The Monday test at Barcelona felt like a proper test. Normally, such tests descend into a simple shoot out in the last fifteen minutes, frail egos demanding to finish fastest, especially when only pride is at stake.

But perhaps the Barcelona race had taken a little too much out of the protagonists, or the hot and humid conditions were simply not conducive to spend even more energy risking everything for pointless pride, or perhaps the riders realize that the season is now so tightly packed with no summer break that they cannot risk injury when it doesn’t count. Whatever the reason, at the test, people concentrated on testing.

Not that the riders or teams were particularly forthcoming about what exactly they were testing. Some were more open than others: Suzuki said they were testing a new swingarm, and engine update, and retesting the new chassis they have been using since Mugello.

Danilo Petrucci tested a new exhaust, a new gearbox, and a new swingarm, which he promptly broke by taking it for a tumble through the gravel.

Show and Tell

Some had nowhere they could hide: KTM debuted a new aerodynamic package taken straight out of the HRC playbook, which had in turned been “inspired” by Yamaha. Repsol Honda debuted a new bike in carbon fiber fairings, not the 2019 bike, they insisted, but rather a potential update for this season.

But Honda was so intensely secretive that I would not be surprised if they had merely slapped a black fairing on it to distract from parts they were testing on the Repsol bike, as much as I detest conspiracy theories.

And some had nothing really to test, and so nothing really to hide. The Movistar Yamahas had nothing of note to try at Barcelona, and spent their time fiddling at the edges in the hope of refining their performance.

That could be because they have much greater updates coming at the Brno test, or because Yamaha is taking a step back to consider what they need. We will have to wait a couple of months for Brno to see what happens there.

There were also electronic updates, which always get debuted at a test. “I think if you spoke to everyone in the paddock, they will have had some update on their electronics today,” Cal Crutchlow opined.

“Because this is really the time to be able to try it, because in a race weekend it’s too difficult to understand in a 45 minutes session.”

“I think it’s too difficult to know quite a lot of the time, your tire life, then you have to change a tire because the end of FP2 is a qualifying session, end of FP3 is a qualifying session, it’s really difficult to know whether the updates really work or whether they don’t work. So now is the sort of day to check that.”

The timesheets bear out some of the story of who was testing what.

There is a clear difference between someone like Marc Márquez, who did 15 runs in total, most of them between three and five laps, obviously testing parts and setup, and Johann Zarco, who did just 8 runs, two of which were nearly race distance (one before lunch, one after lunch).

Or take Tito Rabat, who did a few setup runs, then a race simulation, then spent the best part of an hour practice starts out of pit lane.

The Talkative Type

Danilo Petrucci was the most forthcoming about what he had tested, his test cut short by a crash in which he banged up his feet.

“The Clinica Mobile suggested I have a CAT scan for the tendon,” Petrucci said. “But it’s OK, nothing serious. I hope. And then it was a bit of a shame, because I was trying a new swingarm.”

“Still we have to compare it with the old one, but this morning was so useful, because I tried one set of new exhausts, a new gearbox, new chassis, but some old things that Ducati factory still had, but we have to decide whether to continue with that or not. But I found some interesting things, and we will see if I receive this stuff for me.”

It was unfortunate, because this was the first time Petrucci had been asked to test new parts for Ducati. Crashing with the swingarm was slightly embarrassing.

“The most important thing, I crashed with this…” he said. The new gearbox and exhaust were intended to make the bike smoother, he explained.

“The gearbox and the exhaust especially make the exit of the corner very, very smooth, and it’s a thing which me and Lorenzo have been asking for, for more than one year, because in the middle of the corner we need the engine more smooth.”

The gearbox helped in the transition from off throttle to opening the gas, Petrucci explained. “On the moment of torque, when you release the brake and take the throttle, it’s more smooth,” the Pramac Ducati rider said.

“We call this gain recover, when the torque becomes positive, because when you brake, the torque is negative, then you take the throttle and the torque starts to be positive, and in that point it’s more smooth, which means that the bike moves less in the middle of the corner, and slides less.”

Petrucci wasn’t able to draw conclusions about the swingarm, as he really needed more time on it before he crashed.

“When you try a different part of the bike, the setup is the same, because for the comparison, you cannot move it. If not the test is not accurate. Because if you try a new swingarm and then you start to move the setup of the bike, maybe you arrive at the same lap time but it’s not true, you have to mount that swingarm with the same tires and the same setup, and try if it’s better or not.”

First, you have to test with the same setup, to see if the new swingarm helps. Then you have to get to work trying to optimize the setup for the new swingarm, and see how much of an improvement it will give you. It is a time-consuming business.

Petrucci was not certain if and when he would be able to use these new parts in a race, however, as they were limited by the sheer practicality of producing the parts. “The problem is that Ducati has to produce things for three bikes,” the Italian explained.

“And for three bikes, you have to produce a gearbox, which means you have two new gearboxes, and one spare. Three gearboxes each rider, three or four exhausts each rider. So it’s a lot of things, and they are in trouble with time, and there are many races and many riders and many things to do. So we’ll see. They are working so hard, and I don’t know at the moment if I will receive them.”

Vow of Silence

If Danilo Petrucci was informative, the Honda riders – with the possible exception of Dani Pedrosa, for very different reasons – were the absolute opposite.

When asked if he had liked the all-black new bike he had tested, Marc Márquez remained studiously evasive. “I felt good with all bikes. I feel some positives and some negatives, but I cannot say a lot.”

We tried to push Márquez for more details, but knowing HRC’s love of secrecy, the Spaniard tried to be as vague as possible. “I mean, we just tried to improve a little bit on the brakes, tried to get a little bit more confidence,” he said of the new bike.

“It was slightly better there, some negatives, and then we just tried also a different thing inside of the bike – I cannot say a lot. If I want, I can just say bull****, but I don’t want to, so I don’t say a lot.” That, at least, was honest.

Despite that, he did give away a little of what Honda have been trying to achieve, both with the new bike and with the existing bike.

“On braking we improve. It’s something I already said two or three races ago. We want to work to get more contact in the front, try to understand more, try to get more feeling.”

“Because not only me, all the Hondas, when we push a little bit more, we are crashing with the front tire, we are always using the hard tire. Try to understand the feedback, but when you get more feedback, you are losing in other points. It’s a compromise. ”

Honda had spent the preseason working on getting the engine right – and a 27-point lead in the championship suggests they have done just that – and had now switched their focus to the chassis.

“We are focused on that area,” Márquez explained. “I already said, in the preseason we were focused on the engine area, and then during the season we can improve the chassis area.”

Would we see any of the updates at the next few races? “In Assen, we will have Repsol bikes, so you will not know if it’s the new one or the other one!” Márquez joked.

