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IOMTT: Senior TT Race Results

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If you ask the racers at the Isle of Man TT which of the nine races they would most like to win, the Senior TT is always the answer. They call it the “blue ribbon” event, and that is because it features the fastest bikes on the grid, racing over a grueling six laps – it also has the largest trophy.

With the TT fortnight acting like a crescendo to Friday’s race, the Senior TT is final cacophony of noise at the Isle of Man, and today’s race was the epitome of that notion.

Once again, the weather smiled upon this tiny island in the Irish Sea, as it has all fortnight. This not only meant a day for perfect racing, but it also meant that racers had two weeks of honing their craft and their machines for the Senior TT race.

Lap times were going to drop; records were going to be broken, and benchmarks were going to be set, which is exactly what you should expect from the Senior TT.

All this being said, I still had my reservations this morning about publishing a story where Dean Harrison said that a 135 mph lap time was a necessity if he wanted to win the Senior TT. Just a few years ago, 135 mph seemed unthinkable. Two weeks ago even, a 135 mph lap seemed too far away.

My apprehension seems to have been unnecessary though, but even that wasn’t immediately clear at the start of The Senior.

This is because the first five laps of the Senior TT were absolute snoozers.

Dean Harrison lead through Glen Helen on the first lap, and was never really challenged until the final sectors of the race. Followed by Peter Hickman, the duo would see their gap widen to a maximum duration of 8.3 second on Lap 3, before it started to shrink again.

Initially back in third place was Michael Dunlop, who clearly wasn’t on his pace. Dunlop would slowly go backwards, before being swallowed up by Conor Cummins on Lap 2.

That order would remain through the start of Lap 6, with the 2018 Senior TT seemingly going out with a whimper, instead of a bang. But, that would start to change very rapidly.

Finding time virtually in every sector, Peter Hickman was closing down on Dean Harrison, especially with his absolutely blistering pace over the mountain section over the course. Unsurprisingly then, Hickman took the lead of the Senior TT at the Bungalow, and pushed all the way to the finish line.

Ahead on the course, Harrison was first to cross the line, setting a 134.918 mph lap – just short of the 135 mph mark he had told us just hours ahead.

But true to his words, it would take breaking the 135 mph barrier to win the Senior TT, as Peter Hickman then crossed the line with a 135.452 mph lap.

A Senior TT lap record, an outright TT lap record, and a Senior TT race time record, Peter Hickman in a single lap became the fastest road racer ever in the world, with the Isle of Man now supplanting the Ulster GP as the fastest road racing event.

All the sector records would be rewritten as well, split between Hickman and Harrison, with the BMW rider fastest on the mountain sections, while the Kawasaki going better through the towns.

Rounding out the podium was Manxman Conor Cummins, while Michael Dunlop finished in what he will call a disappointing fourth place.

The Isle of Man TT is now done, and the riders will take a much needed rest. But, already there is talk of a 136 mph lap, after Peter Hickman revealed that he lost a considerable amount of time getting through lapped riders during his record lap. Simply…unbelievable.

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MotoGP: Suzuki and Andrea Iannone Officially Part Ways

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Breaking up with Suzuki before he could be dumped, Andrea Iannone has already made it clear that he would not be returning to the ECSTAR Suzuki team for the 2019 MotoGP Championship season, but now the break up is official.

Issuing a press release today, Suzuki Motor Corporation announced that the Japanese factory and the Italian rider would not be collaborating further, into 2019.

Though Suzuki won’t mention it, it is widely held that Joan Mir will be taking Iannone’s seat at ECSTAR Suzuki, and as such he will partner Alex Rins inside the factory team next year.

In its press release, Suzuki thanked Iannone for his help and positive results during their time together, but the reality is that Iannone never gelled with the team, with considerable friction existing between him and the Suzuki squad.

Mercurial both in his off-track behavior and with his on-track results, Iannone’s natural talent certainly can’t be questioned, but his personal dicipline has been an issue in virtually every team he has worked with.

When he is on form, and pushing hard, Iannone can be the fastest man on the track, but coaxing that talent can prove to be more than challenging for team managers, and it seems to exist only when Iannone wills it to.

Add into the mix the chaos that Iannone and his entourage bring into the paddock, along with his off-track behavior (namely on social media), and the Italian makes a good argument for why he should lose a factory ride.

As such, there are few people in the MotoGP paddock that are surprised to see Iannone and Suzuki parting ways.

Likely to head to the Aprilia Racing team for next season, it will be interesting to see if the Italian manufacturer has anymore luck with Andrea Iannone.

Iannone to Aprilia seems like an poor fit, to our eyes, since one of Iannone’s biggest issues throughout his MotoGP career was his unwillingness in doing development work for his employers.

With the Aprilia RS-GP still an imperfect machine, and Aprilia in need of a fast rider who can give valuable feedback, Andrea Iannone seems like one of the names lower on the list of desirables who are capable of such a role. Of course, price may be a consideration.

With Iannone’s value in the MotoGP paddock surely dropping with each passing season, it is likely that Aprilia can snag Iannone for a bargain price, which might be enough of a trade-off to make Aprilia forget its similar mistake with Marco Melandri.

As we are fond of saying, only time will tell.

Source: Suzuki Racing; Photo: © 2017 Scott Jones / Photo.GP – All Rights Reserved

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MotoGP

Friday MotoGP Summary at Mugello: Magnificent, Cruel, & Terrifying

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Mugello is many things: majestic, magical, magnificent. Beautifully set, with a natural flow unmatched almost anywhere else.

It was made to host the fastest, most powerful motorcycles in the world, giving them room to stretch their legs and challenging the rider’s skill and bravery, and the bike’s handling, horsepower, and braking.

Unfortunately, this challenge is what makes Mugello so dangerous. During the afternoon session, Andrea Dovizioso hit 356 km/h on the Ducati Desmosedici GP18. Shortly after, his engine spewed a huge cloud of smoke at the end of the straight, causing the red flag to come out.

A little while previously, the session had also been red flagged, after a huge, vicious crash by Michele Pirro just over the crest at the end of the straight, the fastest and most dangerous part of the track.

It made for some harrowing moments at Mugello. The track fell silent, a pall descending on pit lane as the teams feared the worst. Having learned their lesson at previous tragedies, Dorna were not showing either the crash or the rider on the ground.

The mood only lifted when word reached us that Pirro was conscious, and moving his arms and legs. MotoGP dodged a bullet on Friday. But there are still rounds in the chamber.

Palpable Relief

What happened? Though Ducati were open about both the engine failure of Dovizioso and the crash of Pirro, they would not point to a cause until they had had a chance to study the data.

The footage released by Dorna of Pirro’s crash showed him locking the front after the crest before San Donato, and being flung high into the air.

He came down with so much force he was knocked unconscious, which probably saved him from even more severe injury, as ragdolled down the tarmac and into the gravel.

A relieved Paolo Ciabatti told us afterwards that Pirro had come away remarkably unscathed from such a big crash. “Michele is luckily doing better than we expected after his horrific crash,” the Ducati boss said.

“I just spoke to Dr. Charte who is in contact with the doctors at the hospital Carreggi in Florence, and Davide Tardozzi is there as well. So the situation is that there is no neurological damage, nor spinal damage. He has a huge concussion and a lot of pain on the chest and on the lower part of the body.”

“So the doctors will keep him there for a few more hours if not for the night, and I think most probably they will declare him unfit for the race.”

Ciabatti described the sense of relief felt after a terrifying crash. “We are quite relieved after seeing the red flag, the images of the accident, the ambulances, the medical car with the doctor obviously, and he was unconscious laying face down in the gravel when they arrived there, so they were obviously quite scared.”

“He had a dislocated shoulder, so when they put it back, it was so painful for him that he woke up! And luckily from there, the situation looked slightly better. And as I said, luckily it is not as bad as we could unfortunately expect.”

Police Pals

Danilo Petrucci, who has known Pirro since they were in Superstock together, and were colleagues in the Italian Fiamme Oro police sports group last year, was upset by Pirro’s crash.

