The rear tyre that MotoGP riders initially treated as a reserve option became the common choice for the Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi. Michelin had brought three rear specifications because the circuit’s new asphalt offered no previous data to work from. The soft and medium used familiar constructions, while the hard carried a specially reinforced casing intended for circuits that place heavy loads on the tyre, including Buriram, the Red Bull Ring and Mandalika.

That casing shaped the weekend’s early decisions. No rider used the hard on Friday or Saturday. Its status changed after surface damage appeared on the soft and medium during the Sprint, prompting Michelin to remove the soft from Sunday’s allocation and recommend the reinforced hard. The riders then had their first meaningful look at it in an extended warm-up, where most were immediately quicker than they had been on the medium.

Michelin’s Piero Taramasso said the hard provided the necessary grip, built stability progressively and gave riders a very positive feel. By race time there was no split in the field: every rider selected a medium front and hard rear.

Bagnaia accepts the riders’ mistake

Pecco Bagnaia described the tyre’s performance as a “big surprise, but a nice surprise”. He also put the responsibility on the riders for failing to try it earlier. Once the hard had been presented as a backup, teams were reluctant to spend limited track time on it. Bagnaia noted that previous weekends had already offered a warning: the option treated as secondary can end up being the strongest one.

The tyre’s specification made that judgement harder. Michelin combined the reinforced casing with soft-compound rubber, rather than the harder compound usually associated with that construction. The same soft compound was used on the tyre that was later withdrawn from the race.

The switch did not remove Bagnaia’s problems with the Ducati GP26. Marc Marquez won the grand prix with a race time 37 seconds faster than Bagnaia’s winning time from 2025. Bagnaia came home eighth, 20.3 seconds behind his team-mate, and was still the next-best Ducati rider.

Bagnaia said the issue was not a shortage of speed or feeling. Instead, he could not make the GP26 do what the fastest riders were doing, despite having been particularly strong at Motegi the previous year. He credited the team for doing a very good job with the electronics and the bike set-up, while concluding that more had not been possible over the weekend.

Marquez’s victory also delivered a landmark for Ducati: it was the manufacturer’s 100th win during Gigi Dall’Igna’s tenure. Bagnaia has contributed 31 MotoGP victories to Ducati, more than any other rider in that total, and congratulated Dall’Igna on reaching the milestone.