Old Frames

The chassis is due an update, Cal Crutchlow revealed. The chassis they are currently using is the one debuted in 2016, which helped fix Marc Márquez’s woes. The chassis which Crutchlow had helped develop.

“It’s exactly the same, the LCR Honda rider said. “I think all the riders are using the same as me, or what we chose in 2016 and continue to work with. It’s just we’ve had no updates since then.”

Crutchlow reiterated Márquez’s point that the first focus had been the engine, and the electronics, and the chassis was pretty much good enough for the moment. “It’s not like we prefer something else or don’t prefer something else, the concentration was always on the engine and the electronics,” he said.

“Maybe we’ll have a chassis later in the year, at testing, I don’t know. I have no idea, no plan for the chassis, but I know that it’s an area where I think we can improve, also the other riders think we can improve there as well.”

“So I expect that to maybe be the next step, but when I have no idea. We’ll continue what we have because it’s obviously good enough to be competitive.”

Crutchlow’s issue had been more one of turning the bike, rather than braking, though, in contrast to Márquez’ focus on improving braking. The concept of the bike needed to be addressed to fix that, however.

“I think it’s more the overall package of the bike,” Crutchlow said. “The Honda has been the same for quite a few years now in that area, in the chassis and the chassis design of the bike.”

The trouble is, that when riders are winning on the package, it was hard to convince engineers of the problems with the bike, especially when the bike is in reasonable shape. “As I said, it obviously works,” Crutchlow pointed out.

“Marc won the last couple of titles. We’re consistently fast, Dani’s been consistently fast over the years with this package. It works in one area, it doesn’t work very well in the other, so we’re trying to improve in the other area.”

“I’m not saying that’s what we need, because I don’t know, until we try something else, we don’t know if it’s better. You don’t know until you try. We’ll see what Honda will do from now on, and which way they will point the development and direction.”

Geometry Lesson

Turning was something that Dani Pedrosa had been working on. He had learned a few things from racing against Cal Crutchlow and Maverick Viñales on Sunday, and had spent Monday trying to address those issues with his mechanics.

“Basically, we played with the geometry,” the Repsol Honda rider said. “The mechanics worked up and down here, and it was a tough job. A little bit difficult to understand today, because the track temperature was going up, so at one point it was difficult to understand where we were going.”

“At the end I think we could understand a few things. So have a little bit different geometry than in the race, which is what we were looking for after yesterday’s result, now we should try to focus more on this way.”

It had been mid-corner and corner-exit where Pedrosa had focused his efforts, he explained. “I searched not very much on the grip, but on the cornering. Trying to be better in the middle of the turn, better on the exit of the turn.”

“I think we found a little help in one or two points, not sure completely of course, as I said the track temperature rose in the middle of the day, and then the lap times were a bit strange, then back to good at the end of the day. So a little bit feet on the ground for the result today, but I think we could go one step better.”

The change had allowed him to work with the softer tire compared to the race, which would offer more grip if he can make it last.

“Today we mainly used the rear soft as yesterday in the GP we used a harder spec, so that’s why we changed the bike to be able to stay more and longer time using the soft like everybody else happened to use,” he said. He had been forced to give up something in braking, but he hoped the sacrifice would be worthwhile.

“Of course at the end you always have to win and lose. But as I say, you have to change the dynamics in the corner and in the bike, and also you have to slowly adapt your riding to that. That’s why. At this moment, I think positive, but calm.”

All Quiet on the Iwata Front

With all this work going on at Honda, it was slightly disconcerting to see that Yamaha had little or nothing for Maverick Viñales or Valentino Rossi to test. They had a spacer for the tank to alter the seating position, but neither Rossi nor Viñales were particularly enamored of the new position.

“It was just one piece here [between the legs] on the tank, so I sit a little bit more on the back,” Viñales said. “I feel like I could ride a little bit better but finally it was not so much like this because it upsets so much the front and I had a lot of movement.”

Forcing Viñales to sit further back had not been an improvement “I had just the seat a little bit more back because when I was riding with Johann, his riding style is a little bit different so I tried to be a little more like his style.”

“Finally it upset the bike. It’s two completely different bikes. Just trying to find a good setting for the front, to make it work and finally we did it. I hope in Assen we can prove that.”

He had been especially focused on the opening laps of the race. A revised sighting and warm up lap procedure had helped with warming the tires, but at the test he had worked on understanding how to push in the first few laps, with a full tank and new tires.

“Not always new tires but always full tank, even if it was used. I had to get used to the full tank to see how the bike it brakes. Anyway, happy because we did different set-ups and finally the front tire works a little bit better and I could push, especially at the end, when I found a good setup for the bike.”

“Sincerely we don’t have nothing big or special, but have two or three small ideas, small things that I hope can help us in acceleration,” Valentino Rossi replied, when asked what he had to test.

“But unfortunately I was like yesterday, and unfortunately looking at the data and everything we are not able to improve to go faster. It’s a shame. But is like this. It’s not easy. It’s a long work. So it’s normal like this.”

But Rossi was far from impressed with the rate of progress. “We have some small things here but now the next test in Brno, on the Monday after the race, so we hope there to find something else. And from now to Brno we race with the same bike.”

That did not leave him hopeful of being able to break Yamaha’s losing streak with their current bike. “What do you think?!” he exclaimed, half joking, when asked if he could win a race on the bike he has. “But we try. We try for sure!” he added.

Losing Streak

Such little progress must be rather worrying for Rossi and Viñales, as they have not managed to be competitive for almost a year now. Barcelona was the 18th race since their last victory, Valentino Rossi’s win at Assen.

They need something to help make them competitive again, but when they will get it remains to be seen. The charitable interpretation of Yamaha’s apparent lack of action is that they are working on something major, a radical update which should help fix their issues.

Rossi and Viñales will have to hope that this is the case, and that Yamaha can bring that to Brno for them to test.

The alternative interpretation is that Yamaha has lost its way, and cannot find a development direction to follow which would help them. It may be that they are just a small update away from getting back on the right track again. But they need to find something soon.

Photo: MotoGP

This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.

How do you win a championship? There are two schools of thought. Casey Stoner believed that the way you won world titles was by focusing on winning races. “If you win races, the championships will look after themselves,” he said when he was still racing.

Others argue that consistency is key, that you win titles by getting the best result available on the day, and hope that you don’t make mistakes. After all, Emilio Alzamora became 125cc World Champion in 1999 through sheer consistency, without winning a single race that season.

The riders in contention for the 2018 MotoGP title have mixed opinions about the best way to win a championship. Marc Márquez wanted to win every race he started in, until the 2015 Honda RC213V got the better of him, and he had to push too hard to try to be competitive, crashing himself out of contention.

Since then, he has tamed his approach, winning whenever possible, but understanding that sometimes, he has to grit his teeth and settle for whatever is available on the day.

