Jorge Lorenzo's recent and triumpant return to form may have as much to do with managing the front-tyre squish on his Ducati GP18 as the new tank pad he received at Mugello.
Both Andrea Dovizioso and Jack Miller have studied the Spaniard's data, and while Dovizioso saw his team-mate was sliding less, Miller believes it is because he is confident when the front Michelin 'collapses' under heavy braking.
"Lorenzo wasn't too much wheels-in-line. He was sliding into turn one a little bit more than me," said Miller. It was just the way he was adapting to the tyre, because you couldn’t really use the medium and the hard tyre too well.
"But he was using the soft and letting it collapse the whole way and basically had confidence with it collapsing. Whereas the rest of us - or myself in particular - were not squishing the tyre all the way. Because I'm used to when you squish it, normally you're going to end in the air."