Official tyre pressure monitoring and penalties for breaches will be introduced in MotoGP with immediate effect after the end of the 2023 summer break – albeit with a “gradual penalty scale” that the series describes as an initial concession.
Tyre pressure legislation has been on the agenda for much of the 2023 season, amid trials for the “unified” monitoring system that is now being introduced.
Early-season tests had been aimed at introducing a strict limit around the Jerez round at the end of April.
But pushback from riders proved severe, with MotoGP competitors in virtually universal agreement that the fluctuations created in the tyre pressure while running in traffic in the race risked establishing a potentially dangerous situation (of front tyre pressures spiking out of control and causing sudden crashes) if teams and riders had to try to adhere to minimal pressure prescriptions.
There was also a concern over widespread post-race disqualifications if the rule was introduced swiftly – which seems to be why MotoGP has taken what it believes is a more gentle approach to phasing in the rule.
“Following a request from the MotoGP technical director [Danny Aldridge], the FIM MotoGP stewards have confirmed that the system will now be enforced for both the Tissot Sprint and the MotoGP grand prix race,” the series wrote in the announcement.
“Technical infringements normally result in disqualification from the session or race, but as the system is new to the MotoGP class and it’s being brought in mid-season, the stewards have agreed a gradual penalty scale.”
The scale is as follows:
Warning for 1st offence
3s penalty for 2nd offence
6s penalty for 3rd offence
12s penalty for 4th offence
For now, the rule only applies to the race sessions, i.e. the sprint and the main event. That “target”, MotoGP says, is to have disqualification as the standard penalty for tyre pressure breaches in the future, “once teams have become familiar with the system”.
The minimal allowed pressure, which will be set differently at the front and at the rear and “may change from some circuits to others”, will need to be observed “during a minimal percentage of the laps” in the event.
Such an approach suggests that some teams are still likely to risk starting below the minimum front pressure threshold in anticipation of a race spent in the pack – and, in any case, will put an extra onus on teams to get their pressure calculations right coming into an event, with the possibility for them to be substantially caught out and now penalised if they were wrong in their estimations of how the race would play out.
The MotoGP season resumes after its six-week summer break with the British Grand Prix at Silverstone next weekend.