“I know him very, very well,” Petrucci said. “He’s one of my best friends here. He’s always one of the first to congratulate me after a good race.” Petrucci described in some detail what he saw.

“I think the pads went wide. He tried to brake, but at the first touch, the pads come closer, then maybe he gets scared and tried to pull the brakes.” That had caused the front to lock up.

The problem had probably started earlier, over the complicated crest at the end of the straight. “There is a crest, but on the top of the crest there is a bump, so it’s like a double bump,” Petrucci explained.

“This means that the bike starts to wheelie, and then hits the bump, and the rear tire goes up for just a few seconds, and we are already on the limiter. And then the bike is very, very unstable. First of all, we go at 350 km/h with one wheel, and then there is the wall very, very close.”

The fact that speeds were so high was what made it so terrifying, Petrucci said. “In that point, you hit the brake, and you have to brake very, very hard to stop the bike, and you don’t have so much time to understand what has happened.”

“Because you go the maximum speed of the championship there, so it’s quite crazy. I think we have to talk in the safety commission, but when we are in a group on the first lap, it’s very, very dangerous. Like Dovizioso last year, just for half a meter, he goes wide.”

Nothing to Fear But Fear Itself

It is a part of the track that terrifies even experienced MotoGP riders. “Every time you make that part of the track, I’m scared,” Andrea Dovizioso said. “Every time. Because the power is more and everything becomes always more and more, and the jump there is – not dangerous, but on the limit.”

“Every time I do over the bump, if you have the winglets or not, it makes a big difference. So everybody rides without it, and that’s worse. But most of the riders have, so for them maybe it’s not a problem.”

The wings made the bike more stable, but they also took around 10km/h off the top speed, a big disadvantage at Mugello.

Dovizioso also explained how that bump had become more difficult for him with the GP18. Last year’s bike was a bit more stable, but the added agility of the GP18 had taken some of that stability away.

The first time he had ridden the crest at the Mugello test a few weeks ago, Dovizioso had been terrified by the movement of the bike. He has been forced to change his line a little through there, to keep the bike slightly more upright when he started braking.

Because at 350km/h, the small kink in that part of the straight because the world’s fastest chicane, needing the bike to be leaned over significantly to cope with it.

Valentino Rossi expanded on the danger of that point in the track. “The braking for San Donato is a dangerous point because you go over the crest and you go very fast,” the Movistar Yamaha rider said.

“You have always in that moment the bike doesn’t touch the ground. I think that the crash of Pirro is because on the bump which moved the front and he arrives at the braking without the brake because the pads open.”

“It was scary because you go very fast so you have the feeling you are not able to brake, so you brake more, and after the power arrives and you lose control of the bike, I think, but I just saw it on the telephone.”

“That’s my feeling. It is something that can happen especially when you go fast it can always be very dangerous. At this part you also have the hill, so it is dangerous.”

Brembo has a system to prevent such incidents, which pushes the pads back into place if they get pushed apart when a bike shakes its head. Rossi knew about the system, but had not tried it enough to have a clear opinion of it.

“Somebody said to me about this system, but sincerely I don’t know if it helps,” he said. “I think so, I hope so, but I don’t know why Pirro didn’t have it. I don’t know. In the last period this problem has happened fewer times so maybe Brembo has worked on it and it is okay.”

The Danger and the Spectacle

Cal Crutchlow expressed his love-hate relationship with that point of the track. “You hold your breath going over it,” Crutchlow said. “I don’t really like it. It is a fantastic spectacle and a fantastic thing to say you do 350km/h, but not nice when you have to stop.”

The bikes were getting faster for a number of reasons, despite the engine limitations, the restrictions on development, and the introduction of spec electronics, Crutchlow said. Exit speeds were higher, which meant the bikes are carrying more speed when they get to the end of the straight.

“We are getting faster and faster for no reason,” the LCR Honda rider explained. “At the end of this straight and with this jump, with our bikes – you know I am a massive fan of the TT so I will not complain we are riding fast on a dangerous jump because it is not.”

“But I think with our bikes, our tires and how stiff they are and how absolutely on the limit we are…we will obviously speak about it. I was at the TT as a fan every year.”

“This week we lost a guy I knew, Dan Kneen, and we are all very sad about that but we want to watch the TT go on and we cannot really complain about the jump at the end of this straight.”

Having It in Hand

In the end, the riders have the solution to the danger at the end of the straight in their own hands, Marc Márquez told the media.

He backed off through that section, he said, preferring to lose a tenth of a second each lap than push and risk a huge crash that could put you out of action for several weeks, thereby missing out on races.

“It is a fast point,” Márquez said. “I crashed there in 2013 and I was very lucky. It is one of most difficult points of the championship. You are scared there sometimes but the rider puts the level of risk in the situation because if you close the gas then the bike is shaking less. Of course we were worried about Michele because we know how fast we go there.”

“Yeah, I try to manage the risk,” the Repsol Honda rider went on. “Of course during a fast lap and when I want to push then I keep it ‘full’ but during all weekend I play with the gas because it is safer.”

“It means maybe losing one tenth a lap but you know that if you crash at that point you can lose two races. So I play a little bit.”

Of course, it is easier to back off at that point of the track when you are confident of making it up in the rest of the circuit, or even sacrificing points at Mugello in the certain knowledge you can extend a championship lead at Barcelona.

Habemus Papa

The second red flag occurred when Andrea Dovizioso’s Ducati started pouring out smoke at the end of the straight. It was reminiscent of 2016, when Jorge Lorenzo blew an engine during warm up, then Valentino Rossi lost an engine in the race.

That had been caused by the engine overrevving as the wheels lost contact with the ground over the bumps at the end of the straight, the electronics not able to react quickly enough to cut the power at that point in time.

But Ducati boss Paolo Ciabatti denied that this was a problem for the Desmosedici.

“We have done it there a thousand times without problems, so I think we must look at the real reason, I don’t think it’s due to that small or huge bump which makes the bike lift a little bit from the asphalt.”

Nor was mileage on the engine an issue, according to Ciabatti. “I know that we were using here in principle the same engine from Le Mans, but I don’t think that the engine had so much mileage that it would have a technical problem, but I don’t know if it was a breakdown in the engine or some hoses or anything.”

Danilo Petrucci, however, was far less certain. He had almost suffered the same fate at the same spot.

“I got more or less the same problem with one bike but I was able to save the engine, because I was just lucky to close the throttle a little bit before and my engine goes into protection mode,” the Pramac Ducati rider said.

“But the problem is that in that point, where we keep the maximum speed, even the rear tire is not touching the ground, and then the revs go up two, three, four, five times.”

With Pirro’s crash and Dovizioso’s engine blowing up, that crest at the end of the straight was certain to be a subject at Friday’s Safety Commission. Whether that would actually help or not is a different matter.

Cal Crutchlow was skeptical. “We did that before remember?” Crutchlow said. “They resurfaced it and it came back. It’s the heat. Sat in the valley it can be 50 degrees here in the summer then you ride on it and it’s like a jump.”

No Time to Work

The two red flags made for a disrupted session of practice. That had left Andrea Dovizioso frustrated, but he expressed quite clearly how hard it had made things for everyone in MotoGP. “It’s really bad for us today, because we didn’t work,” Dovizioso said.

“We couldn’t work. We had a problem with the engine, but apart from that, when we changed the bike, the tire we put on didn’t work. For sure there was a problem.”

“But it’s very bad, because nobody has a lot of time to work on that, and if you lose two sessions – because this morning, the conditions were strange for everybody – and in this afternoon, we couldn’t work.”

The low grip at the track had made things complicated for the Ducatis, Danilo Petrucci had said. “It is not like last year, maybe last year we got something more,” he explained.

“This year we struggle a little bit with the tire. We started with a setting very similar to Le Mans, but we are just a little bit too slow, because I think the tires are harder than we expected, or maybe the asphalt is getting worse year by year, and we struggle a lot in Ducati when there is not so much traction on the asphalt.”

