MICHELIN secures pole position at Doha

Welcome to Doha: 35°C, a track temperature of 43°C  and a 5.3-kilometre circuit in the middle of a lunar landscape which will serve as backdrop to the second round of the FIM Endurance World Championship. Qualifying ended at 1:00am on Saturday morning, June 9, and harvested pole position for MICHELIN in association with its partner BMW Motorrad France Thevent who will start from the front of the grid for the third year running in Qatar.

After dominating free practice, Sébastien GIMBERT, Damian CUDLIN and Erwan NIGON were just as assertive in qualifying to clinch pole position thanks to an average time of 2m00.910s.

This evening’s result demonstrated the ability of their MICHELIN tyres to combine resistance to the high

temperatures with consistency and grip.

The three riders can now turn their attention to the race which they want to win at all costs in order to make up for their deficit in the current championship standings.

As in 2011, the N°99 BMW will be joined on the fron t row by the Monster Yamaha YART bike which posted an average time of 2m01.456s.

The Austrian squad’s chances in the race depend to a large extent on how successful they are in adapting the  bike  to  the  riding  style  of  Igor  JERMAN  and  Gwen  GIABBANI’s  Japanese  team-mate  in  Qatar, Noriyuki HAGA.

Last year’s Doha winners, Yamaha Racing France GMT 94 Michelin Yamalube (David CHECA, Kenny

FORAY and Matthieu LAGRIVE), qualified in fourth place.

The entry for the 2012 Doha 8 Hours features 23 bikes. Six of the EWC runners and one Superstock bike are competing on MICHELIN tyres.

Saturday’s  programme kicks off with warm-up at 1:00pm local time, while the race is due to start at

5:00pm.

Nicolas GOUBERT, Technical Director of the MICHELIN Group’s Competition Department, summed up the conditions in Qatar and the importance of the second round of the 2012 EWC for MICHELIN.

What influence do the heat, sand and wind have on the tyres here?

“The biggest challenge here at Losail concerns the conditions we will face during the race. The question is whether we will have the same sort of heat as we saw here last year. The track temperature will no doubt be higher than it was in 2011.

“The sand is a complex parameter because it increases tyre wear and modifies the amount of grip that is available. It is very abrasive and acts almost like sandpaper,  so we obviously have to take that into account. We will also need to keep an eye on the wind, since that can blow a fine layer of sand onto the track which is built in the middle of a rocky desert. Strong gusts of wind are frequent and they tend to deposit sand on the corners which can catch the riders by surprise. The conditions for the tomorrow’s start at five o’clock will be decisive for tyre choices because the weather in Doha is extreme at this time of year. It will be a tough race, not only for the tyres, but also for the riders and bikes.”

What is new on the tyre front compared to 2011?

“For the Doha 8 Hours, our partners will benefit from new tyres which are more resistant to wear, more consistent and also designed to cope with the extremely high temperatures. We have renewed 50 percent of our range compare to 2011.

“The main innovations concern the asymmetric characteristics of the tyres we have here, as well as the compounds which have been selected as a function of the circuit’s profile which features 10 right-hand turns and six left-hand turns. The development of these new solutions was based on our analysis of the performance and wear noted here in previous years.

“The development of our new tyres for Qatar took into account several key factors, including the circuit’s aggressive surface, the high temperatures and the sand which tends to be blown onto the track. That said,

MICHELIN’s  teams benefit from significant  experience  of this circuit,  because our tyres helped BMW Motorrad France qualify on pole position in 2010 and 2011 , and we have also won here twice: with YART in 2009 and with GMT 94 in 2011.

“We have a big choice of tyres here at Doha to cover a broader variety of possible conditions and to meet

the different needs of our partner teams.”

What are MICHELIN’s objectives for the Doha 8 Hours?

“Our objective is to go into the third round at Suzuka at the top of the championship standings. We also want to do even better than we did in 2011! I think we can look forward to eight hours of exciting racing when the lights turn green at five o’clock tomorrow afternoon…”

Michelin’s record in endurance racing

2012: third place with YART at the Bol d’Or

14 Endurance world titles between 1983 and 2011

Le Mans 24 Hours (France): 13 wins Oschersleben 8 Hours (Germany): 1 win Bol d’Or (France): 13 wins

Suzuka 8 Hours (Japan): 6 wins

Doha 8 Hours (Qatar): 2 wins