As of final yr’s British Grand Prix, MotoGP has enforced minimal entrance and rear tyre pressures in a transfer ostensibly aimed toward making certain rider security.
Nonetheless, this was largely criticised by riders final yr because the minimal of 1.88 bar entrance stress supplied them little margin earlier than the tyre ballooned and have become extra vulnerable to crashes.
Michelin agreed to decrease the minimal entrance tyre stress to 1.8 bar for 2024 with a view to give the riders extra margin to play with.
On the Spanish Grand Prix dash, nonetheless, 5 riders had been handed penalties for operating beneath the minimal entrance stress for greater than 30% of the race.
Most notably, this affected Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo, who rose from twenty third to 3rd amidst the crash chaos solely to be demoted to fifth.
Jerez’s dash noticed 15 riders crash throughout 12 laps, with most of these falls the results of damp patches.
Oliveira feels the rule on tyre pressures ought to solely rely when tracks are absolutely dry, saying after the Spanish GP: “Right now [Sunday] was a lot… I don’t wish to say a lot, however the observe was [relatively] regular and that made our lives slightly bit simpler.
Picture by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images
“Anyway, tyre stress guidelines when the observe is damp, like [in the sprint] shouldn’t be in place for my part as a result of it’s not this 0.05 bar stress that’s going to provide the reply to do an excellent efficiency.
“Nevertheless it’s the rule, it’s what it’s. However my opinion is when the situations are secure everybody is ready to adjust to the foundations and it’s a bit simpler.”
Beneath the present guidelines, the tyre stress rule doesn’t apply when a race is absolutely moist, or whether it is run below flag-to-flag situations.
All 5 riders at Jerez within the dash had been hit with eight-second penalties, although initially the punishment was set to be a disqualification.
This was tweaked on the eve of the 2024 season, with time penalties of 8s within the dash and 16s within the race handed out as an alternative for these discovered to have contravened the regulation.