Michelin and Pirelli prepared for Phillip Island challenge

The recent repaving of the 4.4km Phillip Island circuit has been hailed as a great success, but as part of that development, speeds are expected to be even greater than they were before.

Michelin supplies all the 300 horsepower MotoGP™ bikes with the same tyres, and the French brand has upped its commitment to the Australian round.

“We are eager to discover the nature of the new Phillip Island asphalt,” said Piero Taramasso, Two-Wheel Manager of Michelin Motorsport. “As we didn’t have the opportunity to do any testing beforehand, we will bring an expanded tyre allocation.

“For the front we will have the same compounds (Soft, Medium and Hard) as in 2023, but for the rear, we are offering our partners three options instead of the usual two.

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“We will have the Soft compound, with its usual internal structure, but also two tyres with Medium and Hard compounds, which benefit from a reinforced construction that we already saw at the end of September in Mandalika (in Indonesia).

“We made this decision based on the configuration of the circuit and the constraints placed on the tyres.”

The other tyre supplier is Pirelli, which supplies the rubber for the first time this season for the Moto2™ and Moto3™ fields. The Italian maker requested and received an extra 15 minutes of track time for Moto2™ this morning to ensure everything is ready. Pirelli will at least be able to call upon its WorldSBK and WSS experience from racing at the track in February for this weekend's Moto2™ and Moto3™ tyres.

Each rider in the two classes will be allocated eight soft and eight medium front tyres (two more than normal) and eight soft and six hard rears.