The coronavirus has struck another blow to the MotoGP Championship calendar for 2020, with news today that the British GP round at Silverstone, as well as the Australian GP round at Phillip Island have been canceled.
Every year at the British GP round, a special event is held on the Thursday before the races. It is called the Day of Champions, and it raises money for our favorite charity here at Asphalt & Rubber, Two Wheels for Life.
Now in its 30th year of running, the highlight of the Day of Champions is the rider auction at the end of the day, where special memorabilia and opportunities are sold to the highest bidder to raise money for the charity.
At this year’s Silverstone round, the Day of Champions raised £286,000 at auction, before the weekend’s final tally was made, and well on its way to surpassing the £300,000 that was raised last year.
Episode 115 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett joined by Stephen English, as the trio discusses the British GP at Silverstone.
A race bookended with events, there is no shortage of topics to cover, and the guys give us the inside details from the MotoGP paddock.
Swinging a lens for us at the British GP, photographer Tony Goldsmith gives us a glimpse of the MotoGP action at Silverstone.
Photos: © 2019 Tony Goldsmith / www.tonygoldsmith.co.uk – All Rights Reserved
Confidence plays a key role in racing. Having confidence in yourself, in your team, in your bike, in your strategy. If you have confidence in every part of the jigsaw puzzle which goes to make up motorcycle racing, you can exceed expectations.
Motorcycle racing may play out on 300 hp machines around six kilometer stretches of asphalt, but the fifteen centimeters of gray matter between the ears is where winning and losing is decided.
That confidence is what explains so much of Marc Márquez’ success throughout his career. He has confidence in his ability, gained through hours and hours of practice, and hard training in preparation.
He has confidence in his team, having worked with the same group of people for most of his career. He has confidence in his bike: it may not do everything he would want, but he understands exactly what it will and won’t do, and can make it do what he needs it to do.
He has confidence in the ability of his team and himself to come up with a strategy to cope with whatever a race weekend throws at them.
All these things combined are what has allowed him to win five MotoGP championships and 50 MotoGP races. Each of these elements of confidence feeds into the other, in a virtuous circle, making him stronger.
And they allow him to take risks at the right time to gain maximum advantage.
Swinging a lens for us at the British GP, photographer Tony Goldsmith gives us a glimpse of the MotoGP action at Silverstone.
Has the resurfacing of Silverstone been a success. Judging by the reaction from the riders, you would have to say yes. “I don’t think you’ll speak to another rider today who doesn’t have a smile on his face, because the asphalt is amazing, the grip is amazing,” Jack Miller raved, echoing the thoughts of most riders.
The timesheets proved that they were not just saying that at the behest of the Silverstone PR people. It took Marc Márquez 4 laps of the track to beat the best time set during FP1 in 2018, his time already faster than the existing race lap record.
By the end of FP1, Fabio Quartararo was within a whisker of the outright lap record set in 2017. That record was beaten first by Valentino Rossi at the end of FP2, then destroyed by Fabio Quartararo five seconds later. Quartararo’s best lap in FP2 was over seven tenths quicker than Márquez’ pole record from 2017.
It was much the same pattern in Moto2 and Moto3. Tony Arbolino smashed the outright lap record in FP1 for the Moto3 class. In Moto2, Fabio Di Giannantonio broke the outright lap record by six tenths in FP1, then in the afternoon FP2 session, Jorge Navarro took another seven tenths off the time set in the morning.
The track is much, much faster. On Thursday, Jarno Zaffelli, the man who had drawn up the requirements, and then overseen and monitored the laying of the new asphalt, had predicted that the race lap record might be cut by as much as 1.7 seconds on Sunday. It is looking increasingly likely that that is a realistic target.
Swinging a lens for us at the British GP, photographer Tony Goldsmith gives us a glimpse of the MotoGP action at Silverstone.
While much was made of the track’s issues with wet weather last year, for 2019 the talk is all about the heat and the sun. Let’s hope Sunday’s race has the same intensity as the weather.
The Triumph Daytona Moto2 765 officially debuted today, at a special event held at the Silverstone circuit during the British GP.
This means the details and images were finally released on this road-going version of the Moto2 racing platform, of which only 1,530 units will be created (765 will be coming to the USA).
Of course, what we really want to know is the nitty-gritties from the spec sheet. As such, 128hp gets made at 12,250 rpm, while peak torque is set at 59 lbs•ft. Triumph has yet to confirm a dry or wet weight, however.
This time last year, the entire paddock was stood in the rain, looking at the skies, and wondering how we were ever going to have a MotoGP race at Silverstone again.
After a brief shower of torrential rain on Saturday put more water on the track than the new surface could drain away, making the track unrideable and creating conditions which saw a series of riders crash at the end of Hangar Straight, Tito Rabat coming off worst as Franco Morbidelli’s wayward Honda smashed into his leg and destroyed his femur.
With the forecast for rain later on Sunday, the race was rescheduled for an early start, the lights due to go out at 11:30am local time. But the rain came earlier than forecast, and was heavier, and the track never dried out. There was standing water at several sections around the track.
We waited, and we waited, and we waited. And we looked at one another and asked, have you heard anything? And every time we heard about a possible start time, or a time to evaluate track conditions, that was contradicted or retracted ten minutes later.
In the end, conditions never improved enough to be able to run the race safely, and after an impromptu meeting of the Safety Commission convened by at least some of the riders, race day was canceled. No MotoGP race, no Moto2 race, no Moto3 race.
Nothing. The crowds, who had sat valiantly in the rain for hours with nothing to see except the safety car and its attendant bow wave, went home with surprisingly little fuss. Hard to riot when you are stone cold freezing and wet to the bone, I suppose.
It looks like our Bothan spies were right yet again, because Triumph has confirmed our report from earlier this year that the Triumph Daytona 765 Moto2 bike would come to market as a limited edition machine.
Officially called the Triumph Daytona Moto2 765 Limited Edition, the bike is exactly as you would expect – a Moto2 race bike with lights and street-legal.