Valentino Rossi, wily veteran that he is, follows the same approach, take what you can, where you can, and wait to see where it takes you. That’s how he came close to racking up title number ten in 2015, and that’s how he has remained in contention every season since he came back to Yamaha in 2013.

On Sunday night, Andrea Dovizioso affirmed that he was thinking about the championship in every race as well. “My approach to the race is always thinking about the championship,” the Ducati rider said. “If I fight for the championship or for another position, I always race for the championship.”

More Grip, Yet More Greasy

So it was clear from the first day of practice at Barcelona that this race could be key in the championship. The new surface at the circuit vastly improves the grip from last year, but doesn’t make the challenge any less complicated.

New asphalt contains more oil, which takes some time to evaporate, and can make a track greasy. New asphalt is darker, which means it gets hotter more quickly when the sun is on it.

Tire choice becomes crucial, complicating the job of the riders and teams even further. The track changed a lot from morning to afternoon, and as more rubber was laid down on the track.

The one man who seemed entirely untroubled whatever the conditions was Jorge Lorenzo. Fresh from his first victory on the Ducati at Mugello, at his home race, at one of his favorite circuits, the Mallorcan started off the weekend looking invincible, and never really looked anything else all the way until the checkered flag on Sunday.

Even what looked like a slight regression in FP3 was merely misconception: while the pack sought safe passage to Q2, Lorenzo spent his morning doing a race simulation, racking up almost race distance on a set of soft tires, preparing himself for Sunday afternoon.

In FP4, he was bested by Andrea Iannone, though only because the Suzuki rider slipped on fresh rubber in pursuit of a quick lap.

Pole had not quite been a formality for Lorenzo, but it would have been quite a surprise if he had not started from first on the grid. Marc Márquez had done his best to deprive Lorenzo of pole, taking extreme risks in the attempt, but fallen just short.

Márquez knew that if he was to beat Jorge Lorenzo, his only chance lay in beating him to the first corner, and trying to disrupt his rhythm through the race.

That was no easy feat: in recent races, Lorenzo had found his starting mojo. Since Jerez, the Spaniard had led into the first corner, and from there, the opening laps.

At Mugello, after he finally got the new tank spacer he had been asking for, he led the first lap, the last lap, and all the laps in between. Lorenzo style. For the Barcelona race, bookmakers were offering odds on the margin of Lorenzo’s victory, regarding the fact that he would win as a foregone conclusion.

Holeshot Hopes

Having failed to claim pole, Marc Márquez had one more shot. Get off the line ahead of Lorenzo and lead into Turn 1, and he would have a shot at upsetting his pace through the race, and managing his own choice of hard tires front and rear.

In a supreme effort off the line, he led the pack into Turn 1, Lorenzo hot on his heels. “I was just trying to be really focused on the start to take the lead, because I chose the hard front, hard rear,” Márquez told the press conference.

The next task was to keep Lorenzo behind him, and he had a little help from Andrea Iannone. The Suzuki rider was off the line quickly and past Lorenzo, bumping him back into the clutches of Andrea Dovizioso.

Iannone’s pass gave Márquez some respite, a tiny gap opening up to the blue and yellow GSX-RR. But on the soft tires front and rear, Iannone’s tactic was to try to get to the front as quickly as possible, and he made an enthusiastic attempt to take the lead from Márquez at Turn 10.

But his enthusiasm exceeded his ability to brake and get the bike turned, and in running wide, he slowed Márquez up just enough to allow Lorenzo to catch the Repsol Honda once again.

With Lorenzo now firmly on his tail, Márquez suspected that his fate was probably sealed. “It was difficult in the first lap to warm the tires. Then I was waiting for Jorge to overtake me. I was waiting and already on the first straight he overtook me.”

There was no answer to the superior horsepower of the Desmosedici GP18, backed by Lorenzo’s ability to get off the corner. With the finish line so close to the last corner, Márquez led Lorenzo across the line at the end of the first lap, a blemish on Lorenzo’s perfect record in the last three races, but by the end of the straight, Lorenzo had the lead.

His chance of victory probably gone, Márquez turned to plan B: if you can’t win the race, get what you can for the championship. “Then I tried to follow him,” Márquez said. “I was pushing a lot because my mentality was try to follow him for open the gap with the others.”

Sticking with Lorenzo for as long as possible would put pressure on his championship rivals. Jorge Lorenzo was far enough behind him in the championship standings that he could afford to cede him five points. Anything he could gain on Valentino Rossi, Andrea Dovizioso, Maverick Viñales was a bonus.

Mr. Metronome

The race became a war of attrition. Jorge Lorenzo, certain of his pace, hammered out his metronomic rhythm, a reprise of his performance at Yamaha, lap after lap with little variation between them. From lap 3 to lap 13, Lorenzo did four 1’40.0s, four 1’40.1s, and a couple of 1’40.2s.

From lap 14 to lap 22, before he started to slow for the checkered flag, he did four 1’40.4s, a couple of 1’40.3s, and 1’40.502. His pace varied by three tenths in the first half of the race, and three tenths in the second half of the race. This was the hammer and the butter combining to create victory.

As Lorenzo focused on grinding out his asphyxiating pace, those behind him were left struggling for breath. Márquez clung on to Lorenzo’s tail for dear life, knowing that if he could stay with the Ducati, he could open a gap to Andrea Dovizioso behind him.

The Italian, meanwhile, was pushing hard to try to stay with Márquez, fearing losing yet more points to the world champion after two DNFs already this season. Márquez was pushing to stay with Lorenzo, Dovizioso was pushing to catch Márquez, and seeing the Repsol Honda slowly creep away from him.

Something had to give. Staying with Lorenzo forced Márquez to take risks he hadn’t planned on taking. But it was Dovizioso who as the first to break. On lap 9, the Italian crashed out at Turn 5, pushing too hard to try to keep up.

Dovizioso was brutally honest about the cause of the crash. “I arrived 5-6 kilometers faster because I was able to exit a bit better Turn 4, and I braked too much. A mistake because I was on the limit.”

Strategic Failure

His crash was not because he feared Lorenzo outperforming him, Dovizioso said, but because he was focused on the battle in the championship with Márquez.

“It’s not about Jorge, it’s about I want to win the race because I have the good speed and we have to gain the points to Marc. And Marc was there,” Dovizioso told us.

“So I was pushing. I didn’t want to give up. My speed in the race wasn’t good enough. I lose one tenth, almost two tenths in one lap. But when the grip is very low, one or two tenths can be like one second. So I was pushing too much. This is what happened and we go home with zero points.”

Dovizioso’s crash came almost as a relief to Marc Márquez. “In one moment I lost the front in the same lap that Dovi crashed,” he told the press conference.