“We understood this when the Hondas started to use the soft tire, and even the Suzuki, because usually they use always the hard or medium tire and this time they have been very fast with the soft, so it means we have been able to work for try to be as fast as them.”

But Petrucci had not given up hope. “Anyway, in Le Mans we only found the setting in FP4. So we have still some time for sure in FP3, it’s like a qualification.”

“We have to check very well the data, because the bike of last year was very different to ride, we saw Jack very fast. So we have to understand why and we try to fix our problem.”

What was the main problem? “It’s like the bike is too rigid, and we are not making the suspension work, so immediately when we go into the corner, both front and rear tires start to slide, and the bike is very, very unstable when we release the brake.”

“So we have to let the bike work a little bit more, because now we are only letting the tire work, and this makes us slide a lot.”

Changes Work

Previously, the Yamahas had struggled with a lack of grip, but there was progress being made there also. A very satisfied Maverick Viñales was happy that the changes made at Barcelona were working at Mugello, including in the heat of the afternoon.

The setup of the bike had changed, the Movistar Yamaha rider explained. “The basic setup is totally different. I mean, the bike is a little bit shorter and I felt better.”

“We make the tires work in a different way and it’s better for me,” Viñales told the media. “I’m quite light so the bike needs to go differently to Valentino and Johann, whose weight is more than mine.”

“Actually today I felt really good. There are still some problems that we can improve but it’s much better than the other races with the confidence and the work we are doing the between the morning and the afternoon.”

Surprisingly – or perhaps unsurprisingly – it was Andrea Iannone who had been fastest overall. The Italian was clearly on a mission after having lost his place in Suzuki. At first glance, it looked like Iannone was only quick over a single lap, but the Italian’s race pace had looked pretty strong too.

Of course, this is not the first time this has happened. In 2016, after being told that he would lose his seat at the factory Ducati team to make way for Jorge Lorenzo, he finished fastest on the first day, and ended the race weekend on the podium.

It is remarkable what the motivation of needing a new contract can do to a rider. Iannone’s raw talent and pure speed are suddenly back again. It should be fun to watch.

Photo: MotoGP

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

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This Might Be the Best Buell on the Market

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You won’t often find me talking about my deep desires for a Buell motorcycle in my garge – any long-time Asphalt & Rubber reader should surely know this by now. But, what you are looking at here might be the only Buell I lust after – in Claudia Schiffer sort of way.

The bike I am referring to is the BOTT XR1R Pikes Peak race bike, which finished 4th in the exhibition class in 2017. You won’t see it at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb this year though, unfortunately because of sponsorship reasons.

But, this doesn’t have to be the final chapter of the BOTT XR1R Pikes Peak race bike however, and in fact, you could be writing its future story. This is because Bottpower is selling its race bike, and let me tell you, it is one tasty piece of two-wheeled machinery.

At the core of the BOTT XR1R Pikes Peak race bike is a 1,340cc Buell XBRR engine with titanium valves. Bottpower says it makes 150hp.

Rounding out the package, Buell’s wayward air-cooled v-twin engine has been wedged into a titanium chassis of Bottpower’s own design, with a street-tracker stance.

The rest of the build list for this tracker is even more impressive. As a race bike, Bottpower picked the best bits and bobs in order to tackle Pikes Peak:

  • Öhlins / Ceracarbon forks with carbon fiber inner tubes and Öhlins TTX cartridges
  • Öhlins TTX Shock absorber
  • Rotobox carbon fiber wheels with titanium axles
  • Triple clamp with titanium axle
  • Brembo master cylinder, calipers, discs
  • STM slipper clutch
  • AIM data recording system
  • Carbon fiber seat and airbox

There’s no word on pricing yet for the BOTT XR1R Pikes Peak race bike, but the Spanish firm says that it also has several brand new Buell XBRR engines available as well – in case you want to start your own v-twin project.

You can get in touch with David from Bottpower via email, if you’re interested in the race bike or Buell engines.

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Hitting Your Mark

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Last weekend’s racing at Donington Park was exactly the shot in the arm that WorldSBK needed.

A new rider on the top step of the podium, a new bike as the center of attention in Parc Ferme, and most importantly: Jonathan Rea being beaten in a straight up fight by Michael van der Mark.

Rea and Kawasaki have dominated the championship over the last three years, and even for Yamaha’s Van der Mark, it was a surprise to finally break his duck in such style with a double.

“I was surprised by this weekend! Kawasaki and Johnny have been so dominant over the last few seasons and to beat them is very special.”

“It shows that we’re getting closer, and most importantly, it shows that we can beat them. It’s easy to accept that Kawasaki will be in front and winning, and that’s why it’s important to prove to yourself that you can win races.”

In doing so the Dutchman became the first rider since Eugene Laverty to prove the adage that winning comes easier the second time.

Laverty’s Monza double in 2011, the last time a Yamaha rider managed to win both races, was just the 12th time in WorldSBK history that a rider opened their victory account with maximum points from a race weekend.

Nervous Last Laps

“Saturday was amazing, and I’ve been waiting for four years to win a race! I was so nervous in the final laps of Race 1, and listening to everything and feeling everything on the bike.”

“They say that after you win once it becomes easier and Sunday I was a lot more comfortable…to do the double is incredible. The bike was so good in those last laps.”

“To take the first win was special, but to do the double is incredible. Last year we were strong here, and I expected to fight for a podium here, but to win wasn’t an expectation. Kawasaki and Johnny are so strong at the moment.”

“To beat them is something we didn’t expect. Brno will suit the Yamaha again and hopefully we can build on this.”

Building on a stable platform has been the key for Van der Mark’s crew chief, Lez Pearson. The Crescent Racing run operation have been doing all they can to ensure that the same base settings have been used throughout the campaign to allow his rider to build his confidence.

That confidence was one of the biggest reasons Pearson had no doubt in his mind about the win throughout proceedings.

Stability Above All

“Halfway through Race 1,” recalled Pearson. “Michael was still in third, I turned to Paul Denning on the pit wall and I said ‘if he doesn’t make a mistake he’s going to win this one.’ Experience always helps in racing but the biggest reason for this result is that the base of the bike has been stable this year.”

“We’ve never been looking for a lot, only a few tenths per lap, so having stability with the electronics and other settings can make such a big difference. Having a stable bike allows you find the small steps, whereas if you’re always making big changes it’s nearly impossible to find the right setting.”

“Winning is important for everyone. Whether you’re in England or Italy, this win was needed to prove that the project is moving forward.”

One of the biggest question marks over the project will now to turn to whether or not Van der Mark stays at Yamaha. The 25-year-old has been linked with a move to Kawasaki in recent weeks, and that talk will surely only intensify in the coming weeks as the Prosecco sinks in following this victory.

“This win happened at the perfect time for both me and Yamaha,” said Van der Mark. “Of course there will be interest in me after winning, but it’s difficult to win in WorldSBK, and it’s not easy to forget the hard work that goes into a project like this.”

“We’ve been working towards winning and this is year-three of the Yamaha project. It’s difficult to decide now what to do, but I love this team and it’s amazing to think back on how much we’ve achieved.”

“The package is good now, we were really strong at Assen as well, and I hope that we can continue to make progress. It’s important to have wins under your belt, but they count for nothing at the next round.”

Proving your worth and winning races is however a value that is worth a lot in WorldSBK.

Photo: © 2018 Tony Goldsmith / www.tonygoldsmith.net – All Rights Reserved

This WorldSBK story is made possible by our A&R Pro members. Thank you for supporting this content!

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at Mugello: Beating Marquez, & Silly Season Rumors Explode

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Usually we have to wait until Friday for the action to hot up at Mugello, but there was an almost hysterical vibe at the Italian circuit on Thursday.

We appear to have entered what can only be described as peak Silly Season, with the rumblings of a series of rider and bike changes likely to explode into the public consciousness between now and Barcelona.

