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 icky Hayden (Repsol Honda-Michelin) put an exclamation point on the most exciting MotoGP season ever when he won Michelin’s 26th premier-class World Championship in 2006. The American’s success sealed Michelin’s undefeated record in the five years of 990cc MotoGP racing, and also secured its 15th consecutive premier-class crown.While Hayden didn’t win the most races in 2006–that honor went to ex-World Champion Valentino Rossi (Camel Yamaha-Michelin)–the Kentucky Kid overcame his share of adversity to take the title. Hayden was the innocent victim of teammate Dani Pedrosa’s crash at the season’s penultimate round in Portugal, which took both riders out of the race and knocked Hayden out of the championship lead. Hayden later revealed that he suffered a broken shoulder in the collision, but that didn’t keep him out of the title-deciding Valencia GP. Meanwhile, 2006 was another year of phenomenal success for Michelin. The tire maker won 13 times in 17 tries, took 11 poles, scored 12 fastest laps, claimed 40 of 51 podium spots and filled eight of the top nine in points. “Michelin don’t win all these races and world titles by being lucky; they put in the work and take the information from the riders” said Hayden. “We’ve seen a lot of improvements since I first came to MotoGP, like the bigger front and the wider-profile rears. I was the first guy to race the wider-profile front last year. It gives me a lot more confidence and grip, especially into downhill corners. The 2006 rear made a big difference for me because it gives more and when we started using this year’s bike we were looking for more edge grip. I liked it as soon as I got on it.” “This has been another great season for us,” said Nicolas Goubert, Michelin’s outgoing director of motorcycle racing, who is handing the reins to Jean-Philippe Weber. “The world’s three major motorcycle tire manufacturers now compete head-to-head in MotoGP, but we still come out well ahead every year.” Now Michelin is preparing for MotoGP’s second major technical change in five years. Following the shift from 500cc two-strokes to 990cc four-strokes in 2002, next year’s bikes will be reduced to 800cc in a bid to rein in speeds. “The bikes will stay pretty much the same but they will make slightly less horsepower and torque,” said Goubert, “which should make the bikes less demanding on tires. Less horsepower should put less heat into the tires but the 800’s torque output could be more brutal than the 990s, so it’s difficult to predict how they will wear the tires. If the torque is more brutal, it could mean that the predictability of the tires will become more important, but the latest electronics are so sophisticated that torque delivery may not be an issue.” In any case, it’s a certainty that street riders will benefit from Michelin’s involvement in MotoGP, because the technological relationship between MotoGP tires and street tires is much closer than in other motorsports. As Goubert noted, “We started using 2-Compound Technology in 1994 and we now sell the [multi-compound] Power Race and Pilot Power 2CT tires designed for street use. This is always our aim–to develop technology in MotoGP which we then make available to everyone.” 
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