“Then I start to see many yellow flags in the circuit, many crashes. After Mugello, there was something that I was missing some confidence. This weekend we already crashed two times. I had a big save in the last corner.”

“So it was time to finish the race, take 20 points. Last laps I try to keep pushing for see if Lorenzo drop with the tires, but mine were dropping in the same way. So then I just managed the distance with Valentino and finish the race in second place.”

Dovizioso’s approach to the championship of wanting to take points from Márquez turned out to be the wrong one at Barcelona. Speaking to the press afterwards, he conceded defeat, though he held open the slimmest sliver of hope.

“I mean if you are objective in this moment, 49 points, a lot of riders in front of me, Marc is very consistent, fast everywhere,” he said.

“But I don’t think that’s the reality because every race, everything can happen. Because it’s easy to make a mistake, everybody is on the limit, the weather can create a different situation, and all the strongest, all the fast riders on top of the championship are crazy!”

“So it can create a lot of strange situations. About that there is not a question mark and, yes the reality is difficult, but there are a lot of points left.”

How did Lorenzo win and Dovizioso end up crashing out? For the Italian, the key to his teammate’s victory was the way he was braking. “I believe after the race, for riders who brake with some slide, it didn’t work here, Dovizioso explained.

“If you look, Jorge was braking completely straight. I think in this track, with this asphalt and the tires we have, it worked because there isn’t grip and it was very difficult to manage the slide.”

“So when you are going in the race, and the grip is a little bit less, you are always on the limit of the grip. And if the grip is less you are slower. So I think if you brake a bit straight, it can help you. Especially if you lose one tenth in one lap.”

Biting the Bullet

With Dovizioso out, Márquez backed off three tenths a lap, and let Lorenzo finally slip out of his grasp. Yet in the press conference, he denied that seeing that the Italian had crashed had changed his strategy in the race.

“It didn’t change because my strategy was clever and I was so focused just on my riding, forget the others,” he said.

But finishing second is still not something that brings Márquez much pleasure. “When you finish in second place, inside of my mind I’m missing something. But if you check the championship we increase the advantage.

Now we are 27 points in front. So, happy because the worst result this year is a second place. The other races is because I crash. We need to manage this and be constant on the podium.”

It had been easy to crash at Barcelona, in part because the added grip of new asphalt gave the riders false confidence, Márquez explained.

“Maybe is because it was quite difficult to stop the bike in a straight line because the rear slide a lot. Maybe with the new asphalt is a little bit like Le Mans. Not only in MotoGP but also Moto3 and Moto2 many crashes.”

“New asphalt give to you good confidence to push, but when you have a warning it’s so aggressive. For that reason it’s more difficult to find the limit, is what I explained in the past.”

“With a track that is more slippery, then you are always there on the limit and you can manage in a better way. Is strange, but for me is like this.”

On a track with less grip, the tires start to slide earlier, but they do so more gradually, giving the rider plenty of warning. On a track with fresh asphalt, the grip is higher, but that also means you are closer to the maximum grip of the tires.

Once you go over that maximum, grip falls off a cliff, and the tires get away from you with no warning. Andrea Dovizioso wasn’t the only rider to lose that battle at Barcelona. Nine others went down before and after him.

A long way to go

Valentino Rossi crossed the line in third, having lost contact with the leaders early on, but never really challenged from the rear. It was his third consecutive third place finish, consolidating his second place in the championship.

He lost 4 more points to championship leader Marc Márquez, but he extended his advantage over Movistar Yamaha teammate Maverick Viñales to 11 points.

Rossi was still happy with a podium, given the miserable time the Yamahas had had at Barcelona in 2017. “I’m happy for this podium because in this track last year we struggled very much, it was one of the worst races in the season,” he said.

He was happy to be competitive, but he knew he stood no chance against the men ahead of him. “I know after the practice that the two Ducatis and Marquez are faster than me. I think that I have to fight more with the second group like in Mugello because more or less the pace was that.”

He and his crew had found something extra on Sunday morning, however, and that had given him a little bit of extra pace. “This morning in the warm up we improved the balance of the bike, and I was able to turn in a better way.”

“Also I was very worried about the soft front, but in reality in the race, yes. At the beginning you have to manage, but after the tire work well and provide good grip. I’m also happy because my pace was good to the end.”

“I was not so far form Jorge and Marc. Unfortunately is not enough for try to stay with them and fight, but anyway it was good.”

Honda Herd

If the race had been robbed of most of its tension once Andrea Dovizioso had crashed out, there was still some excitement in the battle for places behind the podium.

Cal Crutchlow beat Dani Pedrosa into fourth, and was a little frustrated that he could have had a shot at third. He had chosen the medium front tire, and tried to manage that in the early laps, which had cost him time, he said.

“I didn’t go hard enough at the start but that was the risk with the full tank and a medium tire on the front. I picked them off one by one and thought if I could get one a lap then I’d be in a good position.”

“I made a mistake with Dani because I should have passed him four laps before like I could have, but I didn’t think Valentino was reachable.”

For Pedrosa, the battle he had had with Crutchlow, Danilo Petrucci, and Maverick Viñales had proved instructive.

“What I can say is that I was not as fast in the turns, and not as fast in the exit of the turns, so I was kind of blocking him a little bit in that part, but I was much stronger on the brakes,” the Repsol Honda rider explained after the race.

“I can see that the way of using the rear grip is different, and I wasn’t going so fast out of the corner.” There were lessons here for future races, Pedrosa said, especially for qualifying, which has been his Achilles heel in recent races.

“I think this is something we have to work for, because that I believe is one of the reasons I struggle in qualifying with a new tire.”

“So if we can managed to change a little bit the way of going into the corner, then this can help to use better the grip on the mid and exit because today, as I could see with Cal and Petrucci, and also Viñales that came strong at the end, they were faster than me mid-exit, with more traction and grip, edge grip.”

“I was good on the brakes, but the overall time, I was losing maybe 0.3, 0.4.”

Poor qualifying had left Pedrosa stranded on the fourth row of the grid, caught in the opening lap melee. But he was pleased with his performance, fighting his way forward from eleventh on the grid to finish fifth.

The twenty or so journalists who turned up to see him after what he felt was a solid performance was in stark contrast to the hundreds which had packed the HRC hospitality unit when they thought he might announce his retirement.

New Tactics, Same Result

Pedrosa had held on to fifth just ahead of Maverick Viñales. The Movistar Yamaha rider had attempted a new procedure to help make him more competitive in the early laps, but had ended up with the same result: losing too much ground in the first couple of laps, then ending the race with pace that would have put him in contention for the podium.

“I don’t know what to do any more,” an exasperated Viñales told us on Sunday afternoon. “I use the same style that I do in the practice and then I get into the wheelie. Honestly, the first ten laps of the race is to put in the trash. It’s like this because [afterwards] I am riding as fast at the top guys.”

