Motogp Free Practice 3
Timmy Tatel
Jorge Martin continues to control the MotoGP class. The championship leader showed strong pace at the start of the session and put in a blistering lap at the end of the session to take top spot and dive under Pecco Bagnaia's outright lap record. Bagnaia tried to take his record back, but could not, the factory Ducati rider ending the session as second fastest.
Pedro Acosta continues to amaze on the Tech3 GASGAS machine, setting the third fastest time and comfortably the quickest of the KTM RC16 riders. Maverick Viales is fourth fastest on the factory Aprilia, fractionally ahead of an impressive Fabio Di Giannantonio on the VR46 Ducati. Jack Miller is the only factory Red Bull KTM in the top ten, teammate Brad Binder having a nightmare of a session and crashing out twice this afternoon, making it three crashes on Friday after one in the morning, all at the final right handers.
Aleix Espargaro put the second factory Aprilia into the top ten, just a third of a second off the best time of Jorge Martin, while Franco Morbidelli showed the benefit of the Jerez test by putting the second Pramac Ducati into eighth. Marco Bezzecchi was ninth on the second VR46 bike, while Fabio Quartararo put in a superhuman effort on the Monster Energy Yamaha to grab the final spot in Q2.
Enea Bastianini and Marc Marquez both missed out on Q2. Bastianini crashed out on his final attempt, while Marquez was struggling with rear pumping that cost him time and left him outside the top 10.
Inconceivable to me how different shaped, height, weight riders on different machines with different fuels and array of aerodynamic weaponry can get within that distance of each other over 4.19 kilometres. That's about a third of a second difference per kilometre. It's honestly beyond my belief how they can get it so tight, and yet here we are. Astounding. I'd actually loved to hear a sound based comparison - a noise that runs for the amount of time between 1st and 2nd, or between 1st and 21st. Just to get a physical idea of how incredibly small those gaps are.
But what the hell has happened to Alex Marquez? The last two years he has far exceeded my expectations, but now he is in the Honda swamp at the very back end. Can someone here enlighten me? He's in free-fall.
Finally a tv rant: As I watched the final 10 minutes of practice all I saw of 63 was that he was in danger (i.e. 10th). Then I saw he had moved up to 4th. Then 2nd. VideoPass only showed his final lap because by that time the rider who was on screen all the time had backed out of his final lap. That rider, who shall not be named, ended up 13th. Aaaargh
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If a chance ever presents itself then get along to watch a practice start, typically at the end of each session. It looks clumsy and clunky: riders get into position and fire away from their stationary stance with a gargle of sound and RPM note. It is the antithesis to the speed and flow of the laps they had previously been making on the track but it is perhaps the moment when the motorcycle is engaging most of its software and hardware to intense effect.
There is a subtle blend of technique from the rider and intricate technical performance from the motorcycle colliding together. The bikes are capable of 0-100 in just a couple of seconds so the measures are almost essential while the athlete has to consider timing, strength and harnessing the mechanical might of the bike to make the best launch.
But, contrasted to motocross, is the start really that vital? A motocross athlete can holeshot a Grand Prix from the very outside of the start gate; an equivalent on the seventh row of the MotoGP grid knows his chances of bountiful position gain is nigh-on impossible.
Franco Morbidelli, EG 0,0 Marc VDS: It is pretty tricky because there is a lot of electronics going on so it is difficult to fine-tune everything and every detail. Sometimes you can mistake something or adjust it in the wrong way and it ends up looking pretty bad from outside and on the data. The work we do is to adapt the electronics to the sprocket we have on the track. Different sprocket and gearing is of course a different type of acceleration and power delivery in first gear. We need to adapt and I also need to understand the biting point and how the acceleration is with the clutch. Everything has to be adjusted.
Aleix Espargaro, Aprilia Racing Team Gresini: I have to say that one of the weaknesses of the Aprilia is the launch control. We are working a lot, trying many clutches and every test we are trying many things. On the Aprilia the human ability is a lot more important. I remember on the Suzuki that the system was very different and the possibility to make a mistake was a lot smaller, but also to make a super-great start was not possible. The stability was better.
