‘Find how to give them confidence’
At the Catalan GP, BikeIndia had the opportunity to have a chat with Michelin’s Technical Director Nicolas Goubert about the challenges that lay ahead for a new manufacturer at the pinnacle of two-wheeled motor sport
BikeIndia ( BI): How much of the technical input do you get from racing? Nicolas Goubert (NG): One of the main reasons why Michelin go racing is to develop technologies. We have the best riders in the world and the best engineers working on the bike. It’s the place where you get very accurate feedback from the field very fast and that allows a very fast development loop. We prepare tyres two weeks earlier and we only know after the race if we’ve done a good job or not.
BI: What sort of technology transfer actually takes place between your race and road programmes?
NG: Just to give you an example from the past. The sort of technology transfer we did in the past for motorcycles, for example, we developed radial tyres years ago for cars, but for bikes, it’s more recent. We developed the technology for the 500 series in the early 1980s with Freddie Spencer and Randy Mamola. We used them for the season of ’83. We made the first motorcycle radial tyres in ’85.
The second example is silica. Silica is something we use in the compound now in all types of motorcycle and car tyres, and all our competitors do as well. But the first time someone used silica in a compound was for racing in the wet. It was in Suzuka. We transferred that to not only bike tyres but to all kinds of tyres.
The third one, more recent, was what we did at the beginning of the MotoGP era. As you know, we were involved in motorcycle racing for over 30 years, from the 1970s to the year 2008. When the series started in 2002, going from 500 to MotoGP, we started making many for every race: rear tyres and front tyres with different compounds. Track layouts are always asymmetric so there’s never the same strain on each type of tyre, and the strength is different again on the centre. So we started using those every race from 2002, and in 2004-05, we created the first massproduction tyres for sports-bikes: Pilot Power 2CT, with two-compound technology.
Real examples where we learn from the track to give to our customers, a little bit later or same time kind of technology. Now how long does it take us to transfer the technology depends a lot on the industrial tuning we need, because what we do for the small series here, we have to adopt what we want to the do with the tyres at our plants and sometimes that takes a while. So on average, for all the examples I gave you, would be between two and three years. When it’s something easier, it can be quicker but quite often there is some industrial modification involved. Something I cannot tell you is what will be the next breakthrough. BI: We met Colin Edwards. He’s been in the background testing for you. How important is rider feedback, this season especially, considering you have no real data to start with? Every rider riding a Michelin is coming back with what he thinks is good and what needs to be improved. What is the process of having information come up to you to make a decision on the tyre?
NG: Rider feedback is key for tyre design. Although we have a simulation room, at the end of the day, only a rider can give you an assessment of the tyre. It’s like when you work on a new wine or a new drink, if the type of fruit does not appeal to the connoisseur, it doesn’t matter how good it is. It’s the same for tyres. It’s very important what comes back from MotoGP, of course.
We start testing with some riders and Colin was one of them working for Yamaha, and when they asked if we were okay if they took Colin, we said, “Of course, that’s great,” because not every rider is capable of describing exactly what’s happening and translating it in a good way for the engineers to work on the issue. Colin is very gifted. Not only can he describe what’s happening, but he knows as well what’s good for these guys. Very often, most of the riders can tell you what’s good for them. He can tell you what’s good for the others as well because he knows them very well. He raced with them for many years so he knows the way they ride. He’s got a different way of riding and quite often he tells us, “This one I like, but I don’t think it will be suitable for him”, or “I am not keen on this but he will be happy”. That’s very important.
Now how we collect the information. We have a group of seven technicians who are following the series of tests and races and who are listening every time the riders come into the pits and make an assessment of the bike’s setup. We keep all this information and come up with a summary of the weekend, what we have to improve, and it starts from the riders’ comments.
BI: In this era of single tyre manufacturers, what is the motivation to break the mould and take technology further?
