I was excited and happy to get the brief from the FIA and Automobile Club de l’Ouest to develop tyres that work without using warmers for the 2023 World Endurance Championship. It’s a regulation change that Michelin has been strongly pushing for the last couple of years. We included it in our proposal answering the tender for Hypercar tyres in 2019 as an idea of an innovative change we could bring.
It can look odd for fans to see the family of racing spending energy to heat tyres – even when it’s 40C in Bahrain. It’s not easy to explain the need to do that when fewer series are depending on tyre warmers now. Having supplied the IMSA Sportscar Championship since early 2019, we said: “We feel capable of making tyres that start from cold and last two or three stints as long as it’s a different compound between Bahrain and Spa.”
