Latest Posts:
Asphalt & Rubber
Tag

Aragon GP

Browsing
MotoGP

Saturday MotoGP Summary at the Aragon GP: The Peak of Perfection

By No Comments

In all likelihood, how you view Sunday’s MotoGP race at Aragon will be a matter of perception. For many people, it will be a forgettable affair, the race over after the first couple of corners, Marc Márquez clearing off into the distance.

For a few, it will be the greatest display of motorcycle racing they have ever seen. Both views are valid, because, in all likelihood, Marc Márquez will win Sunday’s race by something approaching the largest margin in a dry MotoGP race ever.

That might seem like a bold prediction, but just look at Márquez’ performance so far this weekend. In FP1, he came within a quarter of a second of the outright lap record. In FP2, he was posting times in race trim to match his rivals best laps on brand new soft tires.

In FP4, he was a ‘mere’ four tenths faster than Maverick Viñales, but of the 17 full laps he posted in the session, 6 were faster than Viñales’ best lap. And 10 were faster than Fabio Quartararo’s fastest lap in the session, the Frenchman finishing third in the session.

Securing pole position was almost a formality, his 61st pole maintaining his 50% record. (And stop to think how insane that is, that Márquez starts from pole in half of the races he contests.)

He was a third of a second faster than second-place man Fabio Quartararo, and didn’t really look like he was trying. He had time to spare on ramping up the pressure on his rivals, choosing his position to make sure they knew he was there, and coming through.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

FIM Introduces Punishments for Exceeding Track Limits on Last Lap

By No Comments

The last lap of last weekend’s Moto2 race remains controversial. Augusto Fernandez ran wide at Turn 11 in Misano, and used that space to get a run on Fabio Di Giannantonio into Turn 14, passing the Italian to take victory. The Speed Up team appealed the decision, but eventually it was upheld.

That decision did not sit well inside the paddock, however. At the pre-event press conference for the Aragon round on Thursday, Marc Marquez said the riders intended to raise the issue in the Safety Commission.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Friday MotoGP Summary at the Aragon GP: Marquez The Merciless, And Pit Beirer Talks About Zarco

By No Comments

Everyone not called Marc Márquez will be worried at the Motorland Aragon circuit. They will be worried at the fact that the reigning champion, and last year’s winner, went out and put in a fast lap in FP1 on soft tires.

They will be worried because that lap was 1.6 seconds faster than anyone in FP1, and 1.1 seconds faster than anyone in FP2.

But above all, they will be worried that it was a demonstration of his confidence in his own pace. Márquez went for a quick lap during FP1 thinking of Saturday, and the likelihood that rain would prevent anyone from going faster during FP3.

More importantly, it allowed him to spend all of FP2 on his race pace, in conditions likely to be similar to race time on Sunday afternoon.

It was a typical stroke of strategic genius, Márquez and his team giving himself a head start on preparing for the race.

Not only has he had more time figuring out whether to use the hard or the soft rear tire for the race – as so often, the medium is neither fish nor flesh, the drop not much smaller than with the soft, the grip not much less than with the hard – he has also had time to work on race setup.

Márquez is already two steps ahead of everyone else before they have even lined up on the grid.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Aragon GP: The Zarco Situation

By No Comments

It was supposed to be a quiet year for rider rumors. Most riders have a contract for 2020, and much of the speculation had been about when negotiations for 2021 would start.

The biggest controversy looked like being whether Takaaki Nakagami would get a 2020 Honda RC213V or a 2019 bike.

Then we came back from summer break, and it’s all been insane since then. First there were the reports of Jorge Lorenzo talking to Ducati about a possible return for 2020, taking Jack Miller’s seat at Pramac Ducati.

Then on Sunday night at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, KTM’s home race, we learned that Johann Zarco had told KTM that he wanted to leave at the end of 2019, after just one year of his two-year contract.

So far, so shocking. On Tuesday, KTM announced they were replacing Zarco with immediate effect, and giving his bike to Mika Kallio to ride. Zarco was left without a ride for the rest of the season, and facing an uncertain future. More about that in a moment.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

MotoGP Preview of the Aragon GP

By No Comments

In the space of a week, we travel from a race track set in the heart of a bustling tourist spot to one sitting in the middle of nowhere.

We go from having affordable accommodation withing 15 minutes of the track, to having to drive for 50 minutes or more to find somewhere which costs less for 5 nights than the budget of a mid-pack Moto2 team.

It’s worth it though. The Motorland Aragon circuit is set in some spectacular scenery, sat on the side of a hill looking over the arid plains of Aragon’s southern interior.

To the south and east, the low mountains of the Maestrazgo, a wild and empty place of visceral beauty. There is no better place to combine a hiking or mountain biking holiday with a race weekend. And the roads are pretty good too.

