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MOTOGP: Why Dorna is Threatening to Impose a Spec Tire
Written by: Dennis Noyes Magny-Cours, France – 10/4/2007
Saturday of the Japanese Grand Prix just two weeks ago that Dorna had made an official proposal to the Grand Prix Commission to introduce a single tire manufacturer to supply the MotoGP class in 2008, there were literally shouts of outrage in the media center and almost universal public condemnation from team directors.
The journalists’ reaction was predictable given the ivory tower mentality that most GP scribes maintain (‘this is a prototype championship and there must be freedom for manufacturers of motorcycles, tires, suspensions, etc.’). But the team managers were, in many cases -- and especially in the case of most Michelin teams -- being less than sincere and trying not to say anything that would annoy their current tire source. Speaking off the record many of them believe this would be a good thing.
Writing from the World Superbike paddock in Magny-Cours on the Thursday leading up the final SBK round on Sunday, it is easy to recall very similar reactions in the Laguna Seca paddock in 2003 when Maurizio and Paolo Flammini announced that World Superbike would switch to a single tire supplier for 2004. Insiders quickly revealed that the tire brand would be Pirelli as Michelin and Dunlop spokespersons expressed shock and outrage.
Many SBK journalists went on record by writing articles calling this a huge error. A black history indeed was predicted for the series. To understand why Dorna feels driven to follow the lead of SBK and F1, we need to look back at the World Superbike situation in 2003.
As time has shown, the Flammini brothers did exactly the right thing. Their situation in 2003 was dire. In addition to a smoldering dispute with the MSMA (manufacturers’ association) over the rejection by FGSport of the MSMA proposal to apply restrictor plates to all SBK machines to cap performance and to seek parity between the twins, triples, and fours, SBK was facing a situation where Michelin was supplying top-of-the-line tires to only one team, the all-conquering Ducati Corse squad, and refusing to take on other teams. (They supplied the uncompetitive Petronas team with tires, but not the “right stuff” that was exclusively for the Ducati riders, Neil Hodgson and Ruben Xaus.)
Dunlop was supplying the rest of the paddock, with the exception of the DFXtreme Ducati team (Steve Martin, Juan Bautista Borja and Marco Borciani) who were running development Pirelli tires, but Dunlop’s best stuff went to only a couple of teams. The rest got ‘product,’ and there was even controversy among the few select Dunlop teams with Regis Laconi (Caracchi Ducati) claiming that Dunlop had favored James Toseland (GSE Ducati) in the battle of the Frenchman and the Englishman for third place.
SBK Did the Right Thing For the Right Reason
There is absolutely no question that, given the circumstances in 2003, FGSport did the right thing. Michelin executives angrily denounced FGSport as a company director said, “no true world championship would impose such a rule.”
Those words sound hollow now that Formula 1 has gone exclusively to Bridgestone, and especially now that Dorna has made the control tire proposal.
Dunlop, however, had a different complaint. The British/Japanese giant has supported all forms of professional motorcycle racing and was, in fact, the major supplier for World Superbike in 2003. Dunlop complained that there had been no open bidding but their complaint to the European Community in late 2003 did not prosper.
The system works; it produces good racing, relatively fast lap times (though certainly not as fast as prototype tires would produce), and has now become such a natural way of life in the World Superbike paddock that no one even questions it, not even the journalists who claimed the sky was falling in 2003.
The reasons for Dorna to propose the same system are very similar. After years of Michelin domination, Bridgestone, the world’s largest tire company, stepped up their game hugely in 2007. But there was another factor that upset Michelin’s dominance: Due to a rule introduced at the start of this season, team are limited to 31 tires for the weekend and all 31 must be chosen on Thursday and locked away under FIM lock and key.
This means that Michelin cannot, as they were able to do in the past, mix up a special brew of Saturday night specials to be shipped by fast van overnight to European venues to bail out teams and riders who needed something special for the race.