By the time the MotoGP test finishes on the Monday after Barcelona, we should know where Andrea Iannone, Jorge Lorenzo, and Joan Mir are riding, and have a solid clue as to what Franco Morbidelli, Dani Pedrosa, Danilo Petrucci, and Jack Miller will be doing in 2019. It’s going to be hectic.

All this is adding to what is already an incredibly stressful weekend, especially if you are an Italian rider. The paddock is already buzzing with sponsors, friends, family, and fans, so you can imagine what it will be like when the action starts in earnest on Friday, let alone the madness of race day.

How do the riders cope with it? “Just let the seconds pass away from here to Sunday at 2pm,” Danilo Petrucci said.

The Pramac Ducati rider took a podium in Mugello last year, and has been even more competitive in 2018. He is in the hot seat to replace Jorge Lorenzo in the factory team, if the Spaniard leaves as many expect he will.

But he will not be letting the high expectations get to him. “I will do my normal things and try to do my best that’s the best I can do. If you stop and think about it I have nothing to change compared to other races as at Le Mans the situation was more or less the same.”

“I am talking about the future, wanted to confirm my speed from last year. At Mugello I have a friendly paddock but it is not as I said it is not a big advantage. We will work in the way worked in Le Mans, controlling every detail, and they we’ll see.”

“The podium is a target but we’ll discover it on Sunday afternoon because it is very difficult to predict the race in MotoGP in the space of two years. I can only go as fast as I can.”

The key, Petrucci said, voicing the opinion of many, is to just focus on your job, and try not to get distracted by the madness which surrounds you. That is hard enough when it is merely your home race.

But this is Mugello. Al Mugello, non si dorme. The madness fills the night as well as the day, with fans revving engines, rattling fences, and generally trying to make as much noise as is humanly (or inhumanly) possible.

Beating Marc Márquez

Then there is the small matter of beating Marc Márquez. Right now, Márquez is the clear favorite, no matter who you ask. Even Márquez finds it hard to downplay his optimism.

“Yes of course Mugello is a really nice track,” the Repsol Honda rider told the press conference. “It is quite difficult for me in the past as I’ve not achieved my best results. We did a test here three weeks ago and it was not bad but now the temperature is warmer so everything will change. We must ride in the same way we have at the last few races.”

The last three races have resulted in back-to-back wins for the Spaniard. This was because this was a better bike than he has had in some time, Márquez confessed.

“I feel really good now with the bike, but even in 2014 I felt better. In 2014 it was easier to ride, but now it is different tires and different electronics, everything different.” But the increased level of competition had both added motivation, and made it harder to stay at the front.

“Of course if the performance of your opponents is higher, then you will struggle more with the bike. It now looks like we will be fast in all conditions which is a little bit like the second part of last season because we did a really good second part and now it looks like we’ve started in a good way. In a circuit where we usually struggle we are able to finish at the top or on the podium so this will be the most important thing during the season.”

Does Márquez have any weaknesses? “I have been asking this for three or four years!” Danilo Petrucci joked. He had followed Márquez for a few laps at Le Mans, but had been unable to discover any.

“At the moment it is very difficult to find a place he is weak,” Petrucci said. “Maybe at the moment we have a very good acceleration but they’ve improved their bike a lot.”

“The Honda, I think as I’ve never tried the Honda, last year they were a little more in trouble with the traction but this year their engine is smoother and they have more traction but when we keep the bike straight we are very good.”

If anything, Márquez was able to exploit the weaknesses of the other bikes better than the other way around. “We are good in last point of braking area, we can stop the bike very well but our problem is to get the speed in the corner,” Petrucci explained.

“At the moment we can stop the bike very well so we can brake very hard. I think Marc is using this weak point as a point in his favor because he can stop the bike deeper into the corner, which means sometimes he crashes because he wants to keep the speed where it is not possible.”

“When you try to follow him you always notice that he is going into the corner still with the brakes but with a lot of speed which is very difficult to follow because you cannot turn the bike. He is able to give this weak point as a positive point. At the moment it is very difficult to stay in front of him.”

New Parts, New Hope

How to beat Marc Márquez at Mugello (or indeed anywhere)? Teams and riders bring fresh ideas to the track. Jorge Lorenzo will have a new tank unit he hopes will support him in braking, removing one of the major weaknesses he has with the Ducati.

At Barcelona, Ducati had only brought a small change, but Lorenzo said he will have a bigger update at Mugello.

Aprilia brought new parts to the Barcelona test, which Scott Redding believed could give him three or four tenths a lap if he could use them at Mugello. Redding’s problem is that Aprilia won’t have them ready to race for another couple of weeks, by which time it may be too late for Redding’s future.

The Englishman said he felt like he had been chasing his tail week by week, dealing with new problems which seem to appear from nowhere.

All he wanted was a stable weekend, Redding said, one where the temperatures didn’t change too much between the morning and the afternoon, so he could just work on the bike and get it ready for Sunday, and race without running into surprises he hadn’t encountered during practice.

For Maverick Viñales, the big change hadn’t been hardware, but rather what computer programmers rather charmingly term “wetware”, the people surrounding him.

After Le Mans, a despairing Viñales had held meetings with his team to talk through the problems, and try to find a solution.

He felt they had made real progress at the Barcelona test, in part thanks to a change to the bike setup – moving the weight further forward to allow him to get heat into the tire – but most of all due to a more positive attitude among the team.

“After the Le Mans race I was so disappointed, I thought in that track I could supply what the bike needs with my riding style, and it was impossible to do it,” the Movistar Yamaha rider told us on Thursday.

“And honestly, I was watching the race and it was a disaster for me, for my riding style, for my feeling. The good thing is that after Le Mans we made some meetings, I needed to see in the people the fire I saw two years ago when I started here.”

“Everyone wanted to win, everyone wanted to try to see this bike at the top. I hadn’t seen this for a long time, and in Montmelo somehow I saw it, and when we finished the test and we could finish on the top by riding quite well and riding quite consistently, I saw in the face of the people the smiles, they were quite satisfied.”

“And it’s been really a long time since they were really satisfied. So it’s been a pleasure to see your whole team satisfied, and honestly giving the best. ”

Loading the Front

The change at Barcelona had helped him heat the front tire, Viñales said, and that had made a huge difference to his confidence and to the available grip.

“I’m one of the lightest riders in the championship, and one of the smallest. Valentino is much heavier than me, so maybe he can load the tires better. We were losing a lot on the entry of the corners, so somehow I could not ride the bike, it was impossible for me.”

“Not with the strength, because I have the strength and power to ride the bike, but to load the tires, to warm properly the front tire especially, because I didn’t warm the front enough.”

“So the changes we did in Montmelo helped me a lot in the front tire, more than in the rear. It gave me a lot of confidence to push, especially on the entry of the corner, and in the brakes.”

“I think it was to move the weight position a little bit towards the front, but without losing the rear grip,” Viñales explained.

“So in that area, I think we did a really big step, because from the morning, even in the cold conditions I was struggling so much, and then when we made that change it was nearly the hottest moment of the day, and with used tires I could ride like with new tires in the morning.”

The change had come after he had ridden behind other riders, and understood where he was losing the most ground, Viñales explained.

He was riding with a very ’round’ Moto2 style, sweeping through the corners and not giving himself enough space to pick up the bike and get on the gas. The changes made to the bike meant he could square the corners off a little more, pick up the bike earlier and get on the gas quicker.

This change had given him confidence in his crew chief Ramon Forcada again, and he was happy with the change in attitude and relationship he had with Forcada and the rest of his crew, Viñales explained.

“I think in that moment [after Le Mans] it was difficult for us, for our relationship with Ramon, because things were not going. And I am the kind of rider that for me, the feelings with the people in the box are very important.”

“I need to feel they are covering me, they are supporting me, and I need to feel happy. And in that moment, I didn’t feel happy, I didn’t feel supported. So I tried to find the best for me in that case.”

“But as I said, in Montmelo I saw big changes in the team, and the feeling, more about outside the bike, the feeling was much better. The whole team was more close, and for me this is more important than the bike.”

