MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

Silverstone was the first chance the media got to ask the riders on the two big changes to MotoGP made over the summer break. In the second half of the 2023 season, Friday morning practice has been changed to no longer count toward qualifying, and from this race onward, tire pressures will be monitored to be above the minimum set out in the rules, and infractions will be penalized.

The reaction to these two changes was mixed through the paddock. The change to the schedule was welcomed, but few riders felt it would have a significant impact. Johann Zarco was one of the biggest fans of the change. "The Friday morning is easier like this because in case you want to use the soft rear tire for the long race on Sunday, it means it's the only tire that works well," The Pramac Ducati rider said. "And if you have to do a lap time on Friday morning because it can rain on Friday afternoon, you are too limited with the tires."

Having only Friday afternoon practice timed meant you no longer had to worry about the weather, "So at least you don't look at the forecast for the Friday afternoon. You just work on the morning, get this feeling and then you are focused as a qualifying at the end of the practice on Friday afternoon. So less stress and strategy, better with one tire saved," Zarco explained.

RNF Aprilia's Miguel Oliveira felt pretty much the same. "It will help," the Portuguese rider said. "FP1, everyone will be more relaxed about how the weather will be in the afternoon, and not needing to put a quick lap time in already at the end of the session. It’s going to be better in that regard."

From free practice to free Friday

Oliveira was hoping this would eventually lead to a bigger change to the schedule. "It’s a good step in a nice direction to having a completely free Friday." If both sessions of Friday practice didn't count toward Q2, that would free up more time for testing, and help some of the struggling factories out, he explained. "If you’re not changing the concession rules for the manufacturers, then you have to plan to have a free Friday just to be able to test things in a normal way. No teams have concessions so obviously it makes the guys who have a bit of an advantage and have more bikes on track, it plays a clear advantage for them technically."

For other riders, the change would not make that much difference. "It doesn’t change so much in my opinion," Luca Marini said. "For us as riders it will be the same because sometimes if you are sure that in P2 it will be sunny or similar weather or temperature, you can wait in P1 and not do any time attacks. I made this strategy during the year and I also remember Pecco a lot of the times."

Pecco Bagnaia saw it very much the same way. "For me, for my work it won’t change anything because I wasn’t considering FP1 like a session counting towards Q2," the factory Ducati rider told the press conference. "I was already working for the race without putting new tires and it was my strategy so for me it will be the same, but it will be less pressure which is a big change."

Aleix Espargaro agreed. "It will not change our life," the Aprilia rider said. "I think in the last two GPs Pecco and I were the only ones that did not throw a soft tire on the rear, so for us it would be the same." Where it might help is in testing new parts with less pressure. "During the summer break Aprilia worked hard and we have some new parts. It will be easier to try during practice 1."

Under pressure

The other big change is to the tire pressures, and the way the minimum pressures are to be enforced. Michelin motorsports boss Piero Taramasso set out how the new rules would work in practice. "The target value for the front tire is set at 1.88 bar, and the rear tire at 1.68 bar," Taramasso said in a statement. "These pressures must be respected for 30% of the time of the Sprint Race, and 50% of the Grand Prix. These values may vary slightly upwards or downwards depending on the circuit."

But not every rider will have their pressures monitored, GPOne.com's Matteo Aglio reported. The teams have been told that a number of riders will be selected at random, and their pressures will be examined to see if they are below the minimum for longer than the allowed period during the race. How the riders will be selected – completely at random, or the top three finishers plus a random selection of other riders – has not yet been clarified.

Overall, there was still a lot of resistance to the new tire pressure penalties. Opinions fell into three camps: one group were fundamentally opposed, perhaps because they expected to be penalized; another group were not against penalties per se, but believed enforcing the tire pressures would lead to the racing being strung out, as riders dropped back to try to cool their tires and lower the pressure; and the last group were at best indifferent, believing it would not make very much difference. To them at least.

Sticking together

First, why is Michelin enforcing such a high minimum pressure? The reason given is safety: run too low a pressure for too long, and the tire carcass moves too much, which can weaken the construction of the tire. Michelin claim to have seen signs of this already, Aleix Espargaro told us. "They said they cut some tires and they started to lose a little bit," the Aprilia rider said.

