‘I WAS JUST TRYING TO SURVIVE!’
Loriz Baz has tyre blowout while flat-out in top
A fearful hush descended over the Sepang Sepang paddock when a reartyre failure caused Loris Baz to crash at 180mph. Miraculously the Frenchman walked away with nothing more than bruising and a grazed elbow. But that didn’t stop his rivals worrying about their own fate. Moto GP’s new tyre supplier Michelin responded to the concerns by immediately withdrawing all soft-compound tyres – as used by Baz – for the remainder of the three-day, pre-season test. The reasons for the disaster weren’t immediately clear. Some insisted the rear suspension of Baz’s Avintia Ducati had collapsed, causing the tyre to fail. Others suspected Sepang’s ultra-high track temperatures and sustained high speeds were to blame. Others suggested Avintia were running lower than recommended tyre pressures in search of extra grip, thus creating catastrophic tyre temperatures. Whatever the reason, the failure is a huge worry for Michelin, who have just six weeks before the season-opening GP in Qatar. The French company, that won 26 premier-class world titles between 1976 and 2006, have replaced Bridgestone as Moto GP’s official tyre supplier after a seven-year absence. Baz, 23, mostly laughed off the incident, suggesting that surviving a potentially fatal accident was like being born again. “These things can happen!” smiled the former WSB race-winner. “I was in sixth gear – the data said 292kmh – and at first I thought the engine had seized because the rear wheel locked. From that moment until I crashed was just a matter of seconds – I was just trying to survive! I tried to stay on the bike but it was impossible. I just hoped I wouldn’t slide into a wall because on the straight there’s no run-off. At first I was sliding backwards, so I turned round to see where I was going. My leathers are destroyed and I just have one graze on my elbow.” Baz rode again five hours later, after his mechanics had built up his spare bike. Like his rivals, he was only allowed to run Michelin’s harder-compound tyres for the rest of the test. “I had no problem going out again,” he added. “I was using the harder tyres, so no way would this happen again.” Michelin believe Baz’s engineers may have been trying lower-than-advised pressures. Avintia deny this. “We had two issues with Baz,” said Michelin’s Moto GP technical director Nicolas Goubert. “Before the crash he had blisters in a rear tyre because we think they were using pressures outside our recommendations. We don’t know what pressure they were running in the second tyre.” To avoid further accidents Michelin asked Moto GP teams’ association IRTA to make TPMS (electronic tyre-pressure monitoring systems) compulsory. TPMS devices are situated inside tyres and now must be used by all Moto GP teams. They are also to be used in Moto2 following tyre problems last year, caused by teams using low pressures. “We are sure Baz’s problem was due to too little pressure, which caused the tyre to deform and break up,” adds Goubert. “But we can’t assume why the tyre had too little pressure – perhaps he had a puncture, a leaking valve or something else. All we know is that we tested at Sepang in January with Colin Edwards and [Yamaha test rider] Katsuyuki Nakasuga. We used 100 of these tyres, without problems.” Another potential factor in the tyre failure is Baz’s size and weight. At 79 kilos and 1.9 metres he is the heaviest and tallest rider in Moto GP. His height requires a seating position that shifts his weight rearward, further exacerbating the load problem. “Moto GP bikes are very demanding – powerful and quite heavy – so you have to be very careful,” said Goubert. “Obviously something went wrong and we’ll do everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again. We have talked to IRTA about TPMS, which has been used in car racing for years.” High-speed tyre blowouts have been an issue ever since Moto GP four-strokes arrived a decade and a half ago. Most famously Shinya Nakano crashed at 200mph when his rear Bridgestone delaminated during the 2003 Mugello GP, he escaped relatively unharmed. Not all riders were as relaxed as Baz about returning to the track after his crash. “I was very angry when the green light came on again,” said Suzuki’s Aleix Espargaro. “Michelin said the problem would not happen again, but I didn’t agree. Racing is dangerous, but we should be more careful…”