Following the second three-day MotoGP™ test at the Sepang International Circuit this year, a number of factory and satellite riders stayed behind to test Michelin tyres for the 2016 season.

This will be the first time the likes of Repsol Honda Team’s Marc Marquez, and Movistar Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi will get to try the range of tyres that will return to the MotoGP™ World Championship from 2016.

Test riders, including ex-MotoGP™ riders Colin Edwards and Hiroshi Aoyama, had already worked with a selection of seven front and five rear tyres a couple of weeks ago after the first pre-season outing, paving the way for today’s evaluations.

Michelin have brought a selection of four front tyres and three rears. The fronts are all the same compound, yet have different profiles and casings, whist the rears also have some variation in compound.

Michelin’s Technical Director Nicolas Goubert commented: “It was very important for us to have the opportunity to have the factory riders on the bikes, on the tyres, very early in the season to give us a clear direction of where to go and what we have to work on.

“The main work we have to do is on the front, because it’s where we found out we have, I would say…a gap to close according to what the test riders have told us.

We ask them to go out for four or five laps, and then ask them to give us their feedback. In the early stage this is the most important to find out which profile, which construction we need. And then in the afternoon we’ll ask a couple of guys to do a long run as well just to see the robustness of the tyres.”

Riders taking part are Marquez, his teammate Dani Pedrosa, the Yamaha duo of Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha test riders Katsuyuki Nakasuga and Colin Edwards, Suzuki’s Aleix Espargaro, Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone along with test rider Michele Pirro, Tech 3 duo Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith, Aprilia riders Alvaro Bautista and Marco Melandri, CWM LCR’s Cal Crutchlow and Jack Miller, with AB Cardion’s Karel Abraham rounding out the field.