‘At what point is very fast, too fast?’
One swallow doesn’t make a summer. But there was plenty of gulping in Qatar, when the first race turned out very different from all sensible predictions. Yamahas are slow, as we know; Losail’s straight is long… enough for Zarco’s Ducati to set a new top speed record in practice, at (gulp) 225.2mph.
Only a fool would bet against the red bikes, no?
Sunday came, and the evident truths were trumped by Maverick Viñales telling what he called “my truth”. With a brilliant win.
So does speed matter in racing? And if not, why not?
The numbers were highly suggestive. Zarco headed a phalanx of Italian muscle. Five of the six fastest were Dukes, Espargaro’s factory Honda fifth, And Viñales? Seventeenth at 216.4, that’s almost 10mph slower. As he demonstrated, speed is only partially influential on lap time and race craft. Speed burns more fuel and more tyre, the overall formula is complex. Anyway, a saying from long ago: why hurry a good race?
But a more serious question concerns the Holy Grail of modern MotoGP: safety.
At what point does very fast become too fast? MotoGP’s safety officers use a formula of minimum run-off area for the speed of a given corner. As speeds rise, due to better tyres and suspension performance, run-offs need to be extended. Eventually you reach the point where either spectators are so far away that they can no longer feel the thrill, or you run out of space. Qatar, in the lone and level sands of the desert, has plenty of room, and is in any case bereft of spectator pressure.
Coming up later this season, pandemic permitting, is Mugello, a very different matter. Here the previous top-speed record was set, by Dovi’s Ducati in 2019, a whisker short of 221mph. It will surely be beaten this year. And here the end of the fast straight is complicated by a jump over a brow, and a snatch at the brakes upon landing for a slow corner with restricted run-off. We have had two narrow escapes from very serious injury here in recent years, to Marc Marquez and Michele Pirro, each a claimant to the title of fastest-ever crash.
I dread the day that a chicane will be installed there, but dread still more the thought of a fatality. And I fear that it is only a matter of time before we have one or the other.
‘As speeds rise you need ever more run-off’