The Michelin “Geographical Advantage”
This ‘geographical advantage’ was exclusive to Michelin and Dunlop (who rarely, if ever, did it), while Bridgestone’s production facilities in Japan were too far away to allow overnight reaction.
The big step forward by Bridgestone, Michelin’s loss of the geographical advantage and the new tire rules were not the only curveballs thrown to the tire manufacturers this year. There was also the switch from 990cc machines to lighter 800cc bikes that make their speed via higher corner speeds and require much more extreme edge grip.
Of course it was a huge mistake by Dorna to insist that the tire companies come up with these new rules in the same year that a whole new generation of machines were making their debut. The old adage in setting up a motorcycle is not to change more than one thing at a time.
While ‘purist’ race fans accepted the Bridgestone domination (with occasional Michelin dominated races), Dorna was faced with some big problems -- problems that were at least in part their own making.
First of all, the close racing that has been the rule rather than the exception in MotoGP was replaced by runaway victories in most cases. And -- from Dorna’s TV perspective -- the wrong guy was winning.
For the last seven years Dorna has been living off the image of superstar Valentino Rossi. Rather than seek to promote Rossi’s rivals, the television programming (pre-race, post-race and between-race features) has largely been dedicated to Valentino. When Rossi was flirting with F1, Dorna was threatened with the loss of their Italian meal ticket, but when he decided to sign on with Yamaha for another two years there was a collective sign of relief in Madrid and Barcelona.
Meanwhile, Dorna has been grooming their own superstar for the vibrant Spanish market. Dani Pedrosa is Spain’s most popular rider and when Spain’s TVE paid a reported $24 million a year for a five-year deal, the Spanish national TV company was counting on Pedrosa racing with Rossi for race wins and the title.
In Italy the Mediaset group hold the TV rights and pay big bucks to show Rossi primetime on Tele5.
But suddenly it was the little Ducati factory that was blasting past Rossi’s Yamaha and Pedrosa’s Honda on the fast straights of Qatar, Mugello, and Catalunya, and that kid smiling from the top of the podium was Ducati’s third choice, Australian Casey Stoner. Stoner was the last-minute pick after Nicky Hayden (who opted to renew with Honda even before he won the title in 2006) and Marco Melandri (who signed a letter of intent with Ducati but was unable to make the move when his current HANNspree team took up their option).
Dude, Where Did the TV Audience Go?
Suddenly TV audience figures took a nosedive in the two most important European markets. In Italy, where MotoGP regularly claimed a huge 40% share, often beating even F1’s numbers, the audiences fell to 25%. Now 25% is a huge share in any European market, but not when you are accustomed to 40%. And in Spain where Dorna had seen shares as high as 35% at the beginning of the season, boring races with neither Pedrosa or Rossi at the sharp end of the field meant that during a couple of primetime races the share fell as low as 20%.
It was especially galling that Tele5 of Spain, owned by the same Mediaset giant that owns Tele5 of Italy, was now getting audiences in the 14% to 20% range for World Superbike, and on a couple of occasions when the opening race of the World Superbike Sunday program ran just before the F1 broadcast on Tele5, SBK managed to hold a 26% share. Of course this was only because a lot of viewers were standing by, enjoying the bikes while they waited for the F1 pre-race show... but that kind of viewer numbers produce new fans.
Dorna’s embattled CEO, Carmelo Ezpeleta, had to do something and it should have been clear that he was preparing to act. When he said several weeks ago that he believed the new tires rules were “a serious error,” it was just a matter of time.
The critical moment was probably Laguna Seca where an exceedingly boring race turned off millions of viewers in Europe. The fact that Rossi and Pedrosa were finishing a half minute back of Stoner seemed to most to be clear proof that the Bridgestone dominance was bad for business.
After that race Rossi said that the tire rules were ruining the racing and, in private, both Rossi and Pedrosa demanded that their factories switch to Bridgestone in 2007.