“I had a nice battle with Johann but I don’t think it is the place to be. We need to be at the front, at least close to Valentino so there is a lot of work to do for sure.”

The new warm up procedure – pushing hard on the sighting lap and the warm up lap, to start the race with warmer tires – had helped, Viñales said, but it hadn’t solved the problem. “For sure it helps but these were in much better conditions and finally I could brake much better.”

“Still with a full tank it is impossible for me to ride the bike, I just go very wide everywhere and sliding a lot on the tires. Last year was a totally different feeling in the beginning of the race and in the first part of the season. I cannot do more with this bike, honestly. I give my best and give my maximum every lap.”

Viñales rejected the idea that his result was down to it being at a particular track. “For me there is no good or bad track. If the bike works then it works everywhere. It cannot be there at one track you and there and then the next week you are tenth, like last year. This cannot happen.”

Teamwork Makes…

For Johann Zarco, the cause of his seventh place was clearer. He and his team had simply not made enough progress through the weekend, he told us.

“This weekend, we started well, and instead of trying to go forward every practice, we were doing good things, and then going back, doing good things, then going back,” Zarco said.

“So it’s not a good way to build up a victory for Sunday, but we need to live it to understand it. And now we were speaking with the team to say, it’s easier to say it than do it, but if you start the weekend well and keep going forward, even if sometimes you have a bit down, but not every practice has up and down, then you are ready to think about very good things in the race.”

Part of the problem, according to Zarco, is that the difference between the bikes and riders is once again smaller this year.

“Since Texas, we can feel that the races are different than last year, and it looks much more difficult, because the tires are constant, and all the riders on the track are stronger, and they are controlling better, they are working better for the race than before. So it makes the job difficult for everyone, and me it makes me think a little bit differently for the next races.”

That offered opportunities to those with experience, and those willing to use it, Zarco said. He had been watching what Valentino Rossi had been doing, and trying to learn from it.

“That’s the difference between last year and this year, and we can see Valentino is still the one catching the opportunities. All the opportunities he can, he takes them. Maybe I don’t have enough experience to do that, but I’m clever enough to see that. I want to control well that things for the next races, because I won’t let him go in the championship.”

Tank Spacer

Victory for Jorge Lorenzo made it two wins in a row for the Spaniard, and they came at the right time for him, after he had taken so much criticism in the press – directly from journalists, indirectly from senior members of Ducati management, most notably Claudio Domenicali.

Winning at Barcelona was important, but not as important as the win at Mugello. “I think the Mugello one [was more important] because I have to do it,” Lorenzo said. “The pressure was higher.”

“This time my mentality was let’s try to win, but if it’s not possible I try to be in the podium because I already have won. The most special one was Mugello because we are human.”

“The first time you make something in life is the most special one, the one who make you more happy. Now I’m happy. I cannot deny that. I’m very happy and we’re going to celebrate this like in Mugello. But is not the same as the first one.”

Where does this victory come from? The obvious thing which has changed is that he had finally been given a tank spacer which was shaped to give him the support in braking he had been asking for.

Two pictures tweeted by MCN journalist Simon Patterson show the clear difference between the two. On the left, the much wider and thicker rear section which he can hook his legs under during braking.

On the right, the narrower standard version which offers less support, but which allows more freedom of movement. (Worth noting that the tank does not help in the part of the corner shown here, but here you can see the change, and the change in body position).

Puzzle Pieces

Lorenzo pointed out that there was more to it than just the tank, however. “As I said in these days I think the fuel tank was the last step that I needed to be back, to be more competitive,” the Spaniard said.

“But more than anything was the consistency. The saving of energy that give me the comfort to keep the same pace through a complete race.” Before, he only lasted a certain number of laps before he started to slow down.

“I was competitive five laps, seven laps or even fifteen laps, but then in the last part of the race I was so tired that I had to drop.”

“But it was not only the fuel tank,” Lorenzo added. “It was small steps that we were making the last months that give us this speed. When we got the speed, we just needed the last step on consistency.”

This was echoed by members of Ducati staff: at Jerez, Lorenzo had received a more flexible chassis which made it a little easier to turn. At the start of the season, they had introduced an engine which is slightly less aggressive.

Over the winter, they had worked on the electronics to make the bike a little easier to handle. The fuel tank was the final piece of a complex jigsaw puzzle, the made it possible for Lorenzo to compete.

Or at least compete at Mugello and Barcelona, two tracks at which Lorenzo has always been strong, and where conditions worked in his favor. How much of Lorenzo’s competitiveness will remain at Assen and Sachsenring, where he could have to ride on a cold and damp track, is still very much an open question.

How that affects his confidence will be important, but if he comes through the next two races in decent shape, then more wins are not out of the question. With a deficit of 49 points to Marc Márquez, the championship looks out of reach. But as his teammate said, anything can still happen.

Industrial Relations

Lorenzo’s victory exposed the fact that the wounds Ducati and Lorenzo have inflicted upon one another through a troubled season and a half are still very much open. In Parc Ferme, Lorenzo studiously ignored Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali, just as he had done in Mugello.

In the press conference, answering a question about the comparison between the bike he was riding and the bike which Valentino Rossi rode when the Italian was at Ducati, he saw another opportunity to apply his sometimes dry and very acerbic wit.

“I think Vale’s Ducati was more complicated,” Lorenzo answered, comparing Rossi’s bike to his own. “From the outside, I believe that. As I said before, now for me this is the more complete Ducati ever. Vale is a great rider, so why not?”

Then, harking back to his own response to Domenicali calling him a great rider, Lorenzo stuck the knife in. “Not a great rider, a champion.”

In an interview with Spanish sports daily AS.com, Domenicali gave his own version of events. “When they interviewed me [for Italian TV] after the race at Mugello, I said nothing had been decided,” Domenicali told Mela Chercoles.

“Ten minutes later, he said that he had already decided. More patience was needed. It’s a shame he did not have it.”

The Ducati CEO went on to explain that it had taken a long time for the Ducati engineers to understand from Lorenzo’s feedback exactly what was needed. The tank was the last part of a long line of parts which had helped, and this had made the difference.

The tensions between Lorenzo and Ducati, and the difference between how the Spaniard was perceived in the factory and how the Italian rider was were obvious even to Marc Márquez.

“They are a professional team, and a factory and a team don’t really care if one rider wins or the other, what they want to do is win races, win every championship,” Márquez told the Spanish media.

“But sometimes the passion is different. I have seen the team celebrating a victory by Dovi, and today saw them celebrating one by Jorge, and it’s a very different thing.”

Champions, But Not Friends

With Jorge Lorenzo, Marc Márquez, and Valentino Rossi on the podium, it was one of the most decorated of all time. The three podium men share 20 world titles, 246 Grand Prix victories, 488 podiums, and 205 poles between them, according to Spanish journalist Borja Gonzalez. Some record.

