Michelin tires topic

Dr No said:

Completely agree re: Michelin woes,.
Rule freeze this year, ok no problems to leave it as they develop the tyres...but going into 2017. Why not?

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Kropotkin said:

...any changes arising from the extreme conditions at the track can't be agreed upon until late.

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Kropotkin said:

What if they find something important that needs changing in, say, October? What if, for example, a big crash happens at Phillip Island which is incontrovertibly down to Ducati's winglets? Ducati argues the case, data goes back and forth, the argument gets made back and forth in the MSMA meetings, then in the GPC, then with Race Direction and the Technical Director.

It can take months to find a consensus, especially on tricky subjects. None of the factories want rules changed a few months before the season starts, and they try to prevent that from happening. Dorna also try to prevent that from happening, as they understand that this raises costs. Sometimes, though, .... happens and rules need to be changed.

The weight is a good example. What happened was basically that Dorna made a proposal mid season to increase the weights, the MSMA met about it, Yamaha and Honda were against it, Ducati was for it. The MSMA informed the GPC that they had unanimously rejected the proposal, and so it was dropped. The MSMA have the right to veto changes to the technical regulations if they are unanimous.

It later emerged (we think Ducati told the GPC, but we don't know for sure) that the MSMA decision had not been unanimous. That was downright deception by the MSMA, or rather, the Japanese factories in the MSMA. The proposal was put to a vote (early December, I believe), and adopted by majority. The GPC members agreed to raise the weights in two stages, accepting that it was late in the day for such a big change.

The reason it got changed late is all down to the factories. They (or rather, at least one Japanese factory) lied about the MSMA meeting, and they were punished for it.

In general, though, rule changes are discussed well in advance, often a couple of years out. Sometimes, though, events interfere. 340mm disks at Motegi is another example, the bikes change to accommodate more and more braking pressure, and so bigger disks have to be accepted for safety. Motegi only happens in October, though, so any changes arising from the extreme conditions at the track can't be agreed upon until late.

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Dr No said:

You did read.the bit about "barring bizarre circumstances", didn't you Mr "types like Jum when backed into a corner".

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Kropotkin said:

What if they find something important that needs changing in, say, October? What if, for example, a big crash happens at Phillip Island which is incontrovertibly down to Ducati's winglets? Ducati argues the case, data goes back and forth, the argument gets made back and forth in the MSMA meetings, then in the GPC, then with Race Direction and the Technical Director.

It can take months to find a consensus, especially on tricky subjects. None of the factories want rules changed a few months before the season starts, and they try to prevent that from happening. Dorna also try to prevent that from happening, as they understand that this raises costs. Sometimes, though, .... happens and rules need to be changed.

The weight is a good example. What happened was basically that Dorna made a proposal mid season to increase the weights, the MSMA met about it, Yamaha and Honda were against it, Ducati was for it. The MSMA informed the GPC that they had unanimously rejected the proposal, and so it was dropped. The MSMA have the right to veto changes to the technical regulations if they are unanimous.

It later emerged (we think Ducati told the GPC, but we don't know for sure) that the MSMA decision had not been unanimous. That was downright deception by the MSMA, or rather, the Japanese factories in the MSMA. The proposal was put to a vote (early December, I believe), and adopted by majority. The GPC members agreed to raise the weights in two stages, accepting that it was late in the day for such a big change.

The reason it got changed late is all down to the factories. They (or rather, at least one Japanese factory) lied about the MSMA meeting, and they were punished for it.

In general, though, rule changes are discussed well in advance, often a couple of years out. Sometimes, though, events interfere. 340mm disks at Motegi is another example, the bikes change to accommodate more and more braking pressure, and so bigger disks have to be accepted for safety. Motegi only happens in October, though, so any changes arising from the extreme conditions at the track can't be agreed upon until late.

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Jumkie said:

What a brilliant rebuttal. Your debate skills are phenomenal.

So writing a longer post to provide YOU with a substantial explanation is a bad thing? Not to mention, there was no mention about "barring bizarre circumstances" in the post he quoted.

What's on tap tonight?

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Kropotkin said:

What if they find something important that needs changing in, say, October? What if, for example, a big crash happens at Phillip Island which is incontrovertibly down to Ducati's winglets? Ducati argues the case, data goes back and forth, the argument gets made back and forth in the MSMA meetings, then in the GPC, then with Race Direction and the Technical Director.

