KEVIN’S INSIGHTS: The Track is Destroyed

As we walked along the pit lane we encountered Loris Capirossi, Dorna’s representative in Race Direction. When I spoke to him of yesterday’s many rider comments that bumpiness has become worse, he replied, “The track is destroyed.”

Marc Marquez hit a bump near the end of the long right-hander Turn 18 and crashed. Through the session essentially a third of the field had crashed. T18 is the turn Marquez spoke of yesterday when he said he had to find a line through the bumps.

FP3 temperature was 13-deg F cooler than yesterday’s first practice and it had rained lightly earlier in the morning. A communication from Michelin said, “…the track has a lot less grip and feels like there is moisture in it.”

Very soon Marquez crashed a second time, this time in Turn 15 on an out lap.

Rins has fractured a wrist. The apparently uninjured fallers were Marquez, Iannone, Bautista, Lorenzo, Aleix Espargaro (twice), Dovizioso, and Lowes.

Meanwhile Vinales has pressed on, on medium tires as he was yesterday, suggesting that he continues to work on his race set-up. Two minutes from end of session he went 2:03.979, the first sub-2:04 of the weekend. Yesterday Marquez had noted that the Yamahas are absorbing the bumps better than the Hondas, and said, "It's true that when you don't have the best set-up you stress more the front tire."

Other things being equal, the stiffer suspension needed by the Hondas to support their riders’ style of combined late, hard braking and turning, the less well the bike can grip over bumps. The softer suspension essential to the Yamahas’ high corner speed (softer suspension = higher “mechanical grip”) also grips better over bumps.

Therefore the question; what has happened to bring the Yamahas up to or above the Hondas (which previously have been so dominant here) is in large degree answered by the bumpier state of the track and this difference in bump-absorption ability.

This may be further accentuated by the special need of the Honda men to extract all possible advantage from their major strong point; braking.