The fact that the circuit is used a lot for testing tells you a lot about the layout of the track. It has a little bit of everything, from the long, fast back straight, to tight changes of direction like the ‘Sacacorchos’ or Corkscrew at Turns 8 and 9, to long and fast corners like Turns 10 and 11, and Turns 16 and 17.

There are places where you brake hard: Turn 1, Turn 12, and Turn 16, the corner at the bottom hill having the added complication of being downhill before turning for a long off-camber corner which then heads back up the hill.

Keep Reading
By
Podcast

Paddock Pass Podcast #84 – Aragon GP

By No Comments

Episode 84 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see David Emmett and Neil Morrison on the mics, as they discuss the recent Aragon GP in Spain.

The first section starts with the controversy from Motorland Aragon: the crash of Jorge Lorenzo, which the Ducati rider blames on Marc Marquez. This then pivots to a discussion about the championship rivalry that is brewing between Marquez and Andrea Dovizioso, as the pair once again found themselves trading corners in Spain.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Sunday MotoGP Summary at Aragon: Revisionist History, Learning from the Enemy, & The Ignominy of Records

By No Comments

How do you win a MotoGP race? In the Michelin era, you need a strategy. With all six tires that the French manufacturer brings to each weekend capable of lasting the race, selecting the right tire for your bike, and your setup, is crucial.

Once the race is under way, you have to manage your pace, know when you can push hard, and when you have to sit and wait. Watch for weakness by your rivals, try to match them when attack without wrecking your own chances. With spec electronics and a wide range of tire options, MotoGP is a more intellectual game.

But it has also become more of a gamble. To find the ideal setup, the best strategy is to focus on the race during free practice, rather than worry about qualifying. But that risks leaving a rider stuck in Q1, and having to juggle front tires for Q2. You get an extra rear tire if you go through from Q1 to Q2, but not an extra front.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Saturday MotoGP Summary at Aragon: MotoGP Emulating Moto3, Failed Mind Games, & Yamaha’s Descent Continues

By No Comments

It is a common enough sight in Grand Prix racing: slower riders cruising around at the edge of the track, waiting for a faster rider to come by so they can get a tow. It is especially common at the Motorland Aragon circuit. With its massive back straight of nearly a kilometer in length, a decent slipstream can be worth an awful lot.

It is less common to see slower riders cruising for a tow in MotoGP. In Moto3, sure: with horsepower at a premium, cutting down on drag equates to free speed. In Moto2 as well, as the fact that the bikes all produce exactly the same horsepower means that riders have to find an advantage anywhere they can.

But MotoGP? A lack of horsepower is not really a problem in the premier class. The bigger problem is usually transferring it to the tarmac to generate drive, and translate that power to speed.

But Aragon is different. Sure, tucking in behind another bike can give you extra speed using their draft, but above all, using another rider as a target makes you that little bit faster. “MotoGP is so close now that if you can follow someone, get a bit of a tow, that’s obviously going to improve your time,”

Bradley Smith explained on Saturday afternoon. “We don’t see it very often in MotoGP, to be honest, as much as it was today, but it shows how important it is here in Aragon.”

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Friday MotoGP Summary at Aragon: Test Benefits, Ducati Development, & The Yamaha’s Fundamental Flaws

By No Comments

What is the value of a MotoGP test? About a morning, if Aragon is anything to go by. At the end of FP1, before any real rubber had built up on the track, four Ducatis topped the timesheets.

When I asked Davide Tardozzi whether he was happy with the Ducatis looking so strong so early, he replied that this was just the benefit of testing. Watch and see what Marc Márquez does in the afternoon, Tardozzi said.

Sure enough, by FP2, Márquez had caught up and then passed the Ducatis. The Repsol Honda rider ended the day on top of the timesheets, a tenth ahead of the factory Ducati of Jorge Lorenzo, and half a second quicker than Andrea Dovizioso.

Cal Crutchlow was just behind Dovizioso on the LCR Honda, while Andrea Iannone was a fraction over a half a second behind Márquez. The advantage was already gone.

For Yamaha, there wasn’t any advantage at all. The Movistar Yamaha team had come to the track and found some gains, Maverick Viñales in particular taking confidence from the test, which he carried into the Misano weekend. That lasted all the way until Sunday, when the grip disappeared in the heat, and the Yamahas slid down the order.

Friday at Aragon was more of the same: competitive in the morning, when there was some grip, but nowhere in the afternoon, when the grip went. Rossi and Viñales made it through to Q2 by the skin of their teeth, though with no illusions of a podium, or more. Yamaha are in deep trouble, with no end to their misery in sight, but more on that later.

Keep Reading
By