Pirelli to exchange Michelin as MotoGP’s tyre provider in 2027

Pirelli will turn into MotoGP’s official tyre producer from 2027 to 2031, after Michelin’s present deal ends.

This can be a logical step for the Italian model, which has been supplying its rubber to the Moto2 and Moto3 collection since final 12 months, in addition to the World Superbike championship in a long-standing partnership that started in 2004.

Having offered tyres to the Formulation 1 world championship since 2011 however determined to not additional its involvement within the World Rally Championship past 2024, Pirelli now provides one other main competitors to its portfolio, in addition to the MotoE collection.

The announcement comes as considerably of a shock, as Michelin – which has been the only supplier of MotoGP tyres since 2016 – had began work on novel compounds forward of the new-for-2027 technical guidelines.

However, the final decade has been fraught with criticism from riders and groups focusing on the producer from Clermont-Ferrand.

This has been an everyday theme, significantly in the previous couple of years, with Michelin at odds with Honda and Aprilia over its duty for, respectively, Marc Marquez’s highside on the 2022 Indonesian Grand Prix and Jorge Martin’s crash simply final month in pre-season testing at Sepang, which has left the reigning champion unable to participate within the first two rounds of the marketing campaign. Martin additionally partly blamed its 2023 title defeat on tyres he deemed to not work correctly.

That is the second main collection Michelin has left in recent times, having been changed by Hankook for Formulation E’s Gen3 that commenced on the finish of 2022. Nevertheless, the French model nonetheless provides its rubber to all rivals within the IMSA SportsCar Championship in addition to the World Endurance Championship’s Hypercar class.