Leading MotoGP riders have admitted they missed a trick by not trying the hard tyre earlier in the Japanese GP weekend – given that it proved to be by far the best option for the race.
Some, including winner Marc Marquez, even went so far as to suggest the hard tyre would have been the best for qualifying laps.
The hard tyre, with its reinforced casing, was only considered a contingency backup option for the relaid Motegi track surface. So, although it was in the allocation all weekend, teams gave it the cold shoulder and stuck to their usual soft versus medium comparisons in practice.
That changed after unexpected problems for the soft in the sprint led Michelin to withdraw that compound and recommend the harder one for the grand prix. The teams thus only tried the hard for the first time during an extended Sunday warm-up session – at which point it turned out to be a no-brainer.
“It was funny because nobody used it, and at the end it was the best tyre, so a bit crazy,” noted Fabio Quartararo after the end of the race.
Marquez offered rave reviews for the rubber which, although ‘reinforced’ is understood to be different from the hard-casing tyre used at circuits such as Buriram, Spielberg and Mandalika.
“It was a tyre that, even for the time attack [qualifying], was a good tyre,” said Marc. “Everybody expects that normally the other tyre or the other casing has better performance. But yeah, I think it was great and a big surprise for everybody the way that it was working in the warm-up.”
Championship leader Jorge Martin was also wowed by the tyre, saying there was some regret in not having tried it earlier in the weekend.
“Honestly, I was impressed about the lap times we were doing,” said Martin. “I felt much more stability, a lot of grip, and yeah, it was a really good tyre. I don’t think we would have raced the sprint with it, but anyway, it was really good. Yes, a regret.”
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