Michelin to continue WRC dominance

The WRC Promoter has announced that Michelin have had their agreement to supply tyres for the World Rally Championship extended until the end of 2019, and immediately faced controversy at Rally Catalunya when there was a dispute over the tyre allocation of tyres for each crew.  

It is reported that Michelin allocated four more tyres for this event per team than originally specified for their contracted teams, leaving their rival companies preparing a reduced number of tyres per crews according to the limits specified by the regulations.  

Running World Rally Cars in Spain on Pirelli tyres are Prokop, Gorban and Bertelli, while Tanak runs on DMack tyres.  

Michelin have been official WRC team tyre suppliers since the single supplier agreement was originally introduced, except for a three year period when Pirelli were awarded the contract instead.  

They continued to provide tyres in the WRC after the mandatory single supplier rule was cancelled, but currently have a supply monopoly with all the registered teams.   

When Michelin has been the principal supplier, they had required various rule changes, notably the provision of more than one type of compound per rally, after Sebastien Loeb crashed in Australia when having to run with hard tyres on a wet gravel stage.  

This led to the current and very curious system in which crews can cross-match hard and soft compounds on cars.

-    Martin Holmes

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