Sole tyre manufacturer for MotoGP together with the sport’s rule making body, the Grand Prix Commission will press ahead with the introduction of embedded wireless technology in their tyres for the upcoming 2017 MotoGP season.
The adoption of the new technology will hopefully bring to an end the confusion that flag-to-flag races have created in the past. Organisers will be able to feed back live tyre information not only to race control but also to TV and media in realtime.
Specifics of the tyre’s operating system have yet to be announced, other than a brief description from the Grand Prix Commission suggesting the system set will be more advanced than the RFID tagging concept originally suggested by the French firm earlier this year.
The tyre detection is made by means of wireless technology. The information is then fed to the unified ECU and routed to the track timing system which reports via an updated version of the unified software.
To an extent, this will see a shift in race strategy dynamics by teams and riders in the MotoGP class. This is especially so if the technology is introduced not just for use during race session, but also during all other sessions during a race weekend – practice, qualifying and warm up.
The other update with regards to tyres from the GPC meeting is that the two riders who progress from Q1 to Q2 will now also be granted an additional soft slick tyre for the session. Racers had raised the issue in the Safety Commission earlier this year, citing examples of people crashing out of Q2 after being forced to take to the session on a used tyre.
