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Paddock Pass Podcast #158 – Austrian GP

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Episode 158 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and it sees us covering the incredible Austrian GP at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, Austria.

As such on the mics, we have David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Steve English, as the trio discusses the latest round of the MotoGP Championship.

The guys have no shortage of topics to discuss for this one, and right off the bat there is the conversation about the incident between Johann Zarco and Franco Morbidelli, and the massive controversy that the crash created.

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MotoGP

Saturday MotoGP Summary at the Austrian GP: Desmo Dovi Divorce Overshadows Qualifying

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It was one of those days. We had a fascinating FP4 session for the MotoGP class, where a clear pattern emerged for the race, followed by a thrilling and action-packed qualifying, yet barely anyone is talking about that at all.

And all because early on Saturday afternoon, the bombshell dropped that Andrea Dovizioso will be leaving Ducati at the end of the 2020 season.

Though the news itself did not quite come as a surprise, the timing and nature of the announcement caught us all a little off guard. Ducati had said they had hoped to make a decision after the two races at the Red Bull Ring.

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MotoGP

Friday MotoGP Summary at the Austrian GP: A Wasted Session, KTM vs. Ducati, & Yamaha as Supplicant

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We nearly got away with it. The clouds hung heavy over the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg for much of the morning, but it stayed dry for all three classes, and the Red Bull Rookies practice as well – I will leave it to the imagination of the reader as to why the Red Bull Rookies are racing in Spielberg this weekend.

But halfway through FP2 for the Moto3 class, at the beginning of the afternoon, the heavens parted and the deluge began.

The weird thing about the rain is that it was so incredibly localized. The Red Bull Ring is a relatively compact circuit, not elongated like Assen, or spread out over a vast territory like Silverstone, so to have a downpour in Turn 3, the track completely soaked and water running across the track, while a few hundred meters downhill, along the front straight and at Turn 1, the track was completely dry, made for impossible conditions.

A few Moto3 riders nearly got caught out as they hammered up the hill toward Turn 3, then found themselves unable to brake for the corner and forced to run wide.

And so MotoGP lost out on FP2 almost completely. The track was neither one thing nor the other, soaking wet at the top half, between Turns 3 and 4, and desert dry down the bottom near the pits.

It was way too dangerous to go out on slicks, and a waste of time to go out on rain tires and burn up the limited sets they have. The wet parts of the track were wet enough for the soft wets, the dry parts of the track were capable of destroying even the medium wet within a few laps.

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MotoGP Preview of the Austrian GP – The Risk of Riding in the Rain at the Red Bull Ring

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A short hop over the Alps – or rather, a short drive south, and then west between the Alps, to avoid the slow but spectacular progress over the mountain passes to the north of Spielberg – and the MotoGP paddock reassembles at the Red Bull Ring in Austria.

From one of the best tracks on the calendar, plagued by financial problems, to one of the best-funded tracks on the calendar, plagued by the fact that, well, frankly, it’s not a very good circuit for motorcycle racing.

The setting is spectacular, nestled at the foot of the hills rising from the valley of the river Mur and heading up to snow-capped peaks a couple of kilometers skywards.

The circuit sits on a slope at the bottom of those hills, making for a surprisingly steep climb up to Turn 1, then up the hill to Turn 3, along the hillside to Turn 4, before rolling down through a huge Omega right-left-right combination to get back to the bottom of the hill, and the straight which runs along it.

But the circuit belies its heritage, as a spectacular but treacherous mountain circuit crossing hills and woods.

And like many mountain circuits, there is little room for mistakes, with runoff limited at Turn 1, Turn 3, between the barriers from Turn 3 to Turn 4, and at the bottom of the hill into the final corner. In the dry, it is all just about manageable. But in the wet, it can be a terrifying place.

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Paddock Pass Podcast #113 – Austrian GP

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Episode 113 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett come together on the microphones, as we discuss the happenings at the Autrian GP at the Red Bull Ring.

In this episode, there is no shortage of topics to cover – thanks largely in part to KTM releasing a bevy of announcements at its home round.

Of course, before the start of the Austrian round, there was talk about the Repsol Honda garage, and whether Jorge Lorenzo would be departing it. By the end of the weekend, the conversation was still about Repsol Honda, but instead focused on the last-turn loss that was handed to them by Ducati Corse.

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MotoGP

Johann Zarco & KTM Part Ways for 2020

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The Austrian round of MotoGP has been a weekend of bombshells. After the news that Ducati and Jorge Lorenzo had been in talks to replace Jack Miller in the Pramac squad before the weekend, on Sunday night it emerged that Johann Zarco asked to be released from his contract with KTM for 2020.

The Frenchman has long been unhappy with the Austrian factory, sometimes very publicly so. Since the moment he jumped on the KTM RC16, he has struggled to adapt to the bike.

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Saturday MotoGP Summary at the Austrian GP: The Real Gap Disguised By a Superlative Pole

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Is four tenths of a second a realistic gap between first and second on the grid at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg? It doesn’t represent the real strength of the riders on the first two or three rows. The gap separating the group capable of battling for the podium is a couple of tenths, give or take.