“The teamwork, that you are close to all the people, that when you have a bad day, these people will try to lift you up, and I think as I said, when I finished the test and I saw that the people were satisfied with the work we did, it was a long time since I saw satisfied faces from Ramon, from our side.”

“That was great. I think it was a big point of change.” We will only know if that big change will carry through to Sunday once practice gets underway at Mugello. And only then will we know how strong Viñales’ relationship really is with Forcada.

Silly Season Through The Roof

While there was plenty of talk about what might happen during the race, much of the discussion was about who will or will not be riding where in 2019. Silly Season reached fever pitch on Thursday, the rumor mill going into overdrive, though for a change, most of it was based on some fairly firm ground.

Center of attention was Joan Mir, and where the young Spaniard may end up racing next year. That it will be in MotoGP seems beyond doubt, but which team that will be in is still open to question.

In a long chat with the media, Mir’s manager Paco Sanchez managed to both set out what Mir’s options were without tipping his hand as to which he might end up taking. At the same time, he managed to lightly mock some of the stories which have appeared in the Spanish press in the last few days.

“Some Spanish journalists announced this week that it is done, some said it is signed, this is completely false,” Sanchez said. “Absolutely it was not signed. A contract at 1% or 99% is the same until it is signed, zero. It does not exist.”

“So we need to wait until we have the signature and after that we will announce. Also we need to respect that the factory has the right to make the official announcement to everybody.”

Sanchez would not be drawn on which offer was leading the way, but he did point out that the rumors surrounding Joan Mir had only helped him in the negotiations.

“I can say after the report that Joan has reached an agreement with Suzuki, three hours later I received new offer from Honda. And the next day a call from Ducati. Because it was not done,” Sanchez said.

Playing Hardball

“The problem is that all the negotiations are so complicated,” Sanchez went on. “I’m talking with three factories, but these three factories are each talking with four or five riders. Pedrosa, Lorenzo, Iannone, Petrucci… really experienced and good riders.”

“Everybody is waiting and if any factory understands I have signed a contract with another factory, they will close immediately with the second rider on their list. If Joan is the first on their list, I don’t know the position because they never explain exactly, but I feel because of the pressure, the counter offers.”

“I could understand the real interest from these companies. But they also have a second, a third choice. So if they realize ‘Joan has signed with Suzuki’ then they go will close with the second one, maybe Morbidelli, and later if I don’t close with Suzuki I’m in the **** because one bike has disappeared.”

Sanchez confirmed he had offers from Ducati, Honda, and Suzuki, but he emphasized that the choice would be based on the whole package on offer, not just who threw the most money at Joan Mir. “We are not worried about money,” Sanchez told reporters.

“The most important is to have the best atmosphere. The best package. And again, I’ve never taken the decision for the rider in my life. With any of my riders. They decide. Sometimes I advise, to me this is the best team, and they chose another. I accept it.”

The most likely path for Mir still looks like being through Suzuki. The Japanese factory has made it clear they want to pursue the path of youth rather than experience, which means the path is blocked for both Andrea Iannone and Jorge Lorenzo.

Iannone announced his departure himself, not being prepared to wait for an official press release from Suzuki, or for an announcement from his new destination, almost certain to be Aprilia.

“For sure I will not remain in Suzuki,” Iannone said. “I will switch to another bike, factory. But at the moment I do not talk about my future because it’s a little bit early. Two years ago in this race I announce my partnership with Suzuki, but this year it’s a little bit different.”

“Suzuki talk with me about my future only after the Barcelona test. But in any case now it’s sure I will not remain with Suzuki.”

Lorenzo’s Hypotheticals

Lorenzo, meanwhile, announced that he will definitely continue racing in MotoGP in 2019 and 2020, but he would not tell anyone who it would be with.

“What I just can say is that I will continue for the next two years,” Lorenzo said. “I will not retire. And I will be with a good bike. This is the only thing I can say. I guess in Montmeló you will have more information.”

The Spanish media pumped him for more information, but Lorenzo was keeping very tight lipped. On Ducati CEO Claudio Domenicali’s comments which were interpreted to mean that Lorenzo would depart from Ducati, “I’m not going to comment on what Domenicali said.”

On whether he was upset about the way the situation had evolved in the past few weeks: “I am not going to give an opinion on this, because it doesn’t bring me anything.”

On whether Valentino Rossi could veto him having a Yamaha satellite bike: “I’m not going to give my opinion on this.” On whether he would have a factory bike for the next two years: “I can’t say anything more.”

Bits and pieces have slipped out, suggesting what might be announced at Barcelona. What we know is that Sepang International Circuit boss Datuk Razlan Razali is in Mugello for meetings with Dorna about “something major”, he told the Malaysian newspaper New Straits Times.

We know that the Sepang circuit would like to have a MotoGP team, to house Hafizh Syahrin. It is rumored that Petronas is to pull out of F1, leaving it a lot more money to pour into a potential MotoGP team.

And it is possible that the Sepang circuit could buy the Marc VDS MotoGP grid slots and field Yamahas in 2019.

If that does happen, then pairing Syahrin with Lorenzo on Yamahas would make a lot of sense. Syahrin would be in his second year in MotoGP, on a proven bike and with increased factory support, given the money the team would be willing to pay to Yamaha.

Lorenzo would be back on a Yamaha, a bike he won three championships and 44 races on. His input could help speed the development of the M1, making the Movistar Yamaha bikes more competitive.

Would Valentino Rossi veto any return to Yamaha by Jorge Lorenzo? The nine-time world champion laughed the suggestion off in the press conference.

“After I tried to stop Zarco I will try to stop Lorenzo!” Rossi joked. In fact, it could prove a positive, and was anyway a risk of being on a Yamaha in MotoGP.

“I think it will be hard if Lorenzo comes back but the situation will be very similar to this year because we have Zarco who is very strong. When you are in Yamaha you always have a great teammate or a fast rider with the same bike.”

“From that point of view it will be more difficult but it is also good because you have better motivation and you can see the way another rider rides the bike and try to learn and to improve.”

We will find out whether Rossi welcomes Lorenzo back into the Yamaha fold at Barcelona. Or perhaps we will learn that Lorenzo has been asked to stay at Ducati for two more seasons.

As Paco Sanchez said, whether contract talks are at 1% or at 99%, until everything is signed, you have nothing concrete.

Photo: MotoGP

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

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Bikes

What Does the Yamaha NIKEN Look Like Naked?

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It has to be the weirdest motorcycle yet, if you can even call it that (some don’t), but it is also luridly intriguing. we are of course talking about the Yamaha NIKEN (read the ride review here, by the way).

A mullet of machines, the NIKEN is business in the front, and party in the back, with its dual 15-inch front wheels mated to a grand total of four conventional fork tubes, via an elaborate parallelogram linkage, while the 17-inch rear wheel spins from a more conventional swingarm design.

This is because from behind the headstock, things get a bit more familiar, with a chassis that is built mostly from steel tube, and a swingarm that comes from cast aluminum. The motor is a revised version of the three-cylidner engine that is found in the Yamaha MT-09.

Available in any color you want, so long as it’s blue, Yamaha has wrapped up the NIKEN in some…interesting…fairing designs, but it is what is under the plastic that is the most intriguing.

Sans fairings, we can get a glimpse into the technical maze Yamaha had to walk through in order to bring the NIKEN into reality.

Starting with the wheels, the 15″ rims were picked for both vertical clearance (looking at the stack of linkages for the parallelogram front-end, it’s easy to see why vertical heigh is an issue) as well as rotational mass, which gets compound because of the dual-wheel setup.

This makes for some difficult tires choices, because of the lack of sporty rubber that comes in a 15-inch wheel format, hence we see the use of the versatile Bridgestone Battlax Adventure A41 tires.

The tires track on the inside of their dual forks, which helps keep the overall stance of the NIKEN more narrow, and help it resemble more of a motorcycle in stature.

