Pirelli to become Moto2/Moto3 tyre supplier from 2024
us.motorsport.com
News, Barbier: why Pirelli chose to enter Moto3 and Moto2
News: INTERVIEW – “Superbike has been our springboard and in the World Championship we will offer more choice without a rider feeling sacrificed. Ours will be standard tyres and the Moto3 SC1 can already be purchased from dealers. It's still early for MotoGP, first test in November"
www.gpone.com
Old news but the interesting tidbit comes from the interview with Barbier. He casually mentions that Pirelli will make more tire compounds available to the competitors at each event. It's a big deal for a couple of reasons. First, expanding the number of tire compounds for each weekend will hopefully reintroduce tire strategy on race day, and perhaps allow for a wider variety of riding styles--fast starters, slow starters, extra lean, less lean, etc. Second, the introduction of a wide array of tires with similar performance is only possible because Moto2 and Moto3 have combined bike-rider minimum weight. If the bike-rider combined weight varied based upon the rider's stature, it would affect the rider's ability to get the tire up to temp or make it last the entire race or both.
This development has big implications for motorcycle racing. First, if Dorna are moving towards entertainment value and rider excellence by reintroducing tire strategy with Pirelli, will MotoGP be moving towards combined bike-rider minimum weight at some point to allow the same? SBK is already talking about combined bike-rider weight, will it be the test laboratory? Does SBK have enough money to have a wide variety of tires at their events?