Ezpeleta went to the tire companies and demanded change. It appears that what he ordered them to do was supply any team or rider that requested their services.
When Yamaha and Honda requested Bridgestone tires for 2007, Michelin said that if the factory Yamaha and Honda teams switched to Bridgestone, Michelin would withdraw.
There were some attempts to get Michelin to accept a switch from Dunlop to Michelin for the Tech 3 Yamaha ‘second team,’ and even for Michelin to accept the Repsol Honda garage being split with Pedrosa on Bridgestone and Hayden on Michelin, but Honda said no to this second proposal -- possibly a proposal from Dorna who were looking after Pedrosa’s interests.
Hamane’s Hint, Dorna’s Bombshell
In Japan the first indication of a sea change came when Masumi Hamane, the tough new HRC boss, said at the press conference called to announce Pedrosa’s signing for two more years, that Honda would listen to the requests of the factory riders, Pedrosa and Hayden, and was seeking Bridgestone. He went on to say that Bridgestone had rejected the proposal, but that Honda was still working to “attend our riders’ requests.”
When quizzed how this situation could be resolved and asked, “But what tires will you run in 2008?” he amazingly said, “That will depend of Bridgestone and Dorna.”
What he meant became clear the next day.
Many well-meaning ‘purists’ in the media center protested to themselves, each other, and their readers, saying that Grand Prix racing was above control tire regulations, and, one assumes, above Formula 1 as well in the purity scale.
Would the MSMA Permit This? Would the FIM Stop it?
The answer is that only the MSMA can stop a move to single tire. It works like this: When technical rules are involved the MSMA have extraordinary powers. An MSMA technical proposal with the full support of all members passes automatically. But if a technical proposal reaches the MSMA and all members vote no, the measure is stopped cold -- a virtual veto.
If, however, at least one member votes in favor of the proposal, the MSMA vote is registered as a simple no, but not a veto.
There are four voting powers in the Grand Prix Commission where these things are decided: Dorna, IRTA (Teams), MSMA, and the FIM. In case of a tie, Dorna casts the deciding vote.
Democracy, MotoGP-Style
And IRTA always supports Dorna so Dorna’s proposal for a single tire supplier already has two votes. Assuming the MSMA voted ‘no’ but with at least one factory supporting the single tire rule, that would be just a simple negative vote. If the FIM then voted no, the tie would be broken by Dorna.
In practice, however, the FIM would probably not oppose if the outcome was clear in advance, although new FIM President Vito Ippolito has publicly said that he opposes a single tire rule in Grand Prix racing, so the Venezuelan, who comes from a strong, hands-on racing background (his father, the Venezuelan Yamaha importer, took Johnny Cecotto and Carlos Lavado to the World GP series and Vito Ippolito himself managed Lavado’s team), just might weigh in on this even if the FIM lacks the power to block the rule.
Name a single major series that still has a ‘tire war.’ That’s right, just MotoGP, and, unless there is some backroom dealing between Bridgestone and Michelin to ‘guarantee’ close racing in 2008, you can include MotoGP into the list of championships that have a single tire supplier, along with the likes of F1, World Superbike, and NASCAR.
If this happens it will finally mean that every rider on the grid has access to competitive tires, and that is certainly not the case at present, even among riders of the same suppliers.
But a word of caution was sounded by a man who might be expected to support the concept: Pirelli’s Motorcycle Competition Director, Giorgio Barbier. “It won’t be easy and the riders will complain in the first year because the MotoGP tires were designed to suit individual riders and bikes. If MotoGP go to a single tire they will have many problems short term.”
World Superbike had teething problems as well in the first year of the new system, but there was much less attention focused on SBK in 2004. If MotoGP goes to a single tire as expected with Bridgestone, all problems will be magnified by the greater exposure of the series. Perhaps this is a risk that Dorna is prepared to take to prevent another season of runaway races.
TV viewers don’t care if the riders are happy, they just want to see fighting in a pack for the lead.
R6-cup?
