The transparency needed from Michelin as the MotoGP title battle reaches its end

Most of the riders in the premier class avoid openly criticising the French brand. They say that each of their denunciations will sooner or later be followed by a warning that will be more or less severe, depending on the harshness of their words. Last Sunday in Qatar, Jorge Martin did not mince his words when pinning the blame on the reason for him struggling to 10th in the grand prix while title rival Francesco Bagnaia was second.

“I was a second and a half slower today because of a tyre that didn’t work. It was a shame. I think the level of tyres needs to go up a lot. It can’t be that the MotoGP world championship is decided by a compound that doesn’t work,” said Martin, who went as far as to say that he felt his chance of winning the championship had been “stolen”.

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After the penultimate round of the year, Bagnaia has a 21-point cushion over the Spaniard, and he can be in contention for the title as early as next Saturday in Valencia, provided he wins the sprint race and the Pramac rider does not finish in the top two. Aleix Espargaro, another of those who usually doesn’t mix his words, was of the same opinion: “I don’t want to speak ill of anyone, but the quality of the tyres is not up to the level of the championship.”

In fact, even Bagnaia himself came to say that he understood Martin’s anger, given that he had gone through a very similar situation the day before, in the sprint, in which he finished fifth while the Pramac rider took his eighth half-distance race win of the season.

“The problem I had [on Saturday] was not with the bike, so for the race we didn’t change anything. It was very strange. What happened to me [in the sprint] happened [on Sunday] to Jorge,” agreed Bagnaia, who in a single day went from struggling because “nothing was working” on his Desmosedici to dominating most of the long race, with the only opposition coming from a resurgent Fabio Di Giannantonio looking to secure his future in MotoGP beyond this weekend.

At the end of the grand prix, Piero Taramasso, Michelin’s top manager for the championship, was keen to point out that Enea Bastianini was able to set a new fastest lap record at Losail on the last lap: “That shows the consistency of the performance of Michelin tyres,” he said.

Regarding Martin’s complaints, the Italian preferred not to comment until he has the data from the tests that will be carried out.