Stoner: Too many injuries from cold tyres

MotoGP News
Date: 29/06/2011

World Championship leader Casey Stoner believes MotoGP tyre supplier Bridgestone can - and must - do more to stop the spate of cold-tyre crashes in the premier-class.

Stoner was one of many riders to fall during the Dutch MotoGP weekend as riders struggled to heat-up the left-hand side of their tyres.

The Australian was caught out at the start of Friday practice, with Repsol Honda team-mates Andrea Dovizioso and Hiroshi Aoyama also crashing just minutes later in the chilly conditions.

That bizarre chain of events came on the back of collarbone-breaking cold-tyre crashes for Colin Edwards and Cal Crutchlow at the two previous events - and was followed by a big (left-hand) accident for Loris Capirossi in qualifying, which ruled the Italian out of the Dutch race.

Saturday's grand prix then saw pole sitter Marco Simoncelli caught out by his cold rear-tyre at the first left-hand bend - bringing world champion Jorge Lorenzo down with him.

Stoner inherited second place behind Ben Spies after that collision, which he held to the chequered flag. After the race, Stoner was asked if he thought Bridgestone was working hard enough, now that it has no competition.

"Personally no," replied Stoner. "Maybe now because of certain circumstances they are going to be working a little bit harder, but we've been with them for quite a long time now with the same complaints - it's more than just this year.

"I've spoken about it in the past two seasons, but especially last year. At the beginning they [Bridgestone] would come and see me saying 'No-one else is complaining. It's only you'. Then I'd speak to other riders and they'd say 'No, we've got the same problem'.

"I think [Bridgestone] can be doing something about it for sure. We've seen way too many injuries from cold tyres that you can’t really blame a rider for. It's not like the old, classic, cold-tyre crashes where the rider has just gone way too quick.

"With these things you've just got no feeling. They'll feel great and then all of a sudden - Bam! If the carcass of the tyre and everything is not working well enough, there's nothing you can do about it.

"You think the tyre is there. You think it’s grippy enough and then all of a sudden it'll just let go. So you really need to get these tyres too hot and it takes too long to get them working well enough."

Stoner gave Bridgestone its first ever MotoGP title victory, as a Ducati rider, during open-tyre competition in 2007.

The 27-time MotoGP winner claims the current warm-up problems only emerged when Bridgestone switched its emphasis from performance to endurance, after becoming the sport's exclusive supplier at the start of 2009.

"I've been with Bridgestone for some time and know that in 2007/2008 we didn’t have these issues. Nowhere near as bad as this. It was normally when we ran the really hard compounds," he revealed.

"And as Andrea [Dovizioso] has said as well, it's not just about putting a softer compound to improve the situation. It's the construction of the tyre.

"Maybe we won’t get the same distance out of them [by improving the warm-up characteristics], but we need more feel and more feedback. I honestly think they could be giving us something better, because I've ridden better tyres from them."