What I’m referring to is Michelin’s time as the sole supplier of tires for MotoGP. It ends this year, the French tire-maker to be replaced by Italian giant Pirelli for 2027.

I won’t miss them. I don’t think many will. There’s been way too much focus on tire foibles in MotoGP these last few years. Too many tire pressure penalties. Too much talk of stratagems specifically designed to, well, avoid tire pressure penalties. The impossibility to put pressure on race leaders because of, again, tire pressure concerns. Hell, there were races where tire pressure — not engine performance, not rider talent, not even tire selection — was the deciding factor in determining who finished where. 

Nothing illustrated this more than Marc Marquez’s exploits in Thailand last year. Google 2025 Thailand MotoGP and listen to the histrionics as announcer Matt Birt describes how #93 had to deliberately let his brother Alex pass him because his tire pressure was low and he needed to follow another rider so the heat from #73’s bike would increase his front tire’s air pressure. He stayed there until his tire pressure returned to spec, then rocketed by Alex, leaving him — and everyone else — in the dust. It remains one of the saddest spectacles in MotoGP’s long and storied history. I won’t miss Michelin tires. Not at all.

The reason for these shenanigans is not nearly the mystery the racing media pretends. Michelin’s race tire philosophy — and yes, tires, or at least the companies that build them, have “philosophies” — is to build their rubber with stiff carcasses. Their reasoning, I presume, is that under the monumental load that is MotoGP racing, they will retain more of their “shape.”

Except that tires need to deform. For one thing, racing tires need to be in a narrow window of temperature to perform optimally. One of the ways they get warm is through internal friction, the internal belts, plys and inner rubber layers squirming in relation to each, producing heat. No distortion equals no heat which, again, means no traction. 

Indeed, in its simplest terms, MotoGP riders’ obsession with low tire pressure is simply an act of trying to let an overly stiff tire create more friction so the tire would remain at its optimum operating pressure. There are obviously deeper technicalities than one simple paragraph can explain — lower pressures resulting in larger contact patches being just one — but the overarching issue is heat.

Which is why I — and, I suspect, many others — am eagerly anticipating Pirelli’s takeover as MotoGP’s “spec” tire supplier. One of the primary attractions is a front tire which, according to the World Superbike riders currently running on Pirellis, are much easier to control, not nearly as difficult to get up to operating temperature, and provide much more feedback when braking than MotoGP’s Michelins, mainly because they are, and forgive this deeply technical engineering term, squishier.

What was most surprising about all this is finding out why — after a recent discussion with Giorgio Barbier, Pirelli’s Director of Motorcycle Racing — this is so.

According to Barbier, it’s because his company’s racing slicks are made on the very same machines and assembly lines as the high-performance tires you and I might buy for our street-legal superbikes. As the story goes, when he was tasked with developing racing tires for motorcycling’s burgeoning superbike series, Pirelli’s budget was tight. Hand-built racing rubber using specialized machines was out of the question, Barbier claiming the racing division had to blag a few hours from one of its German factories to build his racing tires. 

So, while the materials and compounds could be somewhat modified, the basic construction process had to remain similar. Listen long enough and Barbier seems to be saying that this philosophy of simplicity is the reason for the balance and versatility of Pirelli’s racing tires. And why, he says, MotoGP racing will be tighter than ever next year.

As to whether that means Michelin’s tire pressure rules will be rescinded, Barbier says not initially. After years of trying to thread the needle that has been the fine line between traction and penalties, he suspects that race teams will probably continue with bad habits. He does, however, insist that lowering the pressure of Pirelli’s racing tires will gain the riders nothing. That’s because, despite much speculation, Pirelli will definitely not be changing its philosophy on how to build a racing motorcycle tire, Barbier confirming that MotoGP’s race rubber will be built on the same production line as street-legal tires.

The benefits — beyond tire pressure and more consistent performance — are manifold. Perhaps the biggest is that MotoGP will be running on the same brand of tire as Moto2 and Moto3. Even a casual observer of MotoGP knows that, in recent years, the biggest challenge for those riders moving up from the feeder classes has not been the monumental power the 1,000-cc prototypes make, but adapting to the vastly different characteristics of Michelin rubber. 

Yamaha’s thrice world superbike champion, Toprak Razgatlıoğlu, has struggled mightily in the switch despite his prodigious talent. As soon as he was back on Pirellis — for the recent Brno test on the new-for-2027 850s — he was back at the front of the pack. And yes, according to Toprak, the front feels “the same like in superbikes.”

Perhaps the craftiest part of Pirelli’s takeover of MotoGP, however, is its timing. With everything about the series changing — the drop in displacement, the elimination of ride height devices and reduced aerodynamics — direct comparisons with tires previous is impossible. Tire manufacturers’ biggest worry when taking over a racing series is direct comparison of lap times with the previous supplier; I’m not sure if timing is part of Pirelli’s “philosophy,” but I suspect that the serendipity will please Barbier just as much.