With Bridgestone, Dunlop and Pirelli all badly caught out by resurfacing at Phillip Island, all eyes will be on Michelin at this weekend’s Australian MotoGP.

The last time Phillip Island was resurfaced, ahead of the 2013 grand prix, a shortened race distance and mandatory pit stop were required due to overheating of the Bridgestone rubber.

The Moto2 and Moto3 classes also ran short grand prix races due to their Dunlop tyres suffering similar issues.

The latest resurfacing for 2024 then caught out Pirelli during February’s WorldSBK season opener, which again required shortened races and a mandatory pit stop to ensure tyre safety.

Now it’s Michelin’s turn to take on the new asphalt at this weekend’s Australian Grand Prix.

As at Aragon, the French company has no MotoGP data for the new asphalt.

As such, Michelin will offer a larger range of rear tyres – three options instead of the usual two – with the medium and hard featuring a heat-resistant reinforced construction.

“We are eager to discover the nature of the new Phillip Island asphalt”, said Piero Taramasso, Two-Wheel Manager of Michelin Motorsport. “As we didn’t have the opportunity to do any testing beforehand, we will bring an expanded tyre allocation.

“For the front we will have the same compounds (Soft, Medium and Hard) as in 2023, but for the rear, we are offering our partners three options instead of the usual two.

“We will have the Soft compound, with its usual internal structure, but also two tyres with Medium and Hard compounds, which benefit from a reinforced construction that we already saw at the end of September in Mandalika (Indonesia).

“We made this decision based on the configuration of the circuit and the constraints placed on the tyres.”

As is also the case at Sachsenring and Valencia, the front and rear tyres are asymmetric, with reinforcement on the left side. 

Last year’s Australian MotoGP saw the grand prix race brought forward to Saturday afternoon, in place of the Sprint, due to extreme weather being forecast for Sunday.

The storm duly arrived after warm-up, cancelling plans for the rescheduled Sprint.

Meanwhile, Pirelli will at least be able to call upon its WorldSBK and WSS knowledge for this weekend’s Moto2 and Moto3 tyres.