Michelin have withdrawn all of the rear tyres from the Argentine MotoGP allocation following the failure of a rear on Scott Redding’s Ducati in free practice four and replaced it with a ‘special’ tyre which had been taken to the track for such an eventuality.

A statement from Dorna, following a team meeting this evening, reads:

Following the incident in Saturday’s FP4 at the Gran Premio Motul de la Republica Argentina at Termas de Rio Hondo involving Octo Pramac Yakhnich’s Scott Redding, during which the rear tyre suffered a failure on track, specific actions will be taken for Sunday’s race.

Redding’s tyre – a medium compound with seven laps on it – is still being examined by Michelin’s technicians to determine the cause of the fault. Until this can be determined, Michelin has decided to withdraw both rear tyres on safety grounds, and introduce the extra “special” rear compound brought for such an occasion. Each rider will have four of these rear tyres for Sunday.

The reason both current tyres must be withdrawn is because they are both of the same construction, meaning that there is a possibility of a similar failure on the harder tyre. Michelin’s new rear tyre to be introduced from Sunday is of a harder construction, and will cope better with the hard strains and temperatures put through it – albeit at the expense of lap times.

To help teams and riders adapt to this complicated situation, Race Direction has decided to add an additional 30-minute Warm Up session for MotoGP™ to the morning schedule at 9am. After this, the schedule will continue as previously planned. For this additional track time, all riders will have one additional front tyre added to their allocation.