Spec Tires - Are They Necessary?

By Henny Ray Abrams

It began as a rumor that slowly pinballed from one end of the Motegi press room to the other. By the time Carmelo Ezpeleta, the genial CEO of Dorna (the Spanish company that has the promotional rights to the MotoGP World Championship), was able to receive a trio of English-language journalists a day later on the morning of the Japanese Grand Prix, his proposal-which had sparked a firestorm when it first appeared late Saturday on the official MotoGP website-was well known and exhaustively debated.

"The problem is the result of the races," Ezpeleta said. "The impact on the show has been very bad." So he floated the idea of spec tires in MotoGP. The reactions were almost equally split between condemnation and commendation. And now the proposal is being considered for the AMA Superbike Championship.

Are spec tires necessary?

Casey Stoner was largely responsible for the MotoGP curveball. The 21-year-old Australian was not only winning, he was winning by big margins. But more importantly, Valentino Rossi wasn't winning. The seven-time world champion is the consummate showman; if he chases the leader for most of the race and makes a pass on the final lap, he is hailed as the conquering hero. And so everyone sticks around to see how the races end.

But when Rossi was winning tires weren't an issue. A few years ago Bridgestone was still maturing and not a consistent threat, but that changed dramatically in 2007. The world's largest tire company builds tires that work over a wide range of temperatures, unlike Michelin, which builds very narrowly focused tires due to the French company's C3M-process "overnight specials." These were tires built with data gathered during Friday practice and shipped to European venues from Michelin's headquarters in France for the race on Sunday. When the tire companies agreed to restrict the number of tires for each event in 2007 to 14 fronts and 17 rears-including two qualifiers-and force riders to make their choice on Thursday, it played into Bridgestone's more versatile rubber. Said Fiat Yamaha's Colin Edwards at Motegi, "This weekend's a perfect example. I had five tires that I chose, but four of them are absolutely junk. Absolute junk. I wouldn't give those to my worst enemy and make him race them. One luckily happens to work, and that's where we're at." But it also meant they wasted much of Saturday practice and qualifying on tires that were worthless for gathering data or racing.

Bridgestone tire boss Hiroshi Yamada agreed versatility was their aim. "This is one of the targets with our tire, a wide range of working for the compound, construction also. I think if we are talking about the range of the temperature, I think the compound is more important than construction."

The twists and turns in the days following the Motegi GP weekend suggested that Bridgestone would end up being the sole supplier, even though Yamada was against it. "This has not been decided yet, but if they decide to go to one-make rule then I'm very disappointed," Yamada explained. "If we have no competition then I won't have the same feeling that I did today when we won the championship."

But in the end Bridgestone got another premier rider for 2008, Michelin ramped up its program, the tire restrictions were loosened and the show went on. Ezpeleta brokered a deal three weeks later that put Rossi on Bridgestone tires (his teammate Jorge Lorenzo will remain on Michelins). The Italian press reported that Ezpeleta visited Rossi in his hotel room, where Rossi threatened to quit if he didn't get Bridgestones. Whether the story is true or not-and a fair number of paddock wags believe it is-it illustrates the drawing power of Rossi. No one else commands that much attention, certainly not the Repsol Honda team, which was convinced to stay on Michelins after rider Dani Pedrosa pined for Bridgestones.

Seven-time World Champion Valentino Rossi consults with a Michelin technician on the starting grid in 2007. Rossi's dissatisfaction with Michelin's effort last year led him to demand his team switch to Bridgestones, to which they eventually acceded.

One of the major obstacles to a spec-tire series is being able to supply the entire grid with enough rubber. Despite its being the largest tire manufacturer in the world, Bridgestone reps said that being forced to supply the MotoGP series' rubber needs would have stretched the company's resources to the limit.

Ducati MotoGP Corse's Livio Suppo (left) and Bridgestone's Yamada celebrate another race victory by Casey Stoner. Suppo was one of the proponents of Ducati's switch to Bridgestone two years ago, and the team's domination in 2007 led to the controversial spec-tire proposal by Ezpeleta.

The conditions were similar to when the World Superbike series organizers, the Flammini Group, decided to go to spec tires. In 2003 Michelin was supplying tires for two bikes, the Fila Ducati factory team of Neil Hodgson and Ruben Xaus, who did most of the winning and finished one-two in the championship. James Toseland was third at a deficit of 115 points. And it had been that way for a few years. Even the top Dunlop riders had product that the down-fielders couldn't get. The grid was spread out and the racing was predictable.

The first hint of change came early in the season. Maurizio Flammini warned the tire manufacturers that if they didn't change their policies, he'd have to take action. The Flammini Group proposed that each manufacturer had to commit to 60 percent of the paddock with its best tires. The lack of response on the part of the tire manufacturers forced Flammini's hand, and he quickly pushed the spec-tire rule through (the contract went to Pirelli, which Dunlop discovered by reading Motorcycle News).

The lack of competition has clearly stagnated tire development in WSB. Even today, four seasons on, not all of the lap records have been broken. Neil Hodgson's lap of 1:35.007 from Valencia 2003 still stands. The best Pirelli time so far was set this year by Yamaha Motor Italia's Noriyuki Haga at 1:35.356. Compare that with MotoGP, where Rossi's '03 lap of 1:33.317 has been repeatedly eclipsed and now goes to Pedrosa's 1:32.748, set this past November.

When the World Superbike Championship visits Miller Motorsports Park this summer, the riders will run on the shorter, 3.06-mile Outer Course, which the AMA has used for the past two years. The AMA moves to the 4.5-mile Full Course. Track general manager Alan Wilson says it is to prevent direct comparisons between the two series. Dunlop road race boss Jim Allen thinks there was corporate pressure involved. "It's no accident that we're going to Miller and we're having a different racetrack than the WSB guys," he says. "And Alan Wilson can say it's his idea all he wants. I don't believe it."

AMA Pro Racing is considering moving to spec tires in 2009, though the organization vehemently denies it if asked. In the second half of 2007 there were several proposals floated by the AMA's road race manager, Morgan Broadhead. Some ridiculed Broadhead for his ideas, but his approach was a refreshing change from the standard AMA secrecy. Among the proposals was one that would have all tire companies homologating five tires at the start of the season. For each race the companies would choose two tires and a safety tire and bring them in enough quantity to supply all of their riders, whether factory or privateer. (Because of the nature of the track and tires, Daytona would be exempt). Essentially each company would have control tires. Unfortunately Broadhead suffered serious head injuries practicing for a WERA race in Florida. He was in a coma for 17 days and has since returned to his parents' home in Utah for intensive speech and physical therapy. He won't be able to continue his duties and won't immediately be replaced.

"I'm not bothered either way. I think it would be fine," Yoshimura Suzuki's Mat Mladin says about spec tires in an e-mail. "We are basically spec tire in Superbike now anyway." Will it enhance competition? "No!" he writes emphatically. It won't change the results. "We are basically spec tire now. All the factory teams use Dunlop."