Yamaha says this is so the NIKEN will fit the parameters of what defines a motorcycle (the total track is just over 16 inches), but it also helps keep the NIKEN nimble on its toes – a wider stance would be more difficult to turn and have a larger turning radius.

Following the fork legs upward, one notices that suspension duties are only performed by single fork – the rear fork – on each side’s pairing, with the other fork – the front fork – on each side simply tracking along for axle stability.

This helps keep the front suspension setup more simple, as well as more approachable for experienced motorcyclists. Rather than having to tune each of the four forks, riders are left with only two forks with settings to adjust.

With about 80% more front contact patch area than a traditional motorcycle, the front-end grip is substantially greater than a standard sport bike, even with the adventure-touring tires mounted.

This provides a confidence-inspiring attack on corners, all the way to the NIKEN’s maximum lean-angle of 45° – after that point, one starts lofting wheels off the ground (provided you are not impeded with other hard-part clearance issues).

Because of the different radii that each front wheel must take, it is the inside wheel that carves the turn, with the outside wheel “following” and providing extra stability.

It is a complex task (did you see the crazy linkages in the high-res shots below???), but judging from the first ride accounts, Yamaha has managed to keep the action familiar to seasoned motorcyclists.

It may not handle as sharply as the now antique “two-wheeled” motorcycles of yesteryear, but the trade-offs between handling and stability seem to balance out for Yamaha here, especially if you think of the NIKEN are more of a tourer than a sport bike.

Though to note, Yamaha itself doesn’t seem to know where the NIKEN falls in the sport vs. tourer continuum.

Will we see more leaning multi-wheelers from the Tuning Fork brand? Almost certainly. Will they be as big and burly as the NIKEN? Probably not. Expected to be around $16,000 MSRP by the time they hit US dealers, the Yamaha NIKEN is certainly more expensive than a traditional bike.

Looking at the parts layout, it is easy to understand part of the added cost, but we also suspect that Yamaha is taking advantage of the NIKEN’s unique offering – hoping to capitalize on the adventurous early adopters who are willing to try two in the front and one in the back.

Taking a look at the concepts that the Japanese brand has shown us already, we wouldn’t be surprised to see a leaning four-wheeler follow-up the NIKEN, with perhaps some smaller on-road and off-road models in the mix as well, perhaps in the 500cc / middleweight category.

Until then, we have left the photos below in super high-resolution format, so you can scrutinize every detail made by the engineers in Iwata — and to prove to the folks at Piaggio that Yamaha hasn’t run afoul of its own leaning three-wheeler patents.

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Recall

Polaris Slingshot Recalled for Brake Failure Issues

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I had to scroll back through our coverage to make sure it wasn’t my imagination, but it does seem like the Polaris Slingshot gets more than its fair share of safety recalls with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA).

Well today, add another one to the list, as Polaris is recalling certain 2017-2018 Polaris Slingshot, Slingshot SL, Slingshot SLR, Slingshot SL Icon, and Slingshot GT LE motorcycles autocycles.

Potentially affecting 4,342 vehicles, the brake pedal on these Slingshot models may have been installed incorrectly, which could cause the brake pedal to separate from the brake master cylinder.

If that were to happen, the rider/driver (your state’s laws may vary) would lose braking ability, which is an obvious safety hazard.

To remedy the situation, Polaris will notify affected Slingshot owners, and Polaris dealers will inspect the engagement of the brake pedal retaining clip and reassemble it if necessary, free of charge.

This recall is expected to begin in May 2018. Concerned Slingshot owners may contact Polaris customer service at 1-855-863-2284 and reference Polaris’ number for this recall, which is T-18-02.

As always, the NHTSA is also available at 1-888-327-4236 and safercar.gov.

Source: NHTSA

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Road Racing

Finding the Secrets to a Fast Lap of the TT Course

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There is no greater challenge than mastering the Mountain Course at the Isle of Man TT. It is 37 miles of mental gymnastics where any hesitation or uncertainty is punished.

Riders spend years learning their trade, and the biggest challenge is not to rush it. If it takes you two, three, or five years to learn the course and feel comfortable pushing to your limit, that’s the time it takes.

Michael Dunlop’s outright lap record of 133.962 mph leaves the 134 mph barrier firmly in sight for the top riders, and don’t be surprised to see that shattered this year.

The top riders all have a photographic memories when it comes to the course and can recall the tiniest of details that go into making a perfect lap.

The lap starts at The Grandstand and when Peter Hickman was asked about his favourite sections of the course, the Englishman smiled “It’s all about The Grandstand! When you start until when you come back it’s unbelievable. I love the whole lap. It’s not like anything else in the world.”

Having raced in British Superbikes for years, and been a victor at the North West 200, Ulster Grand Prix, and at the Macau Grand Prix, that’s high praise from Hickman.

There are some sections of the lap that are crucial and none more so than The Grandstand.

It leads directly into the opening section of the lap and the famous Bray Hill. Reference points are crucial for riders through this section, and there are plenty to see. Riders switch from traffic lights to tall trees to kerbs through the bumps and hollows of this section.

The bike bottoms out at the bottom of Bray Hill at over 150mph, but there’s no time to think about that as the track rises towards the exit and Ago’s Leap, where the riders have to control the wheelie along the straight towards the first big stop of the lap at Quarter Bridge.

Slow in and fast out is the mantra of the Isle of Man TT. Your exit is more important than you’re entry and corner speed because of the long straights that follow and Union Mills is no exception.

The bike jumps through the bridge before the long left-hander alongside the petrol station where the bike slides past spectators in a stunning section of the track. The exit of this section leads riders towards Ballagarey.

Otherwise known as Ballascary, it lives up to it’s billing as a super-fast right-hander in fifth gear. This is the most important corner on the entire circuit because it sets your speed for the next two miles.

Having the confidence to set the bike on its side and ride through this section is a real challenge, but talking to riders this is one of the most rewarding sections because of the run that follows towards Crosby and Greeba Castle.

“I love the run from Greeba Castle all the way through to Ballycraine, because you’re closed in and running through the trees,” is how Dean Harrison describes it, and with Gorse Lea, it also offers some of the best viewing experiences of the TT.

It’s also one of the most rewarding corners for riders because of the speed through the right-hander. Under the trees it’s hard to pick out your turn-in point but once you do it unlocks a lot of lap time.

The opening sector of the lap ends at Glen Helen. The track is fast and flowing, but it’s also bumpy and off-camber making it very easy to lose the front.

From the opening sector of the lap, riders than need to find good drive towards Lambfell and the Cronk-y-Voddy straight. It’s the first time in minutes that the rider actually has a chance to relax and force themselves to breathe.

For John McGuinness, he says that it’s a crucial section to try and wiggle his fingers and toes to get the blood flowing. Over a six-lap Superbike race, this could make all the difference.

From the Cronk down towards Handleys sees riders head towards McGuinness’ own corner. From that the run towards Barregarrow is thrilling.

A three-part section of track, riders come through a crest and then run downhill towards a 130mph jump, where they will be on their pegs to avoid loading the bike up on compression, because immediately they pitch into a fast left-hander at Barregarrow Bottom.

It’s a spectacular section of the track to watch because it requires total commitment; if you drive through the corner the bike stays stable, but if you ease off it’s easy to catch the bumps. This requires total confidence in yourself and the bike.

The run towards and through Kirkmichael is fast and flowing, as you dance through the shop fronts of the village. From there, the jump of Rhencullen awaits.

It’s a bumpy section of the track, where riders are fighting the physics of manhandling their machine. Once through Rhencullen, the run to Ballaugh is the next thing on the rider’s mind. The humpback bridge offers an ideal photo opportunity, but it’s also where time can be lost.

Once the bike is back on the ground, it’s all about accelerating towards the jump at Ballacrye. It’s fast through the left-hander leading to the jump and the riders will hit this at 160mph in a thrilling section towards Quarry Bends.

This is a section where Steve Hislop was incredible in the early nineties, and this is one of the most iconic sections of the lap.

