Michelin Responds To Bagnaia's Strange

Following the Misano incident, the French tire manufacturer has rejected Bagnaia's allegation, but they are now awaiting additional data in order to form a definitive picture of what took place.

During the initial examination that Michelin conducted after the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix, the company stated that it was unable to identify any issues with Francesco Bagnaia's rear tire.

The factory Bagnaia, a rider for Ducati MotoGP, had an unexpected reduction in pace after losing second place to Enea Bastianini, a teammate, on lap five of 27 at Misano. This issue also threatened his place on the podium since Gresini's Marc Marquez drew in at the same time.

Nevertheless, the Italian was able to recoup his speed in the middle section of the race, which resulted in him breaking the 1 minute 31 second barrier and setting the fastest lap on the sixteenth round. This is an even more intriguing development.

Bagnaia, in his post-race comments, put the finger squarely at MotoGP's official tyre supplier for his contrasting fortunes on Sunday. He stated that it was the first time a rider had to meet a rear tyre that "didn't work" throughout the opening 15 laps of the race. Bagnaia's comments were made publicly after the race.

"My current mental state is that I am extremely irritated. They are unable to avoid it when it comes to Michelin. "I can't be angry with someone who does something, but doesn't do it on purpose," he remarked after the race, which he finally crashed out of on lap 21. "It's impossible for me to anger someone who does something."

"But it pisses me off: you take pole, you win the sprint and in the race you improve the start, being first on the first lap, and to see you [being] passed, with the others taking away almost three and a half seconds because you can't push, it is something that really pisses me off."

While Michelin is awaiting additional data to complete a full review, its initial opinion is that tyres cannot be responsible for the dramatic fluctuations in Bagnaia's speed at Misano.

It contended that if there was a flaw in his rear tyre, then he would have been slow throughout the race and not been able to record a lap time that was good enough to qualify on the third row with almost 10 laps of gasoline on board.

"Pecco was in lead for the first four circuits, then he suffered a drop that we can't explain: for four or five laps he lost three tenths. You may also read this: Ferrari Accepts Power Gain From Wec Engine

"We have to understand where this is coming from, whether it's something to do with the track, the bike or the tyres," Michelin's two-wheel motorsport manager Piero Taramasso told Motorsport.com.

"But from lap 12 onwards his pace came back and on lap 16 he set a fastest lap of 1m30.8s, barely eight tenths off pole and the track record. He was coming on strong and looked like he may catch Bastianini and Martin, when he crashed.

"We are investigating everything, but for the moment we only have his comments and lap times. When Ducati sends us the data as well, we'll strive to determine collectively what caused that drop. It will take some time, but we would want to comprehend what it was due to, because there are always new things to find.

He added: "The weird thing is that the lap timings don't match Pecco's comments. He claimed the tyre didn't operate from the start and only did so from lap 12 onwards. In truth, the times of the first four laps were good, so it's after that that we have to understand where the dip comes from."

The new tyres offered by Michelin this year have mostly been a success, with riders successfully able to beat long-standing lap records at most circuits.

Even in qualifying for the Emilia Romagna GP, Bagnaia was nearly able to post the first sub-90 second lap time at Misano when he clinched pole position on the Ducati GP24.

However, there still have been some complaints from riders regarding tyres occasionally not operating at the optimum.

These accusations follow Jorge Martin accusing the French manufacturer of robbing him of the title in 2023 with what he felt was a bad tyre in the penultimate race in Qatar.