The last time so many world championships were gathered together on a single podium was at Brno in 1975, where Phil Read beat Giacomo Agostini, but Agostini did enough to take his 15th world championship, which with Read’s seven made it a grand total of 22 world titles on one podium.

In the press conference, Lorenzo and Rossi were asked if their relationship had changed in recent years, if their previous enmity had been dropped and they were friends once again.

The answers they gave were revealing of the true nature of friendship between professional athletes competing in the same sport and at the same level. “I don’t think we are friends,” Lorenzo said. “Even if I think outside the track probably we will have fun because I think we like to have fun outside the Grand Prix.”

Rivalry trumps friendship, however. “It is difficult to be friends with a rival,” Lorenzo said. “Two strong characters and two riders that want to win. But the most important thing is to have respect, and I have huge respect to Vale and I think the same to me.”

“We are great champions and we are one of the best in history. Here we are three guys who have many championships, who made history in a lot of years in MotoGP. So it’s a good thing for the sport.”

Rossi felt much the same way. “We have difficult times but also good times. A little bit of up and down. One or two quite deep. But is like this. Difficult when you fight for the same result, and also Jorge is one of my strongest and toughest rivals in my career.”

“We stay a long time together in the same team, that means also more difficult. But I think is normal like this. The important thing is the respect for sure.”

Riders Can Be Friends

For a professional athlete, winning counts above everything. Above love, above friendship, above everything. That intensity of ambition is the only emotion strong enough which can sustain the level of sacrifice which athletes – and MotoGP riders are first and foremost athletes – have to make.

There is only one MotoGP champion, and the riders who know they can win it cannot afford to feel any pity for the rivals who stand in their way.

That does not mean there can be no friendship between riders, however. The life and ambition of a rider is so unique that it is often only other riders who understand them, who know what they are going though.

So there are riders who are good friends, but that is usually because their trajectories are not intersecting at that point in time. Cal Crutchlow has been a great friend and mentor to Jack Miller, arguably saving his career by taking him under his wing and helping him to mature, and focus on getting the best from his ability.

But at the moment, Crutchlow’s ambitions are focused on trying to be in a position to win races, while Miller is aiming to get into contention for the podium. When they are both gunning for wins, or gunning for a championship, strains may yet appear.

Chasing the Title, Breaking the Streak

At the moment, however, the only rider with a clear chance at the title is Marc Márquez. Márquez rode a brilliant race under the circumstances, accepting that he could not beat Jorge Lorenzo, but hanging on to take as many points as possible in the championship.

Valentino Rossi cemented his second place in the standings, taking another podium, with a little help from Andrea Dovizioso.

But Rossi’s third place once again underlined the trouble Yamaha are in. This was the eighteenth race in a row without a victory for the Japanese factory, and they have now gone a full MotoGP season without a win.

Barcelona equaled Yamaha’s previous longest losing streak in 2002 and 2003, when they went winless after Sepang in 2002 and didn’t win a race in 2003. It took Valentino Rossi defecting from Honda, together with a radically new engine design by engineer Masao Furusawa, to break that streak.

Now Yamaha must pin their hopes on Rossi’s magic at Assen for salvation once again.

Photo: MotoGP

This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.

MotoGP Race Results from the Catalan GP at Barcelona, Spain:

Pos.	Rider	Team	Bike	KM/H	Diff.
1	Jorge LORENZO	Ducati Team	Ducati	165.6	40’13.566
2	Marc MARQUEZ	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	165.3	+4.479
3	Valentino ROSSI	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	165.2	+6.098
4	Cal CRUTCHLOW	LCR Honda CASTROL	Honda	164.9	+9.805
5	Dani PEDROSA	Repsol Honda Team	Honda	164.9	+10.640
6	Maverick VIÑALES	Movistar Yamaha MotoGP	Yamaha	164.8	+10.798
7	Johann ZARCO	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	164.7	+13.432
8	Danilo PETRUCCI	Alma Pramac Racing	Ducati	164.6	+15.055
9	Alvaro BAUTISTA	Angel Nieto Team	Ducati	164.1	+22.057
10	Andrea IANNONE	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	163.9	+24.141
11	Pol ESPARGARO	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	163.1	+36.560
12	Scott REDDING	Aprilia Racing Team Gresini	Aprilia	163.0	+38.229
13	Karel ABRAHAM	Angel Nieto Team	Ducati	160.2	+1’21.526
14	Franco MORBIDELLI	EG 0,0 Marc VDS	Honda	139.1	3 Laps
Not Classified
	Hafizh SYAHRIN	Monster Yamaha Tech 3	Yamaha	164.3	4 Laps
	Tito RABAT	Reale Avintia Racing	Ducati	164.3	6 Laps
	Jack MILLER	Alma Pramac Racing	Ducati	164.3	7 Laps
	Bradley SMITH	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	162.8	11 Laps
	Takaaki NAKAGAMI	LCR Honda IDEMITSU	Honda	162.8	11 Laps
	Alex RINS	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	156.9	13 Laps
	Andrea DOVIZIOSO	Ducati Team	Ducati	164.8	16 Laps
	Xavier SIMEON	Reale Avintia Racing	Ducati	160.4	17 Laps
	Aleix ESPARGARO	Aprilia Racing Team Gresini	Aprilia	161.1	20 Laps
	Thomas LUTHI	EG 0,0 Marc VDS	Honda	159.1	21 Laps
	Sylvain GUINTOLI	Team SUZUKI ECSTAR	Suzuki	155.5	22 Laps
Not Finished 1st Lap
	Mika KALLIO	Red Bull KTM Factory Racing	KTM	0 Lap

Source: MotoGP; Photo: Ducati Corse

If you don’t want to see race spoilers on Asphalt & Rubber, then you should sign up for A&R Pro, which gets you access to exclusive content, view the site without advertisements, and browse the article listings without spoiling headlines and photos.

The trouble with racing in MotoGP at the moment is that no matter how spectacular your riding, no matter how phenomenal your achievements, no matter how dominant your performance, you will always, always be upstaged by Marc Márquez.

“The worst thing is that we have to deal with the situation of Marc saving [crashes] every week,” Cal Crutchlow complained, only half joking. “It makes the rest of us on Honda look like idiots. Imagine how many he has saved this year compared to how many we have we crashed. He saves fifteen a weekend.”

Saturday in Barcelona was yet another example, and perhaps Márquez’ biggest yet. In the dying seconds of FP4, after passing Xavier Simeon through Turn 12, Márquez entered Turn 14 and the front folded completely on him.

Where other riders would simply go down, Márquez was unwilling to surrender without a fight. “It was last corner, last lap and I lose the front,” the Repsol Honda rider told the press conference.

