Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas 2021

2021-10-04 11:08
Marc Marquez used the consistent performance of his Hard front and Soft rear MICHELIN Power Slicks to lead from start to finish and emerge victorious after overcoming the vicious bumps and high temperatures at CoTA in the Red Bull Grand Prix of the Americas, with Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP) and Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) taking second and third places respectively.

On the grid, all riders went for the Hard front MICHELIN Power Slick, and all but three riders chose the Soft rear option, despite none of the riders doing more than six consecutive race-pace laps during the FP4 session, due to the extreme physical demands of riding the bumps.

The race pace was very high throughout, with a new race duration record of 41’41.435, beating the previous best time by more than four seconds.

Friday’s first Free Practice sessions started as a wet affair following some early heavy rain, and this meant the teams lost all-important dry set-up time. The first session began to dry out rapidly towards the end, but it was still too wet to allow the use of the MICHELIN Power Slicks. In the afternoon session the track was completely dry and finally the riders got to test the slick tyres and put in some fast banker laps in case of rain on Saturday.

With no rain, Saturday’s FP3 gave the riders a good opportunity to work on dry set-up and to work out how to tackle the extreme track conditions, and later in the session the fight was on again in earnest to directly access Q2. Jack Miller (Ducati Lenovo Team) topped the timesheet with an incredible lap time, given the track conditions, of 2’02.923 using Soft front and rear tyres – a time only bettered in Q2 by his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia with a time of 2’02.781 using Hard front and Soft rear tyres.

Speaking after the race, Piero Taramasso, Michelin Two-Wheel Motorsport Manager, said: “This was a very interesting weekend for us and the teams due to the grip levels of the resurfaced parts of the track being something of an unknown quantity. However, during the first dry session we realised very quickly that while the resurfaced parts offered good grip, the old asphalt was distinctly lacking in this respect.

“Considering the differences in grip between the various track surfaces and the well-publicised issues caused by the bumps, I was very happy with the consistent performance shown by all the options in our allocation, and the fourth Hard compound rear tyre we brought as a back-up wasn’t needed. The Hard front worked particularly well for all riders and constructors – hence it being chosen by everyone for the race – but all our rear options were race possibilities, with the vast majority taking advantage of the additional grip potential offered by the Soft.”

Source: Michelin Motorsport

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