Luthi: When you get used to it then it feels normal and I would say it is easier to start a MotoGP bike than a Moto2 bike. You need a better feeling with the Moto2 bike whereas in MotoGP you just keep full with the throttle. Sure, you need to control wheelie, but those electronics help a lot. It is hard to take big step forward with the MotoGP bike but each small step gives motivation again. It is kind of up and down.
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i am unimpressed with the commentary on motogp practice ,it is the motogp world feed and not bt commentators ,i suspect it is to save money especially since Eurosport have " taken over " please bring back Gavin and co
TBH in this post-Rossi era been cutting down on the amount of coverage I want to watch anyway. Friday morning first practise sessions stay to catch up with paddock news, P2 for MotoGP as the final pre-qualifier then onto the quali sessions.
One thing I was disappointed about was there being no season preview programme earlier in the week. Had to make do with The Race MotoGP podcast, which makes for a handy nightcap listen as, if you think the World Commentary team are boring, they have nothing on those guys!
It is interesting to note that the rules state grid positions once determined (around 60 minutes after the timed practice for qualifying times and just 5 minutes between Q1 and Q2) are final and not subject to any protest or appeals and will not be revised for any infringements discovered after their determination even if reported to FIM MotoGP Stewards.
MotoGP is now more like F1 in that 2 out of 3 of the Practice Sessions are now exactly as the name indicates Free Practice Sessions, with the newly named 60 minute Practice Session the only one which counts in terms of fastest times.
There is still a need to push on the Friday, especially in the afternoon session to set the best times and it will be interesting to see how riders adjust to the new schedule with only one chance to qualify for Q2 straight away.
The first day of the MotoGP round at the historic Le Mans circuit in France, saw Jorge Martn lead the way in the first two practice sessions. The current World Championship leader broke the circuit record with a 1:30.388 time. Behind him was reigning world champion Pecco Bagnaia, 0,145s slower.
Pedro Acosta was third, continuing his rapid adaptation to MotoGP, who closed the day ahead of Maverick Viales, Fabio Di Giannantonio, Jack Miller, Aleix Espargar, Franco Morbidelli, Marco Bezzechi and Fabio Quartararo in the Top 10.
The Repsol Honda Team riders returned to work at the French Grand Prix. After a day of testing completed in Jerez following the last race, on Friday they tried to continue improving the performance of their Honda RC213V. In the practice sessions, 17 riders finished within the same second.
In the first free practice session, Mir and Marini finished in 21st and 22nd position, respectively. In the afternoon, both took an important step forward in their lap times. Mir was 18th, 1.33 seconds off the top spot.
Now to MotoGP. Practice went as we expected. Maverick Viales took pole position, even though qualifying was rained out, but I still feel he would probably have been right there and battling for pole. The track conditions were inconsistent, particularly as the night went on.
Cal Crutchlow is another rider that really struggled over this weekend. He started out with an oil leak in the first practice and he had to get on another bike. Sometimes if a weekend starts off badly it can end up positive, but sometimes it carries on. In this case when Cal got to the starting line of the race with the delay and as one of two Honda riders running the hard front tyre, the recommendation was given to both him and Mrquez to make the change.
Cal talked about it afterwards, he should have stuck to his guns and kept that hard front tyre, but he made that change and paid the price with that crash unfortunately. Then he picked the bike back up to continue up, but the throttle stuck because there was mud on the handlebar and so he had a second crash. Unfortunately that bad luck that started for him with the oil leak continued throughout the weekend. I believe, as he said, he probably could have finished in the top five. Hopefully he can turn it around by the time we get to Argentina.
He made the smart choice, which was to not push and take a chance of crashing and instead to take the fourth place points. He knows the championship is long and he learnt that lesson last year, by making the decision whether to keep pushing or to back off a little bit and be there to fight another day to get the best points out of the race. He did that, which was a smart choice.
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