“I was fighting against everything, against the bike, against my knee pushing a lot. Then it looks like I was able to save it, but the when I go on the dirty part of the track, I again lose the front.”

He had not yet had a chance to look at the data, he said. “I already said to [my team] to check, but what I can say is that the steering was full close because I feel, but it was long. It was very long this one. It was maybe the longest one in my career.”

Long enough to upstage everyone else on Saturday, despite there being many riders deserving of attention.

Up the Garden Path

Being able to save such huge front end moments may be good for Márquez, but it is not necessarily good for Honda, or the development of the RC213V.

Márquez himself pointed out that the only reason he was making such massive saves is because he was losing the front in the first place.

“This means that we are pushing. We are struggling,” Márquez said. “Especially we are struggling with the front confidence but we are able to save. Every time the save is better and better, so we will see where we can arrive.”

LCR Honda rider Cal Crutchlow commented on the slide with a mixture of admiration and exasperation. “We definitely have some sort of problem because we cannot keep explaining how this is happening. We cannot keep looking like mugs every week with our manufacturer,” he said.

“But they know and they are full supporting us and are behind us. Honda know the situation, they are not stupid and probably the cleverest people in the paddock.”

Crutchlow had crashed himself in both FP3 and Q2. The first crash had been his own fault, falling at Turn 2 on a brand new tire. But the Q2 crash had been a typical case of pushing the bike too far.

“We have better speed this year but our main problem is that the bike doesn’t turn and we don’t have great rear grip. We have a bike that is amazing in braking so we just take advantage of it all the time.”

“And then evidently we crash on the brake and in the middle of the corners because we brake so deep and hard that we have overheated the front tire and it doesn’t hold out.”

Practice Makes Perfect

So how does Marc Márquez make these saves. Simple: he practices them. As MotoGP technical guru Neil Spalding pointed out this morning, you could see what Márquez was doing in the big moment he had during FP1. The official MotoGP website posted a clip of that moment on Twitter:

If you look at Márquez’ hands in the clip, you can see that he is feeling out the limit of front grip by forcing the front to turn, trying to find where the front end will fold, while at the same time, holding the bike on his knee.

As he pushes, the front closes a fraction, then bites and pulls the wheel straight again. It is the sort of drill you might do on a trials bike at very slow speed, or on a dirt bike in a straight line on a sandy surface. Only Marc Márquez is doing it on a 270hp MotoGP bike, at 150km/h, at lean angles of 60° or more.

Márquez explained some of what he was doing in the press conference. He trains and prepares for moments like this as best he can, he said, but in the end, it came down to an accident of genetics, though his brother Alex had not been quite so lucky.

“Of course you must be ready. You must train at home. Of course for example today in the save I push a lot. One of the strong things in my body is that I have a lot of flexibility. This is important for when you are crashing, for the save, and when you are on the bike.”

“For example, my brother is doing the same training like me but he doesn’t have the flexibility. It’s something that my mother and my father give to me. I’m really happy for this.”

Saving Crashes Is Good for Your Health

Pushing so hard was dangerous, and by using his elbow and knee, he perhaps risks having his groin or shoulder hyperextend, and tearing a ligament. But on the other hand, the longer he can hold the bike up without crashing, the slower the bike goes.

This improves the outcome whatever happens. If he saves the crash, he never hits the gravel and can ride away relatively unhurt. If he can’t save the crash, the bike will have scrubbed off a certain amount of speed, reducing the likelihood of injury once he does hit the gravel.

“Of course it’s dangerous, but if I crash, I crash slower,” Márquez explained. “If you lose in the first part and you crash, you arrive faster. It’s something that I don’t create.”

“It’s something that if you asked to me why or how, I don’t know. Comes natural. But one of the things is that I’m always riding in the limit. You see in FP1. In the third lap, 39.8, I was already in the limit and always there on the limit and try to feel the limit. This maybe give to you a special feeling.”

Márquez’ extreme saves may be having an influence on riding style and approach, but they are also having an effect on protective gear. Six years ago, elbow sliders were virtually unheard of, now it’s almost impossible to buy a leather suit which does not have them fitted.

Alpinestars, Márquez’ leathers sponsor, keep having to adapt his suit to cope with each of his saves. They had already added extra protection around the elbow, Márquez said, and now they might need to add some more protection around the knee.

Red Machine

A thousand words and a couple of Twitter videos later, I have illustrated my own point. All that time spent talking about Marc Márquez, yet the Repsol Honda rider was only second on the grid.

He finished behind Jorge Lorenzo, who took his first pole position on a Ducati, extending his control of proceedings in Barcelona, and continuing his form from Mugello, where he won the last race.

It was almost a foregone conclusion that Lorenzo would take pole. The Ducati Factory rider had ended the first day as fastest, with a time that would have been good enough for fourth on the grid.

So confident was he that his Friday time was good enough to ensure passage directly to Q2 that he didn’t even bother chasing a quick time in FP3. He did the entire session on a used set of soft tires, ending with a lap of 1’39.795 on his 23rd lap with those tires, just one shy of race distance.

The only rider to go faster on used tires was Andrea Iannone, who was a tenth quicker on tires with 12 laps on them.

In FP4, the final session of free practice, Jorge Lorenzo second, and only because Andrea Iannone put on a fresh set of tires at the end of that session. Five of Lorenzo’s ten laps in FP4 were 1’39s, more than double what anyone else was capable of.

Lorenzo has the pace, every rider we spoke to warned us. And if he gets his customary start on Sunday, the rest would not see him for dust.

Getting pole was the cherry on the top for Jorge Lorenzo, extending a remarkable run of front row starts. The last time Lorenzo lined up at Barcelona anywhere else than the front row was back in 2003, his second season in 125s.

His absence from the grid in 2008 after a horrific crash during practice is the only blemish on this sequence, but for the past fourteen races he has contested at the Circuit de Catalunya, he has started from the front row.

Strong Rhythm

The pole was good, but his race pace was more important, he said. “Obviously, I’m really satisfied and really happy about the pole position, because after a victory this is the most important thing you can get,” Lorenzo told the press conference.

“But especially I’m happy about the feeling on the bike. In Mugello I felt great, and here in a different track I feel probably even better than in the test one month ago. Always with a good pace and feeling really comfortable with all the tires and everything.”

Lorenzo explained once again that the new tank section, a piece of shaped plastic fitted to the rear of the tank, wider than any other Ducati, and with the ridge under the top extending further back, gave him the support he needed in braking which allowed him to be fast for the entire race.

“It’s what changed from Le Mans to Mugello,” he said. “I think already in Jerez and Le Mans I was competitive. I just needed the real speed, the last piece to give me the necessary energy to keep for longer this speed and this is what happened in Mugello. Even if not everybody believes that,” Lorenzo added, taking an oblique shot at Ducati senior management once again.