But multiple riders told us that they had run with very low pressure without incident. "I think the tire pressure rules they were thinking was for the safety, but we have proved that with a low pressure in front, it's not dangerous for the bikes, for the tires. We didn't have any tire burst," Johann Zarco said.

"I understand Michelin is looking for the safety – perfect, us too – but the limit is too high," Aleix Espargaro said. "The first lap I did in Germany I was 1.55 bar. Now they put the limit at 1.87. It’s not something you can really control."

The problem with such high pressures is that the bike becomes more difficult to ride. "I hate to ride at 2 bars," the Aprilia rider told us. "It is a disaster. In Assen I was fast but could not be better than P3 for this. Nobody likes to ride at 2.1. At 2.1-2.3 the bike is moving and it is easy to crash."

Compensating for straight braking

Why are the riders crashing when the pressure gets too high? Factory Ducati rider Enea Bastianini gave the best and clearest explanation I have heard in a long time. A higher tire pressure meant there was a smaller contact patch at the front, and that made it easy to lock the front in braking. "We have a lot of front locking and front locking in the hard braking like in Austria, it's so so dangerous. When you are behind another riders and the front locks, you go straight."

The reason riders are crashing so often is that they are having to compensate in trail braking in the second phase of corner entry to try to make up ground lost when the front locks braking in a straight line, Bastianini explained.

"When the pressure is too high, on the angle you have a little bit less grip, but the main problem is on entry and braking," the Factory Ducati rider told me. "You lose the front, because you had front locking, and you have to push more on the brakes when you are on the angle. Because it's difficult to stop the bike braking straight, because the front slides."

When the pressure of the front tire rises, it balloons, making a smaller contact patch when upright. When you brake in a straight line, the tire compresses less, again meaning the contact patch is smaller.

More contact

When you lean the bike over, the tires are designed to make the contact patch larger, to provide you more grip. This is true for the front in braking, but it is also true in acceleration, with riders referring to the drive part of the tire, the fatter contact patch you get once you pick the bike up.

What riders are trying to do is to exploit that larger contact patch to brake harder when the bike is leaned over for entry, and before the bike reaches maximum lean. But because you are starting to turn the bike as well as stop the bike, the front tire is doing two things at once, part of the grip going to turning, part of the grip going to braking. Try to do a little bit too much of either one of those and the tire cries foul, and off you go into the gravel.

So to avoid this situation, riders try to keep the front as cool as possible. But if you are right behind another rider - or even worse, behind a group of riders - the tire temperature starts to go up, and that translates into more pressure. The only way to drop the temperature (and therefore lower the pressure) was to drop back and create some fresh air between yourself and the rider in front of you.

Strung out

That's why riders think the field is going to become very strung out. "It is a very good way to make the races more boring," Aleix Espargaro said. "Because we will see bikes with one second between them. I told you guys after Assen – I don’t want that it sounds bad but I was faster than Brad in Assen but I couldn’t get close to him because he brakes super-late and I could not overtake him. My pressure was too high so I was around one second until the last lap when I got closer...and this is what you will see. You will see one guy at the front pulling away and nobody will be able to do anything, you will have to go like a train. Hopefully not, hopefully not in cold races but in normal races this will happen."

There is a suspicion that this will affect some riders and teams more than others. That was clear from the reaction of some riders. The Ducati riders seemed particularly concerned. "Now the variation of the pressure – if you stay in the slipstream or not is too big, so also for the team it is impossible," Luca Marini told us. "We will see what will happen but the most important thing of all is the safety of the riders. So I hope we will not have a problem because of this change."

Johann Zarco was another rider who was very concerned, believing it would have a big impact on him. When I pointed out that the rules have been in place for the past year and a half, so presumably he and his team had a lot of experience sticking to the minimum tire pressures, the Frenchman became slightly evasive.

"We try to do our races in the good range and we are in the range, the problem is for some reason, sometimes we are just a bit under… and the problem is you can get so high very quick and there's a very big difference in the race if you're alone or not," Zarco explained. "If you brake, if you don't brake, it's changing a lot and this makes the situation a bit difficult to control."

Staying in range

"We were not too low compared the rules," Zarco insisted. "We were in the range, but sometimes to be in the range we have to start low and as I said, there is only one rider or two that will be able to be in the slipstream when they need to warm the tire and get out when they have to cool down the tire."

