Mat Oxley reveals why GP riders put it all on the line to grab pole
Most races are won by a few metres, so it’s never been more vital to qualify well. Mat Oxley reveals how riders risk everything to get the ultimate grid position
MotoGP is closer than ever and overtaking is more difficult than ever, so race weekends have never been more complicated for riders and engineers. Not so long ago Fridays and Saturdays were all about working on race pace. That is still the big deal, but the action is so close now that if you qualify badly you end up deep in the pack at the first corner, so you may never catch the leaders. Qualifying is now so vital that it all starts before qualifying! The fastest ten riders at the end of the three 45-minute FP1, FP2 and FP3 sessions go directly into the 15-minute Q2 qualifier, in which riders fight for the top four rows of the grid. Going straight into Q2 is a huge boost to any rider’s morale and simplifies his weekend.
Maximum stress
That’s why even FP1, FP2 and FP3 are stressful. Saturday afternoon’s 30-minute FP4 outing is now the only session in which teams can work on set-up without worrying about lap times.
“In FP1, FP2 and FP3 you never know which is going to be the fastest session, so you’re always on edge,” says factory Ducati rider Jack Miller. “But this is the key to jumping straight to Q2. If it comes down to FP3 you try to do your time with one rear tyre, but if you end up throwing three rears at getting into Q2 you’re already running short on tyres.” Keeping enough tyres for the race is always a worry in MotoGP. Riders are allowed a maximum of six soft rears, so it’s easy to run short, especially if the soft option is the race tyre.
“Most guys will use one soft rear in FP2 to check how the balance of the bike changes with more grip,” explains Miguel Oliveira’s KTM crew chief Paul Trevathan. “Then 90% of them will use two or maybe three softs at the end of FP3, because getting into Q2 is massively important. That’s why I call it QP 0.5.
“If you make it into Q2 at the end of FP3 the rest of the weekend is much easier. It means you can work on the bike in FP4, because the rider is in a better place.”
One more chance
Riders who miss Q2 get another chance in Q1, which promotes the first and second fastest to Q2. But they already know they’re struggling.
“If you miss Q2 you get angry, there’s no other feeling,” says KTM’s Danilo Petrucci. “If you’re 15th on the grid it means you are in trouble, so you cannot say you will fight for the podium. That’s why good qualifying and a good start are half the race.”
There are other negatives to being on the third row or worse.
“If you start from the front you can keep your pace and manage your tyres and the other riders in a better way, because each year it becomes more difficult to overtake,” adds Petrucci. “To pass you need to accelerate harder or brake later, so you have to open the throttle more, so you slide more, so you use more rear tyre, or you brake later, so you overheat the front tyre. Even if you can recover some positions and get to the front, your race is already done because your tyres are in worse condition than the guys who started at the front.”
Everything has to be perfect
MotoGP qualifying is superstressful – 15 minutes is enough for two runs, two or three hot laps in each, with a new rear tyre and sometimes a new front fitted for the second run.
In Q2 every thousandth of a second counts. At the seasonopening Qatar GP the first four rows – the fastest 12 riders – were covered by 1.1 seconds. That night Valentino Rossi missed the front row by two hundredths of a second and Franco Morbidelli outqualified Aleix Espargaro by two thousandths. It’s vicious! “Qualifying can be more stress than the race,” adds Petrucci. “At some circuits, depending on the tyres and the asphalt, you may only get one lap on soft tyres, other times you may get two or three. It’s stress because you say to yourself, ‘I must do everything perfectly, because two or three tenths can mean two or three rows on the grid’. If you go wide in one corner in the race maybe your race isn’t over, but if you make one tiny mistake in qualifying it’s over.”
State of mind
The rider’s state of mind isn’t helped by the technical realities out on track and in the paddock. Qualifying takes place immediately after FP4, during which the rider
does race-simulation runs, with race settings, race tyres and a full fuel tank. So not only must he reset his brain from race mode to qualifying mode, he’s riding a bike that feels substantially different as well.
“The suspension is different, the electronics are different, the tyres are softer and the bike is the lightest it will be all weekend, with very little fuel,” Petrucci continues. “During your qualifying laps you feel like you go into every corner without knowing if you will come out – if you have everything under control then you’re not doing a good lap! Every corner feels like a new discovery.”
Minimal changes
Although riders do need different settings for qualifying, their crew chiefs try to minimise the changes, because if they make too many the rider won’t know the bike and because there’s so little time between FP4 and qualifying that would be a real problem. “Usually we don’t change too much,” says Santi Hernandez, Marc Marquez’s crew chief. “If we are a bit on the limit on fork stroke maybe we’ll add one turn of preload. We also play with the electronics to give maximum torque and we control the tyre pressures very precisely.” Some crews also increase engine-braking, to use the grippy soft tyre to help stop the bike, and run less traction control, so there are fewer engine cuts under acceleration.
Of course the bikes also carry less fuel in qualifying, even though this doesn’t always make the rider go faster.
“We run four kilos [about five litres] for qualifying,” says Aleix Espargaro. “But that can change the geometry of the bike. Also, with less weight maybe you get chatter. All these small details make a difference.”
Fingers crossed and full gas
Of course, in the end, the rider has to make the difference. “To achieve a good lap in qualifying you have to believe in the bike and in yourself, so you have the confidence to push really hard,” adds Hernandez. “Marc is good at this – in the end it’s just close your eyes, cross your fingers and full gas!”
Marquez is the only rider who occasionally does three runs in qualifying instead of two. To do that he needs a short lap, a hot track and the right tyres, so he can go for pole on the first flying lap of each run.
KTM’s Paul Trevathan agrees that it’s all about the rider. “We may change the balance of the bike to help the rider to get the most out of the tyres over one lap, but honestly, most of it’s down to him,” he adds. “Qualifying is basically about going over the limit. It’s risk versus reward. Many riders will tell you that a qualifying lap is like losing one of their lives. It’s a little bit, you know…
“But the guys have to hang it out there, as the benefit of starting in the first two rows is huge.”