The Sulby Straight, and the speed trap, follows quickly and having a good exit is crucial because, like at Ballygarey your exit speed dictates your speed all the way to Sulby Bridge.

It’s easy to get sucked into the right-hander onto the bridge and Ginger Hall. This is the bumpiest section of the lap, with the speed building all the way along Sulby Straight and the following section.

Under the trees from Ginger Hall is a challenge for every rider, and it’s all about maintaining momentum for as long as possible for the run towards Ramsey. Through the Conkerfields and the Milntown jump, the speeds are immense.

Into Ramsey, the riders head down towards Parliament Square, the slow first-gear right-hander that leads you towards the hairpin and the start of the mountain.

It’s easy to lose time through Ramsey, with a series of off-camber and bumpy corners. Under the trees of the Ramsey Hairpin, riders get out of the hairpin and start their initial climb towards the mountain.

The run towards the Gooseneck is easy to lose time on, but once you come through the slow right-hander, it’s all about maintaining your momentum for the fabled mountain.

The start of the mountain climb sees riders reach the 26th milestone, and this section is bumpy and takes experience to master.

Guthries is the most important corner of the mountain section. The white-walled double right-hander sets your speed for the next mile, and exiting it cleanly is the name of the game.

The triple left-hander leading into Guthries is eying a needle, and with the camber falling away through the right-handers, it’s easy to lose the front.

Tucking yourself into the bubble, it offers another opportunity to try and relax. The Mountain Mile offers an opportunity to relax before the run towards to the finish line.

The Veranda is a quadruple right-hander that riders need experience to learn. It’s all about carrying momentum through the Veranda before running across the tram lines at the Bungalow.

From here, the riders head towards Hailwood’s Rise and Brandywell. This section is as fast and flowing as any other on the Mountain Course, and as always it’s about being able to maintain your momentum and driving through the corners.

Once you come through Kate’s Cottage, the run towards The Grandstand truly starts again, with riders scratching through the Creg-ny-Baa pub. From there riders head through a super-fast right-hander, where it’s easy to lose speed.

Experience counts in every section of the TT course – this is no different. While Signpost, Bedpost, and The Nook may not have the same thrilling nature as other corners, they are just as important.

Once through this section you’re back underneath the trees at the end of the lap, and it’s easy to push too hard and cost yourself time because the track conditions can be very different in the shade.

It’s easy to miss your markers and run into too hot. Governor’s Bridge is the final corner, but exiting it is crucial because it sets your speed to the line and Bray Hill where it all starts again!

Ready to piece it all together? Come take a ride on Michael Dunlop’s record-setting 133.962 mph run, and see how much you remember.

This World Superbike story is made possible by our A&R Pro members. If you like reading WorldSBK stories on Asphalt & Rubber, you should consider supporting this content by signing up for A&R Pro.

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MotoGP

MotoGP Preview of the Italian GP

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There is no such thing as an ideal race track. Circuits are bound by the iron laws of reality: Grand Prix level tracks have to fit a given distance (between 3.5km and 10km) of track into the available space, in a layout which will allow powerful vehicles to stretch their legs.

They have to be somewhere where noise is not an issue, either as a result of being isolated from the general population, next to another source of noise such as an airport, or situated near a willing and enthusiastic town or city.

They need to have space for the fleet of trucks which transport the paddock from circuit to circuit, and they have to be accessible to those trucks via roads wide enough to let them pass.

Last but not least, they have to provide an attractive setting which fans want to visit, and good viewing over as much of the track as possible.

All these things militate against the existence of the ideal circuit. Find a space which is away from hostile neighbors, and it may be too small to create anything other than a tight, contorted track layout unsuitable for MotoGP bikes.

Or it may be on a hilltop, with few natural viewing opportunities. Or it may be too far from large population centers to make it easily accessible for fans, or lack the space for a usable paddock layout.

Yet something approaching the ideal circuit truly exists. A track where the bikes can use all of the 270+hp at their disposal.

A track which challenges every aspect of the rider, from managing their reactions at 360 km/h, to braking late and entering corners hard, to sweeping through fast combinations of turns carrying as much speed as you dare without washing out the front or having the rear come round and bite you.

A track with a roomy paddock, near a major highway, and several large population centers. In a country full of bike-mad fans. Set in a valley among some of the most enchanting scenery on the planet.

Oh yes, and the food in the paddock restaurant is some of the best you will eat all season.

A Bit of Everything, And More

Mugello. Of course I am talking about Mugello. You can argue whether some tracks are better in some aspects. Whether Phillip Island is a greater challenge in terms of speed. Whether the scenery at the Australian track matches the backdrop of Mugello.

Whether the flowing section from Mandeveen to the GT Chicane at Assen is more challenging than Casanova/Savelli and the Arrabbiatas. Whether the left-right combinations at Brno are better for overtaking than the ones at Mugello.

Whether staying in a villa in the Tuscan hills beats staying in a village up a mountain road in Aragon, or in the heart of historic Barcelona. But only at Mugello does it all come together to approach perfection. A great track in a great place offering a great challenge to both rider and machine.

That’s not to say that Mugello is perfect, however. The very speed of the circuit creates danger – the official top speed record at the track is 354.9 km/h, but that’s because speeds are so high at the circuit that the speed trap is already in the braking zone, meaning the bikes regularly hit over 365 km/h, and will soon be nudging 370 km/h.

But the track itself is hemmed in by the walls of the valley it sits in, so adding runoff is no longer an option. The wall at the end of the main straight is too close on the left hand side.

The runoff at Poggio Secco and Borgo San Lorenzo is minuscule. And only some smart combining of hard standing and gravel saved riders from reaching the wall at Materassi.

The magic of Mugello comes from its sheer outright velocity, but if the bikes get any faster, the track will simply no longer be safe enough to race on.

The physical geography of the circuit, its topology, the shape of the valley it sits in, the slopes of the hillsides the track snakes across, all these are the limiting factors of the track.

It is pretty much impossible to create any more runoff to make the track safer, without excavating large chunks of the countryside.

It’s almost as if Neptunus Equester came from the Mediterranean and swam up the river Sieve to merge at Luco di Mugello and trace the lines of the perfect track for modern chariots, but he did it imagining the MotoGP bikes of 2006.

Now, a decade later, MotoGP is in danger of outgrowing the circuit. And that would be tragedy almost beyond imagining.

Everyone’s A (Potential) Winner

Yet another aspect of Mugello’s greatness: Is the circuit a Honda or a Yamaha track? The answer is that it is both, and much more. The track rewards horsepower and top speed, which gives the advantage to the Honda, but also to Ducati.

It has some of the hardest braking on the calendar into Turn 1, San Donato, which again favors Honda and Ducati. But it also flows, allowing bikes which can change direction and carry corner speed to gain on their rivals, which helps the Yamaha, and also helps the Suzuki.

Even the Aprilia could suit Mugello, if it can hang together long enough to finish a race. The KTM, too, could flourish here, at least if they had their new counter-rotating engine.

Historically, though, Mugello has belonged to Yamaha. After winning on a Honda in 2002 and 2003, Valentino Rossi won five more years in a row after his switch to Yamaha, taking victory between 2004 and 2008 on the M1.

His former teammate Jorge Lorenzo took over where Rossi left off, winning from 2011 through 2013, then again in 2015 and 2016. When Lorenzo wasn’t winning on the Yamaha, he was finishing second, crossing the line behind Casey Stoner in 2009, Dani Pedrosa in 2010, and Marc Márquez in 2014.

Even in 2017, a relatively poor year for Yamaha, Maverick Viñales still ended up second behind Andrea Dovizioso, while Valentino Rossi couldn’t quite beat Danilo Petrucci, finishing fourth, an impressive enough result after a monster motocross crash a week previously.

And 2018? Things are not looking good for the Yamahas. At the private test held at the track before Le Mans, they had struggled to set decent lap times. “We made the test in Mugello, and also in Mugello I was quite slow,” Rossi said at Le Mans.

