MICHELIN claims pole position at Le Mans

An average lap time of 1m37.323s saw MICHELIN and BMW Motorrad France Thevent claim pole position ahead of motorcycling’s Le Mans 24 Hours for the second year running. This particularly satisfying result bides well for the French firm’s victory chances and also boosts its bid to clinch the discipline’s 2012 world title. For the championship’s final clash at Le Mans, MICHELIN’s partners benefit from new tyre solutions, some of which were developed especially for qualifying. The teams were consequently able to choose between a qualifying tyre designed to cover three laps and another aimed more specifically at just one flying lap. The ‘three-lap’ qualifying tyre is engineered to accelerate warm-up and optimise the riders’ chances of producing a strong lap in qualifying by giving them the ability to cover several laps once out on the track, an appreciable ‘plus’ in traffic. The ‘one-lap’ qualifying tyre delivers even greater potential, but for a single flying lap only. These innovations helped Sébastien GIMBERT, Erwan NIGON and Damian CUDLIN (N°99 BMW S1000RR) claim pole position with an average best time for the three riders of 1m37.323s, an improvement of 0.222s over the performance that put them at the front of the grid for 2011’s race. This time last year, MICHELIN and BMW qualified on pole position with a time of 1m37.545s. Nicolas GOUBERT (Technical Director, MICHELIN Competition): “We are extremely pleased with today’s performance in association with our partner BMW. GMT 94 Yamaha came close to finishing inside the top three in qualifying, too. Our riders feel confident in their tyres, and we are also satisfied with the times our partners achieved during practice on race rubber. It all points to a close and extremely exciting race this weekend.”