Rossi and Lorenzo: 'front tyres too soft'

JORGE Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi have both stated that even the hard front Bridgestones tyres are too soft.

Most of Sunday's crashes at the Catalunya GP were from riders losing the front. Talking to GPOne Jorge Lorenzo said: "The problem is always the same one at every race, even the hardest tyre mix is too soft. We have spoke on more than one occasion with the Bridgestone technicians, asking them to modify them, but for the time being no modification are expected."

Track temperatures for Sunday's race were higher than they'd been all weekend and were recorded at 52-degrees, all riders except for CRT rider Aleix Espargaro, selected the hardest front option.

Shinji Aoki, Manager, Bridgestone Motorsport Tyre Development said: “Conditions today were the hottest on race day so far this year which made the track quite greasy and a challenge for the riders. The heat made tyre management even more important; first of all managing the front-end load on the slippery track surface with a full tank of fuel in the early laps, and then managing tyre wear - particularly at the rear - in the later stages. Even though it was so hot, none of the works riders selected the harder rear option for the race as they wanted the better edge grip of the softer option. Considering we had such extremely severe conditions for tyres, the softer rear slick performed well today.”Valentino Rossi said he agreed with Lorenzo's complaint and that the tyres - which were developed for the 800s - were too soft for the heavier 1000cc bikes.Casey Stoner was critical of the tyres when they were introduced and when Rossi was reminded of this, he joked: "Casey must have been a magician, who could see into the future. But he was right."
Rossi went on to say: "They all lost the front wheel, because with the heat we were all at the limit. I also felt the front move and I risked finding myself on the floor three or four times, like Crutchlow, I was a bit more fortunate than others."