Compound Interest
What’s hard, and best used for a long and wet straight? Well, it all depends on the conditions, and whether it’s drying out or if there’s more to come, but the answer is an intermediate tyre. Compounds play a critical role in any race, qualifying or practice session. Being the only contact the bike — and all its power — has with the road, having the rubber that best puts it down and deals with all the forces nature has to throw at it is key to ringing the achievement tally.
For 2016, riders have 10 front tyres and 12 rear ones. Three basic dry-weather compounds of soft, medium and hard still exist, with Michelin choosing two for each round. They will also provide intermediate tyres to each round along with two compounds of full wet tyres. Each race weekend, five trucks come bearing around 1,400 tyres. After the first day of a Grand Prix weekend, a rider and their team may pick up to seven rear and front slicks of their preferred compound for the weekend.
It is interesting to note that a medium tyre used in one race may have a different compound from a medium used at another track. Secondly, what is used as a soft compound for one track may be a medium or even a hard compound for another.