Michael Scott on the perils of ever-closer grand prix racing
Does anyone else watch MotoGP with a feeling of fascinated horror? Nerves jangling? Doha’s round two under the desert lights presented the closest top 15 in history. All over the line in less than nine seconds. This is MotoGP, not Moto3 where such phenomena are commonplace. A hurtling mass of motorbikes, over the line close to the point where in practice a new all-time speed record of 225.2 mph had been recorded. And not much further down the kilometre-long straight from where Jack Miller’s Ducati had barged Joan Mir’s Suzuki, punting both perilously close to disaster.
More precisely, the finish line was where, in the earlier Moto3 race, front-runner Rodrigo snapped off his brake-lever protector slamming into the back of another bike, and by a miracle escaped a front-lock groundloop under the wheels of a pack of 20. Phew! In both the biggest and smallest classes, a descent into disaster was whisker-close.
A delve into Werner Haeflinger’s essential FIM MotoGP Results book confirms that such ultra-close racing is a recent phenomenon. In MotoGP, the previous tenth-fastest top 15 – a relatively leisurely 26-plus seconds – was in 2017 at Aragon. Closer groupings are all 2018 or later. Moto2 doesn’t really feature… but Moto3’s top-ten closest 15 shows the same. The earliest entry, now bumped out of the top ten by Doha’s seventh-closest 2.26 seconds, was at Brno in 2014. Again, the rest have been mainly in the past four years. Brilliant racing. An unforgettable spectacle. But scary. Without doubt very dangerous, and clearly increasingly so.
Well, you might say. It’s motorbike racing. Safety has been hugely improved, thanks to better riding gear including air bags, better track conditions, and better medical attendance.
Any remaining danger is intrinsic. And nobody’s forcing the riders. It’s voluntary, and we must respect, indeed admire, their decision to risk their lives for their own pleasure and our entertainment – even though many of them, aged just 16, are below voting age, and below the age of consent in most of the USA.
Any value of technical research in racing has been rendered redundant by Dorna’s dumb-down restrictions – themselves the major reason for such close racing. Entertainment is now the main point. Therefore the closer the better. When it all goes well.
But you’ll join me, I’m sure, in hoping not to be sitting on the sofa to share in anything ghastly.
‘A descent into disaster was whisker-close’