It can take months to find a consensus, especially on tricky subjects. None of the factories want rules changed a few months before the season starts, and they try to prevent that from happening. Dorna also try to prevent that from happening, as they understand that this raises costs. Sometimes, though, .... happens and rules need to be changed.

The weight is a good example. What happened was basically that Dorna made a proposal mid season to increase the weights, the MSMA met about it, Yamaha and Honda were against it, Ducati was for it. The MSMA informed the GPC that they had unanimously rejected the proposal, and so it was dropped. The MSMA have the right to veto changes to the technical regulations if they are unanimous.

It later emerged (we think Ducati told the GPC, but we don't know for sure) that the MSMA decision had not been unanimous. That was downright deception by the MSMA, or rather, the Japanese factories in the MSMA. The proposal was put to a vote (early December, I believe), and adopted by majority. The GPC members agreed to raise the weights in two stages, accepting that it was late in the day for such a big change.

The reason it got changed late is all down to the factories. They (or rather, at least one Japanese factory) lied about the MSMA meeting, and they were punished for it.

In general, though, rule changes are discussed well in advance, often a couple of years out. Sometimes, though, events interfere. 340mm disks at Motegi is another example, the bikes change to accommodate more and more braking pressure, and so bigger disks have to be accepted for safety. Motegi only happens in October, though, so any changes arising from the extreme conditions at the track can't be agreed upon until late.

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michaelm said:

2 questions about the weight change for the 2012 season.

What was the pressing need requiring a weight change well after the regulations had been promulgated, and if the vote wasn't unanimous why didn't Ducati, or Yamaha for that matter, just tell Dorna at the time?

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Kropotkin said:

1. This was the CRT era. Idea was to make it easier for the CRT bikes to be competitive. See the new Aprilia, most of the 9kg that bike has dropped has come from the engine, and especially the cases. Vastly different strength requirements for an engine that must do 2,500km as opposed to (in theory) 250,000km (other bits break long before the cases do).

2. Yamaha do what Honda tell them. Japanese business is a consensus culture, and they are not going to rock the boat. They didn't much care for the weight increase either.

And Ducati presumably tried to fix this the polite way, with discussions with the Japanese. In the end, they grassed them up behind their backs, so as to avoid a confrontation. They still had to work together.


With Aprilia, KTM and Ducati (especially KTM), the MSMA is a very different creature indeed. Honda's dominant role is gone. Interesting times ahead.

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Kropotkin said:

Tire colors were decided last year.

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michaelm said:

Most of these Dorna decisions likely have multiple motivations as I have previously opined, but I still think this was an unreasonable change to regulations promulgated long before, under which both Honda and Yamaha had already devoted considerable resources in money and manpower including testing by their riders. Dorna at the time were thinking up new formulae almost weekly, and the CRT bikes were never going to be competitive with the Yamahas and Hondas anyway with the whole class discarded subsequently much like the rookie rule (which I thought was a stupid rule from the get-go btw), and the CRT bikes didn't have to run their bikes as light as the Hondas and Yamahas, they had fuel concessions, and could use more engines as well anyway.

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michaelm said:

In Michaelm World it was strangely coincidental that much of the fairly strong animus that seemed to exist against Honda from Dorna in 2011 and early 2012 resolved with Casey Stoner's retirement.

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Kropotkin said:

I have some sympathy with that view. I think Dorna were surprised at just how hard it was to make the CRT bikes competitive, and were trying to do just that. But the lateness of this change was down to the deceit of Honda and the MSMA.



Correlation does not imply causation. These rule changes were all going on with the express aim of forcing the factories to supply affordable competitive machinery. Most of that process got sorted in 2014, when the factories agreed to the 2016 rules, and finalized in the middle of last year, with the financial package and bike price cap which was agreed at Assen. The animus against Honda stopped when they started to play ball.

If anything, Stoner's retirement was a symptom of how broken the old system was. Ironically, he was forced into retirement because of the resistance to change by his former employer, even though he denied right to the end that the growing influence of electronics was the fault of Dorna, not Honda. Despite Honda's public pronouncements that they would consider leaving if spec electronics were banned, and Dorna's public push to introduce and simplify the electronics.

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Kropotkin said:

Tire colors were decided last year.

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Jumkie said:

"Colin Edwards was one of the earliest riders to comment, stating quite bluntly that he expected the tires to be developed for Valentino Rossi, and that the tires that Rossi likes are so 'hard' that there are very few people who can actually make the tires work." Kropotkin 2008

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Kropotkin said:

Do you have any concept of the passage of time?

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