpy nature of the track, makes it a very demanding circuit and the front MICHELIN Power Slicks in the three compounds – all asymmetric with a harder right-hand side – will have to work extremely hard to cope with the stresses placed upon them throughout the weekend. The MICHELIN Power Rain tyres will also be available within the allocation to cope with any changeable or wet conditions.

This season will see a change to its revised 4,652m layout at Montmelo, with modifications being made to the last chicane to give riders a safer run-off area. This changes the track to a nine right-hand and seven left-hand bend configuration – the previous layout had five lefts and eight rights – these alterations have been adopted following the accident that happened there in last season’s Moto2™ practice when Spaniard Luis Salom was killed in a high-speed crash. With safety always a priority within MotoGP the layout was altered for the remainder of that weekend last year and has now been further assessed, with additional changes implemented for this coming weekend.

Situated just north of Barcelona near the town of Granollers, the Montmelo track has a habit of producing superb racing which is enjoyed by excited and knowledgeable crowds. With many Spanish riders in the race, some of whom originate from Catalunya – as well as being the home of Dorna – this year will no doubt be as passionate as ever. The track action for Sunday’s 25-lap race will begin with two free practice sessions on Friday. This will be followed by a further two sessions on Saturday, before the qualifying practices take place in the afternoon to decide the grid positions for race-day, which will get underway at 14.00hrs local time (14.00hrs CEST, 13.00hrs BST, 12.00hrs GMT/UST) on Sunday 11th June.

Piero Taramasso – Michelin Motorsport Two-Wheel Manager:

“The recent test at Montmelo was very informative and we were able to try many different tyres to see what works well there. The track can be quite hard on tyres and as the heat rises the grip levels drop, so with the test we worked hard on the compounds to see what would stop that without compromising overall performance. We now have a good direction for the type of compound that will perform at the track and as always, we will bring the correct solutions to make sure all the riders, bikes and teams have an equal opportunity to be competitive. The layout this year is also different so we need to take that into consideration, which means that having a chance to visit there and try the new design before the race was extremely useful. The event itself is a very impressive one, the track and organisation are both great and the fans that come to support the many Spanish riders make for a fantastic atmosphere. It has produced some exciting races in the past and hopefully we can have a weekend where the racing takes the spotlight and we see a good show.”