And it doesn’t represent a realistic pace around the Red Bull Ring. Sure, you can flirt with laps of 1’22 for a lap or two, but to do so requires burning through your tires at an unsustainable rate.

You can get down to the mid to low 1’23s on both the soft and medium rear Michelins, but to do so requires you to stress the edge of the tire to the extreme, overheating it and wearing it out in the space of 5 laps, not the 28 laps the race will last.

The soft will do race distance – Michelin expect most riders to be choosing between the medium and the soft rears – but it takes a little more careful management.

If anything is going to be a limiting factor at the Red Bull Ring, it is going to be fuel. Spend 28 laps with the throttle wide open for most of the lap, and you burn through gasoline at a rate of knots.

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Friday MotoGP Summary at the Austrian GP: Marquez vs. Dovizioso…and Yamaha

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Another track, another day of Marc Márquez dominance. He was only second in the Friday morning session, 0.185 seconds behind Andrea Dovizioso, but he had a formidable pace from the start.

22 laps all on the same tires, ending with a lap of 1’24.566, which was faster than Alex Rins in seventh, who had set a quick lap on a new soft rear tire.

In the afternoon, Márquez stepped up the pace, this time keeping a soft rear for the full session instead of the medium he had used in the morning.

This time, at the end of his 23 laps on the same soft rear, he posted a lap of 1’24.708. 23 laps is just five shy of race distance. If Marc Márquez is going that fast that late in the race, he will be a hard man to beat.

The Repsol Honda garage was busy, too. In the afternoon, Márquez finally debuted the updated aero package he had tested at Brno, consisting of larger upper wings, and slightly broader lower wings.

Fitting the fairing meant hiding the bikes behind screens to protect their naked form from prying eyes, or rather, prying cameras. But the fairings, they cannot hide. Nor the carbon frames neither.

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MotoGP Preview of the Austrian GP

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Racing in Austria has always been about speed. When Grand Prix motorcycles first raced in Austria, they went to the Salzburgring, a hairy, narrow track that snakes along one section of the mountain east of Salzburg, then down a bit, and then all the way back again.

It was fast, and it was terrifying, and by the time Grand Prix left the track, the average speed of a lap was over 194 km/h. But it was also incredibly dangerous, with no runoff in sections, and steel barriers along large parts of the track.

After abandoning the Salzburgring, Grand Prix moved to the A1 Ring, the predecessor of the modern Red Bull Ring.

The A1 Ring was a shortened and neutered version of the original Österreichring, a terrifyingly quick circuit that rolled over the hill which overlooks the little town of Spielberg, where the F1 cars reached average speeds of over 255 km/h.

The original circuit is still there, at least in outline, visible from the satellite view of Google Maps.

Shortened and neutered it may have been, but speeds were still high. In 1997, Mick Doohan took pole for the race at an average speed of 175 km/h, faster than the 171 km/h average speed for pole at Phillip Island, a notoriously quick track.

When MotoGP returned to Austria after an absence of 20 years, speeds were still high: Andrea Iannone’s pole lap was set with an average speed of nearly 187 km/h, making it the fastest track on the calendar.

And yet the track is not fast in the traditional sense. It is not fast and flowing like Phillip Island, Mugello, Assen, or Termas de Rio Hondo.

Nor it is a track where the bikes explore the limits of outright top speed: at the Red Bull Ring, the highest recorded speed is 316.5km/h on the climb up the hill, 40 km/h slower than the front straight at Mugello, where they have clocked 356.7 km/h.

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Could Jorge Lorenzo Take Jack Miller’s Place at Pramac Ducati?

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You would think, with only two riders not yet signed up for 2020, and both of those (Jack Miller and Takaaki Nakagami) saying they are just working out the details, that there would not be much drama over contracts in the MotoGP paddock.

Things are not quite the same in the WorldSBK paddock, where Alvaro Bautista’s reign of terror has come to a very premature end, opening all sorts of speculation for the 2020 season.

Those two strands are starting to come together after Brno, amplified by moves in Moto2 and WorldSBK. The rumors are flying, some more sensible than others. And many of them are very much in the category of insanity.

At the core of these rumors is Jorge Lorenzo, and his extended absence from the MotoGP paddock due to the injuries sustained in his crashes at the Barcelona test and practice at Assen.

Since then, the rumor mill has gone into overdrive, with questions over whether Lorenzo will continue with Repsol Honda or try to do something else.

Over the summer break, there were rumors he would retire, and the latest rumor has him going back to Ducati in some form or another.

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Lifestyle

Here’s Your Chance to Make Your Mark in the Motorcycle Industry

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Do you have an interest in shaping the future of the motorcycle industry, and playing an integral part in deciding what new motorcycles come to market? Well, here is your chance.

Our friends at KISKA sent over this job position opening, in the hopes that there is an Asphalt & Rubber reader out there that wants to be part of the future for the KTM and Husqvarna brands.

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