‘Come clean on reason for Lorenzo’s big crash’
There was something missing from the finish line of the Thai GP. It was Jorge Lorenzo’s Ducati, which might even have won the race if, er... circumstances hadn’t interfered. Actually there was something else missing. An explanation from Ducati about exactly what happened to slew the Spaniard sideways, and then shoot him skywards at some speed in Free Practice. Something caused his Desmosedici’s engine revs to drop rapidly, precipitating a horrible crash. But while Ducati admitted it had been a “technical” failure, they declined to give details.
Which has just one result; wild speculation, that is potentially much worse than the truth. Better they should tell us, before we suspect the worst.
Once upon a time, “technical” failures were easier to get a handle on. You could see what happened when a two-stroke seized, and hear the back tyre chirrup. This happened less often as they became more sophisticated. In the early days, one of the pioneering smokers (a Suzuki, as it happens) earned the doom- laden nickname “Whispering Death” from riders who always kept their hands hovering over the clutch lever. Anyway, four-strokes don’t generally seize that way, so it probably wasn’t that. Another kind of failure is not impossible; a mechanic’s error, which perhaps prevented the rear brake from releasing.
These are far from unknown. There have been some classic cases; like when Dani Pedrosa’s throttle jammed open on only his second lap at Motegi in 2010, smashing his collarbone and ending his hopes of closing down on Lorenzo for a one-and-only premierclass title. An anonymous mechanic was blamed for leaving a cleaning rag in the engine.
Errors often concern brakes. Barry Sheene’s father Franco was eased out of the Suzuki pit after one such incident. Kenny Roberts’s disc pads were inserted the wrong way round at Assen in 1981, bare metal against the discs. He lost the title that year.
My favourite tale concerns Eddie Lawson, after a mechanic left the retaining clips off his front brakes, and he broke his foot slamming into the wall Laguna Seca. He told me afterwards: “I want that guy to always do my brakes from now on. He won’t make that mistake again.” Matter of fact, Lorenzo crashed at Qatar due to brake failure, seemingly because a pad came out, though that too was never explained.
‘Wild speculation is often worse than the truth’