NG: For the first year, there is no problem to keep motivation very high. It’s a learning year. Although we’ve been racing for 30 years, we were out for seven years, and that’s a long time. Things have changed; the tracks and the bikes have changed quite a lot. So the pressure is there every weekend. We set targets for ourselves. For example, we have to improve by three-tenths of a second a lap for the second year and keep working towards that target so we get it. Some of our competitors, when they’re the only ones, they keep the same times, but we’re not here for that. We will fix a target and keep the motivation up.
BI: What has been your biggest challenge this year? Has it been tyre degradation over time or outright performance and pace?
NG: The biggest challenge was to give confidence to the riders with the new tyres because these guys have been riding on the previous tyre brand for years and years and the bike setup was a lot of work. You should change it when you change your tyres. We had some issues at the beginning to find the right compromise between the bike setup, the tyres and the way people ride. It’s evolved quite a lot from the beginning. Changes in setup mean changes in the way they ride as well, maybe not drastically from one day to the other. Now they’re getting more confidence. That was the biggest challenge: to find how to give them confidence.
BI: When we go to a school, such as the California Superbike School, we’re told that the edge of the tyre is good for lateral grip but not longitudinal grip, there’s a middle part which handles both and
The biggest challenge was to give confidence to the riders with the new tyres
the centre which only handles longitudinal grip. So when you come out of the corner, you don’t want to get on the gas when you’re over because the tyres run away if you do that. You want to pick up the bike, move on the section that you’re on. Is that how compound deployment works, or is it just something in the head of the rider?
NG: No, it’s not in the head of the riders, because, basically, you can ask the tyre for traction or lateral grip, but it cannot give you everything at the same time. For example, at the apex, you want to have the maximum lateral force, so you don’t want to ask for traction or inertial force or braking, you have to be on no gas and no brake. When you pick up the bike, that’s when you can gradually open the throttle. The less lateral force you ask of the tyres for longitudinal grip, the more it will give. Then there’s the compound. Right now, we have 10 compounds. At one stage we tried to tune different compounds, divided the edge and central compounds to try to maximise performance. That was really tricky because conditions can change very quickly on track.
BI: In your racing compounds, how different is the soft from the medium and the medium from the hard? Do they stay consistent over different circuits or do you have one for each circuit?
NG: At the rear it changes quite often from front because we have very different layouts. For example, in a long, fast corner where you have, for a very long time, the bike on the side with a lot of speed, a lot of acceleration; it puts strain on the left side of the tyre. So the compound we have here and in Sachsenring are very different. The three compounds vary from track to track, so what we call ‘soft’, ‘medium’, and ‘hard’ here can be very different. The ‘hard’ could be a ‘soft’ for the next round.
BI: When you first came here, the riders were calling it a slippery, hard surface. Did you anticipate that?
NG: No, this is the first time we haven’t had any testing here and everyone was telling us, “Be careful now, the track has changed a lot in the last seven to 10 years. It’s very, very slippery”. So we expected that. Now it’s not because you expect it to be like that. Some people complained about the amount of slip. The grip from the track depends on the surface and the surface cannot make miracles. If you ride on ice, you won’t find grip.
BI: We’ve seen some manufacturers offer coloured tyres, especially when the visual presentation of a machine is the focus. Is there a difference technically?
NG: Tyres have not always been black. There have been white and whitewalls. Once we did coloured tyres in the tread for the World Cup in Brazil. We sold a few thousand tyres with the Brazilian colours. With our BF Goodrich brand as well, at one stage eight or 10 years ago, you had a choice of three different colours. We didn’t think we had to go on in large numbers.
BI: The TWEEL Concept was an airless tyre. We haven’t heard anything new about that of late. Is there any such concept for motorcycles?
NG: It is there for lawn-mowers and such in the US. We’ve had airless tyres for motorcycles; we’ve had them for years and years in off-road. You’ve, maybe, heard about Bib Mousse [see box]? We have tried. Right now, there are some things to do step-by-step.
BI: What’s the next step forward? Cross-ply to radial was one thing. What’s next?
NG: Since then, we’ve had Silica. The compounds are everywhere. It’s a big step forward. What will be the next one? I don’t know. There are no rules for it. You have the idea and it’s more difficult to turn that idea into reality.