ARE TRAC LIMITS R INING RACING
JOSH CLOSE
Sports Reporter
Do you remember when everybody raved about great racing, individual performances, and excellent MotoGP bikes after a race weekend? I miss those days. Now it’s all about track limit sensors and, like football’s VAR system, their inability to make the right call. Three riders were hampered this weekend with Miguel Oliveira saying the width of the Michelin tyres mean that sensors can be triggered whilst you’re still on the kerb. This isn’t right. How can you justify punishing a rider when they didn’t even break the rules? Maverick Viñales’ race at Portimao was ruined when he lost a front-row start and was put back to 11th.
Sure, rules are rules but when the system enforcing them is making errors, it needs to be looked at. MotoGP riders have enough on their minds without worrying about running too close to the edge of the kerb. Perhaps the sensors need to be manufactured differently? Or maybe they could be pushed further away from the kerb, leaving extra leeway between kerb and the track limit. It’s not an easy fix, but it needs changing. Right now, it’s pole positions and Q2 spots being taken away. One day a rider could lose the world championship simply by being on the very edge of the kerb. That would be a disaster.
MICHAEL G
Sports Editor
No one wants to see qualifying laps cancelled or results dictated by long lap penalties. The riders don’t like, the fans don’t like it – but what is the alternative?
The fact that the out of bounds green kerbing is coated in a generous layer of high grip paint means that riders view it as part of the track. So what do you do, make the kerbs low grip? Get rid of them altogether? Leaving grass would almost certainly have the effect of stopping riders busting track limits, but the cost could be catastrophic.
The nature and severity of the rules seem to be slowly sinking into the brains of the world's best. No they don’t like it, but the crucial thing is that if the rules exist, then the technology has to exist to police it. I would expect this type of black and white policing and technology to increase with no return to race direction discretion. And with plenty of talk about how MotoGP is rapidly outgrowing classic circuits maybe controlling track limits with even tougher penalties will be the only way to halt the rapid progression of speeds in the premier class and mean that circuits like Jerez, Catalunya, Sachsenring and even Mugello can remain.
YES
‘The system is as bad as VAR in football’
NO
‘It could help keep racing at classic tracks’