The team is still struggling to match the uprated 2018 engine to the Magneti Marelli electronics, suffering from a lack of traction as the race progresses. That is especially tough on Rossi: though the Misano circuit is just minutes from his home in Tavullia, he still regards Mugello as his spiritual home.

If home is where the heart is, then Mugello is Rossi’s home race. The crowds that throng the track come here in part for the racing, but mainly to see Valentino Rossi win in Italy. It has been a while, and by the look of things, it could be a while longer.

Bleak House

Rossi’s teammate, meanwhile, is having an even bleaker time of it at the moment. At Le Mans, Maverick Viñales hinted darkly at changes being needed in the team, his words widely being interpreted as a demand for a new crew chief.

There have been rumblings of discontent for a while now, Viñales wanting to make radical setup changes in pursuit of a solution to his problems with rear grip, while Ramon Forcada believes a gradual approach will allow them to understand the changes they make and get to the root of the problem more accurately.

Can Viñales repeat his second place from last year, or even go one better? In his current frame of mind, against a stronger field, that does not look very likely.

If Yamaha are to revive their fortunes at Mugello, then their best hope may be Johann Zarco. The Monster Tech3 Yamaha rider may have a chassis close to the ones being used by the factory riders, but he is using an older engine on which the electronics were sorted last year – or at least, that is what the factory riders would have us believe.

Zarco has been impressive throughout this season, though the pressure of his home race may have been too much for him last time out at Le Mans. Last year, Zarco had his worst race of the season at Mugello.

Perhaps going into a race with few expectations may just liberate him to ride freely, and put him in position to compete for the win that is surely not far off.

The biggest obstacle Yamaha face on their path to success – apart from Yamaha itself, perhaps – is the Honda RC213V, and most particularly, the RC213V in the hands of Marc Márquez.

The 2018 Honda is a better bike than it was last year, the engine more powerful, the electronics broadly sorted, even the stresses on the front tire reduced from the past. Honda have tended to struggle in recent years, riders crashing out of contention.

But the added horsepower Honda’s engineers found this winter mean the riders don’t have to risk everything in braking to make up the ground. They have something in hand again, and that has turned the tables on the field.

Winning Mood

Marc Márquez is the man who has benefited most from the new-and-improved Honda. A better bike means he is riding with more confidence, and that is showing in the standings.

Victory at Le Mans made it three wins in a row, two at circuits where neither he nor Honda have been especially strong. Mugello hasn’t traditionally been kind to Honda, nor to Márquez, but with things running his way at the moment, it would be foolish to bet against him.

If he makes it four in a row with a win in Italy, then the championship could really be over.

To that extent, all eyes are on Ducati, and especially on Andrea Dovizioso. Two DNFs in succession have given the Italian a mountain to climb in the title chase.

Dovizioso took a convincing victory at Mugello last year, his first of the season and a win which kicked off a string of successes, converting him from dark horse to Márquez’ main championship contender. He needs a repeat of 2017 to get 2018 back on track.

Yet Dovizioso will be in a similar situation to Johann Zarco was two weeks ago, the home favorite at his home race, and expectations from the fans going through the roof.

The difference between 2017 and 2018 is that the pressure on Dovizioso will be immense. Two weeks ago, the factory Ducati rider told us he thrived on that pressure.

“In Mugello, for sure I will have pressure, but not in a bad way,” Dovizioso said.” I think that kind of pressure, like last year where I fight for the championship, I like that pressure.”

“I’m in my position, so I don’t feel I have to do the result because it’s the only chance I have. It’s stressful for everybody. Is normal, but most of the time the pressure, there is a possibility to use the pressure in a positive way. It’s very important to try to do that.”

Letting Lorenzo off the Leash

Whether Jorge Lorenzo feels any pressure is an interesting question to ponder.

The whole world is assuming that Lorenzo is out at Ducati, that impression not helped by the words of senior Ducati staff who talk of unmet expectations and speculate openly about who might be on the second factory seat alongside Andrea Dovizioso.

So on the one hand, Lorenzo has Mugello, and possibly Barcelona, to post results which would earn him a contract extension with Ducati.

On the other hand, he may believe his out at Ducati anyway, and feel unburdened by the demands of the factory, and free to race as he pleases. That may allow him to be more settled, and more determined to finally get a win on the Desmosedici.

There are a few things working in Lorenzo’s favor at this point in time. Lorenzo has finally chosen to stick with the same chassis which Dovizioso has been using since the Buriram test, and which he had initially rejected.

That frame is better, though only subtly so, and with some time on the bike now, Lorenzo may find it a little easier to manage. At the Barcelona test last week, Lorenzo tried some new parts for the tank which might help give him the support he needs under braking.

And Ducati also tested new aero, a solution more closely resembling the Yamaha (and now also Honda) winglet array. If that can help Lorenzo keep the contact with the front tire while making the bike less difficult to turn, it may be another puzzle piece for the Spaniard to play with.

Whatever happens, this could be a big week for Lorenzo, as rumors continue to gather over a possible return to Yamaha, this time on a satellite bike. At the moment, it is almost entirely speculation, a lot of stories being written with heavy use of the conditional tense.

But the logic behind the stories is hard to resist: a return to a bike he knows, possibly under the tutelage of the crew chief with whom he won so many championships, and a chance to prove the doubters wrong, or at least those who doubted he would ever be competitive again, rather than those who doubted he could adapt.

Money, Lawyers, And Motorcycle Racing

When speculation is faced with a dose of cold, hard reality, Lorenzo on a satellite Yamaha faces some almost insurmountable obstacles.

First, who will run the Yamahas, as the legal and organizational chaos surrounding the Marc VDS team makes it hard to know whether they would either seek or be granted permission to lease the Yamaha M1s.

The legal complexities make understanding exactly what is going on very difficult, despite the fact that I have spoken to some of the principals involved.

That, and the possible legal jeopardy involved in getting even a small part of the story wrong, mean I have written, rewritten, and torn up several Marc VDS stories without publishing them.

At some point, I will attempt to catalog what we know, and where things stand. Until then, I suggest reading Gunther Wiesinger’s coverage on Speedweek.com.

Then, of course, there’s the money, and who would finance the team, and pay Jorge Lorenzo what he believes he is worth. There’s Yamaha’s internal politics to deal with, of the potential of a satellite team beating the factory team (again), let alone how Valentino Rossi and Maverick Viñales would react to the news. Lorenzo on a satellite Yamaha is an appealing idea, but it is in no way a slam dunk.

Originally, it looked like Lorenzo was set fast for Suzuki, contact having been made in the early preseason, and talks having advanced a decent way.

But the bosses back at Hamamatsu put the kibosh on that plan, choosing the potential upside of Moto3 champion and Moto2 rising star Joan Mir over an established rider such as Lorenzo, or even current rider Andrea Iannone.

And so we sit and wait for the official announcement of Mir, which could come as early as this weekend.

Iannone’s Revenge

It would be an irony indeed if Iannone were to pull of a surprise at Mugello, but it would not really be that much of a surprise were he to get a podium there, or even more.

Suzuki scored three podiums on the trot, with Alex Rins at Argentina followed by Iannone at Austin and Jerez, three very different tracks placing totally different demands on the bike.

The Suzuki GSX-RR has developed into an outstanding all round machine, fast enough to compete at a quick track like Mugello, while perfectly adapted to the flowing layout of the Italian circuit.

If you are looking for a dark horse to take a flutter on, you could do a lot worse than to gamble on Suzuki performing well, and especially on Iannone making a public show of exactly how talented he is.

Mugello promises much, but it has a reputation for backing up the promises the track makes. The atmosphere is like no other, the layout is unique, the backdrop is spectacular.

This weekend, the off-track drama could match the on-track action, with the futures of Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa hanging in the balance, and wild rumors swirling over new entrants to MotoGP.

Al Mugello, non si dorme, at Mugello, you know no sleep. The passion runs deep at one of the greatest tracks in the world. Rightly so, rightly so.

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

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