Lorenzo’s teammate sits at the other end of the front row, Andrea Dovizioso trapping Marc Márquez in a Ducati sandwich. The Italian was confident after finding an improvement during the weekend, giving him a better feeling with the bike than he had during the test three weeks ago.

“At the test the speed was good but the feeling wasn’t perfect,” Dovizioso said. “But it’s OK if this happened at the test. We started immediately with a good speed in the first practice.”

“That is very important to be able to work on the details, especially at this kind of track when you have a new asphalt and the grip is very strange. The slide is difficult to manage, especially on maximum angle, when the tyre drops on entry.”

“Everyone is struggling on that. But at the end we improve a little bit practice by practice and we arrive at free practice 4 with a good pace.”

Dovizioso was optimistic of a good result on Sunday. “I think we have a good pace to fight for the podium, or maybe the victory,” he said. “But just in the race I will understand if I can have the chance to really fight for the victory.”

“But like last year I expect a strange race – maybe not the same but similar because the consumption of the tyre is quite high. Everyone has to manage all the situation.”

“There were a lot of crashes so everyone will be smooth in the race with the front and the rear. It will be difficult for everybody to manage the situation but we arrive to the race with good confidence.”

Bring the Heat

Dark horse of the front group is Maverick Viñales, the Movistar Yamaha rider regaining a lot of his confidence after a mediocre race at Mugello.

What had pleased the Spaniard was that he had been competitive in the afternoons, when track temperatures were much higher than the morning, and the grip on the track had been less. “Actually in the test there was better grip through all the track and not so hot as it was today,” Viñales explained.

“But anyway I’m happy, because in the test, I didn’t do the rhythm that I did in FP4. So I think it was good. I’m quite confident, and let’s see. We did a good job this weekend in FP2 and FP4.”

Viñales was bullish about Sunday. “Honestly, I expect a good result, because I always worked on the race setup every exit, he said. “So I think we can do well, and rear grip is really good. Actually on the bike we just have to hope to have a good front tire and to push from the beginning.”

Though he shied away from outright predicting a podium, he did not regard it as impossible. “I don’t know. There are many riders who are very strong and for sure fighting there. I’m convinced that we can do it.”

What added to Viñales’ confidence was the fact that he and his team had been working on fixing the opening laps of the race, the point where he has lost so much time in recent races. Looking at the Movistar Yamaha’s lap times during the race, they would follow a familiar pattern.

Viñales would lose four, five, six seconds in the first five laps, before getting up to speed and lapping at the same speed as the front runners. But by then, it was too late for him: not fast enough to catch the leaders easily, he also found himself in the middle of a group he had to fight through. He never regained the ground he lost in those early laps.

Now, though, they have a plan, Viñales revealed. “We understand why, and that’s important,” he said. “So tomorrow for sure I will approach the sighting lap and the warm up lap differently, pushing a little bit more and warming up the tires much more. So I think it was important to know that, and let’s see, let’s see if with that we can solve the problem of the first laps.”

Fast from the Start

Michelin boss Piero Taramasso explained how important it is to heat the tires properly during the warm up lap. “If you are more aggressive in the hot lap you reach quicker the highest grip level,” he said. This had previously been a problem for Dani Pedrosa.

“If you remember last year, Dani was struggling to get the temperature. This is because he was not aggressive. Of course, it’s not easy because you have to push hard as you can, knowing that the tire is still not at the maximum grip. You have to trust. You have to push. I will say 95%, not 100%. You have to push in 95%.”

Viñales and his crew were taking this very seriously indeed. At the end of FP2 on Friday, when the riders are given the opportunity to practice a bike swap, the Movistar Yamaha rider came in at the end of the session, jumped onto his second bike, and headed out for a full sighting lap.

When he returned, the team left the bike standing outside the garage, but put the tire warmers on along with the wheel covers, connecting them to a generator which both supplies power to the tire warmers and monitors tire temperatures.

One member of Viñales’ crew stood behind the bike, monitoring the tire temperatures for fifteen minutes.

The basic idea behind this procedure is to replicate the grid procedure. The rider goes out for a single lap, and then sits on the bike with tire warmers on, tire temperatures dropping to match the temperature of the warmers.

By simulating this, Viñales’ team have a much clearer idea of how the tires will behave, and what Viñales needs to do on his sighting lap, and then his warm up lap.

Track vs. Tires

Tires were something of a talking point for all of the riders, though it was hard to separate the tire talk from concerns about the track grip. The new asphalt is dark and the stones used in the aggregate are very small, making for a very tightly packed surface.

These two factors mean that the track surface can cause tire temperatures to go up very quickly when it gets hot, robbing the tires of grip. With much hotter temperatures than during the test, some riders were struggling.

Some also felt that the tire allocation brought to the race was wrong. The hard front was already too hard along the center of the tire, Cal Crutchlow felt, as it was causing the front to lock up when braking in a straight line.

“The locking we have in a straight?! We are locking at 350kmph on our data and as soon as we touch the brake we are locking the front wheel. It is a scary, scary thing to understand.”

“You just play with the lever all the way to the corner. Hondas have to use this tire because they cannot use the medium. We have to brake deep.”

Valentino Rossi was similarly unimpressed with the front tires, though his complaints were rather different. “Tomorrow will be a strange race because we don’t have the right front tire,” he said.

“The tire allocation from Michelin is difficult, not right. So at the end the soft is too soft, the medium don’t have grip. So will be very difficult and maybe a very strategic race. Depends very much from the choice, but it’s not easy.”

Rossi was possibly upset because he had been outvoted at the test. Michelin had brought four front tires along to the test three weeks ago, and the riders had voted on which medium front they preferred, the soft and the hard being fixed to be able to cope with the possible range of temperatures.

The vote had been decided thirteen to six, Michelin’s Piero Taramasso explained, with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo preferring the rejected medium tire, but Marc Márquez, Cal Crutchlow, Andrea Iannone, Johann Zarco and many others preferring the tire chosen for the race.

With difficult grip conditions, and tires needing careful management, Sunday’s race will be a war of attrition. Strategy will be important, making sure that you have tire left for the end of the race. Add in the effect of the rubber from Moto2, and everything becomes unpredictable.

After Qualifying, it looks like Jorge Lorenzo has the upper hand, with Marc Márquez, Andrea Dovizioso, and Maverick Viñales not far behind.

The battle behind the leaders should be even more fierce, with nothing to choose between Valentino Rossi, Danilo Petrucci, Cal Crutchlow, Tito Rabat, Dani Pedrosa, and Johann Zarco.

At the moment, Jorge Lorenzo is the red hot favorite. But being the favorite may not count for anything come Sunday night.

Photo: MotoGP

This article was originally published on MotoMatters, and is republished here on Asphalt & Rubber with permission by the author.