Bike India

Compound Interest

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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.

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