Piero Taramasso: “In motorcycles, the rider’s feeling is essential”

Piero, the tires are currently on the hot seat. Why have drivers directed so much criticism at Michelin since the resumption of the championship?

It's true that we had small problems in Austria and at Silverstone. At Spielberg, the architecture of our rear tire did not suit everyone. It was a somewhat unusual architecture intended to maintain a temperature that was not too high, because we know that the Austrian track is very fast. This architecture was also coupled with a fairly rigid rubber compound. To get an idea, the Soft mixture that we offer at Spielberg is the Hard one that we bring to Mugello and Portimão. Ultimately, we found ourselves with fairly sharp tires, difficult to rev up... And the weather conditions didn't help us either.

Who had the most trouble using this tire?

It was mainly the Ducati riders who complained. We also had remarks from Marc Márquez (Honda. Editor’s note). But when analyzing the data, we do not note any problem apart from these difficulties encountered by certain pilots in making it work.