Michelin manager Piero Taramasso responds to Bagnaia’s statements from Misano 2 – Why there was a crash and then the lap times were good is a mystery
After the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix, Francesco Bagnaia complained about Michelin’s rear tire. The Ducati rider had taken the lead after the start, but the tire was “constantly slipping away”. Then his lap times dropped and he fell back to third place.
“From one moment to the next, my lap time suddenly dropped by six to eight tenths of a second without me doing anything. I don’t know what happened,” said Bagnaia immediately after the race. ”The rear tire wasn’t working.”
“The tire didn’t work for 15 laps. Then it was super good, because I was super fast. That’s how I expected my pace to be.” His race to catch up ended on lap 21 with a crash.
For Bagnaia, it is a mystery that his pace in the first half of the race was not as expected: “I have never heard of a driver saying that the tire only worked after 15 laps. I think that’s new for everyone.”
Because when a driver has previously had a “bad” tire, it has not worked at all during the race. This was the case, for example, with Bagnaia in the Aragon sprint or with Jorge Martin in last year’s Qatar Grand Prix.
It is also a mystery for Michelin. “‘Pecco’ was in the lead on the first few laps. Then there was a slump that we cannot explain,”
The Michelin manager continued: “For four to five laps, he lost three tenths of a second. We need to understand whether this was due to the track, the bike or the tires. But from lap 12, his pace was back and on lap 16, he set the fastest lap of the race.”
Francesco Bagnaia’s lap times
Lap 1: 1:36.637 minutes
Lap 2: 1:31.757
Lap 3: 1:31.805
Lap 4: 1:31.872
Lap 5: 1:32.034
Lap 6: 1:31.524
Lap 7: 1:31.665
Lap 8: 1:31.658
Lap 9: 1:31.756
Lap 10: 1:31.779
Lap 11: 1:31.905
Lap 12: 1:31.428
lap 13: 1:31.320
lap 14: 1:31.063
lap 15: 1:30.939
lap 16: 1:30.877 (fastest race lap)
Lap 17: 1:31.207
Lap 18: 1:30.997
Lap 19: 1:31.463
Lap 20: 1:31.027
Lap 21: crash
“He looked strong and it looked like he might catch up with Bastianini and Martin. Then he crashed. We are analyzing it. But at the moment we only have his statements and lap times,” says Taramasso, explaining why we don’t know more yet.
“If Ducati also provides us with the data, we will try to analyze what caused the breakdown. This will take time, but we would like to understand the reason, because there are always new things to discover.”
But Taramasso still finds the matter puzzling: “The strange thing is that the lap times don’t match Pecco’s statements. He says that the tire didn’t work from the start and only from lap 12 onwards.”
“But his times in the first four laps were good. We need to understand why there was a drop-off after that. We will only understand this with the data. But it is not the behavior of the tire, because it is the same from start to finish.“
”It was also not the behavior of a tire that has a temperature problem. This has happened to some drivers this weekend, especially with the medium rear tire. It took six to seven laps to get up to temperature.”
“But again, that doesn’t sound like Peccos’ description. It didn’t sound like a warm-up problem with the tire,” Taramasso said. Bagnaia maintained after Sunday’s race that there was no problem with tire temperature or tire pressure.
As a result, Michelin cannot say more at the moment than “they hope to find answers soon”. Different tires will be used in Indonesia next weekend, which have a carcass that is more resistant to heat.