The rider Zarco is referring to is reigning champion Pecco Bagnaia. The Italian seems to have found a way to ride the Ducati which doesn't overload the front, and because he is so very fast over a single lap, he will usually find himself starting from the front row of the grid. Though some Ducati riders may suffer with the new rules, Pecco Bagnaia is most likely not one of them.

There are other riders who were not concerned, mostly because they were already complying with both the letter and the spirit of the rules. "Not a big difference, because from the beginning of the season, we are trying always to not go under the minimum numbers, and stay inside the range," LCR Honda rider Takaaki Nakagami told us. The Hondas and Yamahas have tended to be a stickler for the rules, and the Aprilias have been closer to complying than to breaking the rules. The KTMs have found a way to take load off the front in braking, which makes them less susceptible. So that leaves only Ducati...

The current problem will probably only last until 2025, when Michelin will bring a new front with a bigger profile and larger volume in. That increase in air capacity should make the tire much better able to cope with increases in temperature. But until then, we are stuck with these problems.

Fitness roll call

Silverstone sees the return of the walking wounded, as many riders who were injured in the first half of the season are close to being back to full fitness. Pol Espargaro was the worst of the injured, breaking his jaw and fracturing vertebrae at Portimão. He is finally fit enough to race, though he expects not to be quite at 100%, with still some strength to build up.

Joan Mir is at 100%, fully recovered after injuring his hand in a crash at Mugello. Likewise, Enea Bastianini is both fit and has recovered all of the strength in the shoulder he broke, and the arm which it supported. "At the gym I made the same exercises as before the crash. And also with the Panigale I made many consecutive laps and it was OK," the Factory Ducati rider said.

Marc Marquez is in much better shape than he had been after the Sachsenring, but he was still having some problems with the ankle he damaged in the litany of crashes he has suffered since the start of the year. Sport5 commentator Tammy Gorali counted crashes by Marc Marquez and Pecco Bagnaia, and then calculated the average distance between crashes.

With 14 crashes to Bagnaia's 7, Marc Marquez is crashing at double the rate. But Pecco Bagnaia has raced all eight rounds and completed most of the races, so on average, he is crashing once every 616.75 km. Marc Marquez has missed a lot of races, and is yet to finish in a Sunday grand prix race. The Repsol Honda rider is averaging 104 km between crashes.

Put another way, Marquez is crashing at nearly six times the rate of Bagnaia. And given that the average length of a grand prix race is around 110 km, you can understand why he is yet to finish one.

Moto2 benefits

Finally, there was a presentation by Triumph and Dorna on Thursday evening, at which they announced that Triumph had extended the contract to supply engines to the Moto2 class through the 2029 season. That gives the Moto2 class some much-needed stability, which also helps keeps costs down.

Overall, the Triumph 765 engine has been a major success in Moto2, bringing the bikes much closer to a MotoGP machine than the previous Honda CBR600 engines. The Triumph triples have more torque, and can be picked up earlier to get drive out of corners, allowing more of a MotoGP point-and-shoot riding style. Though electronics are minimal, they are still more than the previous Honda kit, allowing riders and teams to learn the basics.

The biggest news, however, was that Triumph would be bringing a special race gearbox to the Moto2 class from 2025. This will be a modified version of the current gearbox, but with neutral at the top instead of between first and second, and with a lockout to prevent riders accidentally engaging neutral while shifting. That has been a big problem at some tracks with first gear corners, where if you are not positive enough with your shifts, you can get stuck in neutral when changing down, something which can easily cause a crash as the load is not there when you try to apply the throttle.

Triumph product boss Steve Sargent explained that competing in Moto2 had brought huge marketing benefits – whenever the Street Triple was mentioned in publications, the fact that it is used in Moto2 was invariably also mentioned – but it had also had R&D implications. By having 30 racers push the engines to the limit each weekend, Triumph's engineers got a better look at how very high stress environments affected engine wear, and allowed them to be less conservative. If they can survive the likes of Sam Lowes, Pedro Acosta, Tony Arbolino, Jake Dixon, and Alonso Lopez stamping up and down through the gears and hanging the engine on the limiter, they can handle pretty much any abuse on the street.

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