Barcelona MotoGP Wrap-Up

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The latest victor in the tire-management battle. (MotoGP/)

Because of Fabio Quartararo’s continuing strong performances on his improved factory M1, it’s tempting to conclude that he’s “solved” the lap-time over race-distance equation that has tormented Yamaha in recent years. People point out that Quartararo so radically offsets his whole body to the inside in corners that the next part to drag will be his shoulder. Indeed, this could be a strategy to preserve what economists might call a “wasting asset,” the tire edges, from the intensive wear his corner-speed riding style requires. There has to be a reason why, among the four Yamahas, his is so often up front.

Yet suddenly we have Barcelona, won not by five-time pole-sitter Quatararo but by KTM’s Miguel Oliveira. This throws a data point well off to the side of our expectation’s curve. Quartararo was supposed to win! His cheerful confidence and ability to reel off fast laps told us it would be so!

At Barcelona Fabio Quartararo had a day he’d rather forget, ultimately finishing sixth due to a pair of three-second penalties. (MotoGP /)

The mind is always busy proposing predictive theories to make sense of the latest data, so here we find ourselves looking at Quartararo’s race lap times. And there it is: a clear drop at laps 11 to 13, just when Quartararo was pulling up to early leader Oliveira and passing him, while Jack Miller and Johann Zarco (both on Ducati) closed on the leading pair.

This result feels more like tire chaos theory than the “Quartararo’s got this” theory. He’s supposed to have a secret sauce that keeps his tires prime, but that’s not what happened. He did, however, hang on to finish third, a position that was officially altered twice, initially to fourth thanks to a three-second penalty for a track limits error, then further back to sixth, courtesy of an additional three seconds assessed for tossing his displaced chest protector after his leathers came open. (I seem to remember riders using safety wire to secure that zipper…)

For want of a nail: Quartararo’s leathers came open during the race, and he tossed his displaced chest protector, resulting in a penalty…as well as a photo you won’t often see. (MotoGP/)

Highly respected crew chief Ramon Forcada aired his views before the race, noting that the Yamahas, because of their relative lack of power and acceleration, can use their best lines only when leading. That requires them to get away first to avoid line conflict with point-and-shoot opponents. He also noted that, as in F1, MotoGP has evolved to require different bike setups for qualifying and for racing.

Tire choice was a big issue here. This track shares some qualities with Qatar because wind-borne dust from the Sahara to the south across the Med acts like the cement powder used by rubber compound researchers to eliminate one major source of grip—tire-to-track molecular adhesion—in order to better study the other big source—hysteresis. The result in both cases is loss of grip, a lot of sliding, and rapid heating of the tire surface.

There was a lot of sliding this weekend; riders noted Barcelona’s usual poor grip and spoke of tires “moving around,” which always gets attention because it feels like a crash is next. Miller said in practice that “the rear moved a lot in acceleration and the bike shook…in the afternoon I tried the soft but I realized it moves a little too much.”

And also there was crashing. During the main event, six riders were down, among them Marc Márquez, Aleix Espargaró, and Valentino Rossi. Many of these occurred at the reshaped turn 10.

Marc Márquez said during practice that “…if there’s some movement of the bike, like here, shaking on the exit of corners, that’s also where I cannot control well.”

Quartararo, speaking of the new turn 10: “…at that point I don’t have great confidence with the front. It moves around a lot.”

That may have contributed to Oliveira’s impression of Quartararo’s tire situation as the latter advanced to pass: “…he didn’t have that much in the pocket today, so when he overtook me I saw my chance to stay there with him, and maybe disturb him a little bit, and I managed to do that.”

A fast-closing Jack Miller (43) may have thrown a wrench into Quartararo’s tire-conservation plans at Barcelona. (MotoGP/)

Somehow Oliveira was able to preserve tire performance when Quartararo was not. Were Quartararo’s exertions in catching up the cause? As opposed to cleanly getting away first and never seeing the back of another bike? Was it Yamaha’s classic issue: The front tire overheating thanks to residing in opponents’ hot slipstream?

Quartararo said, “Yes, I was saving the tire but, honestly, even on the left side Miguel was so strong, and I didn’t have the feeling of this morning with the hard.… I think all the Yamahas have this issue because for me, Franco was one of the big contenders for the win and he finished far away.”

That makes the day’s result seem like the ingredients for the same old soup in which Yamaha has found itself before.

Here at Barcelona, again Yamaha showed its “air-cooled” front fender, which has an opening in the top through which the tire receives longer contact with incoming air.

Aprilia too had a new fender. Its version has no hole, but features downward extensions that streamline the fork tubes and more smoothly guide air back over the brake calipers (which remain visible from the sides). As anyone who has tried to get an engine to come to temperature by taping the radiator knows, the airflow behind the front wheel is a mess, with nearly as much air apparently moving forward as backward. This gives importance to preserving flow velocity and suppressing turbulence. Remember: Engine development has been halted, so R&D must turn to other areas.

Oliveira said, “…it was hard to understand what was going on behind me…I got this little gap that I was comfortable with and I could be gentle with the tires, could do my lines and not do any mistakes.

“I think that was the key to being able to finish. It was quite hard for everyone, but for me it was extra hard because I had a hard front tire, and in the last eight laps it was difficult to stay on the bike and not crash.”

Oliveira was the only rider in the top ten on a hard front, while the top three all had hard rear tires.

Yet that was no “formula.” Rossi said, “In the warm-up the hard rear went well. In the race it was immediately in difficulty. It was sliding and vibrating. I lost six-tenths per lap until I crashed.” This is so often the case with Michelins; what works well in the cool of morning may be transformed by the heat of the afternoon.

The Doctor goes gardening. Valentino Rossi ended the day with a DNF, along with Marc Márquez and four more riders. (MotoGP/)

In line with the “hall of mirrors” diversity of opinion, on the first lap Márquez advanced from 13th to ninth, and was sixth by lap four. Then he lost the front braking for turn 10 and crashed out. Márquez said, “Today I enjoyed. I was pushing. I mean, I was Marc and for me it was the best seven laps of the year. I was riding like I want.”

On the other hand, Enea Bastianini observed during practice, “…I did a few laps with him. You can see that he is conservative…he doesn’t use the front much and…doesn’t do the same braking as before. He doesn’t have an incredible corner entry.”

We want to believe Márquez can return to his former self, but we must wait.

A prominent theme in rider conversations this weekend was competitiveness, the closeness of the times and rider abilities.

Joan Mir, the reigning MotoGP champion, said, “…the competitiveness this year is really high. A lot of manufacturers improved and we [Suzuki’s team] didn’t improve.”

Rossi, commenting initially on the controversy over using a tow from another rider in qualifying, said, “When the gaps are small and everyone is very strong the difference between starting from the first or the third row can be one-and-a-half-tenths, it is normal for everyone to try different tricks to find that extra speed because two-tenths can change your weekend.”

This reminds me of my tongue-in-cheek advice to young racers: Just do everything perfectly and you could be in with a chance.

1. Arrive in MotoGP as a seasoned 15-year professional, straight off the top of Moto2
2. Be offered a top seat and adapt with astonishing quickness to twice the power plus carbon brakes
3. Rapidly master all the forms of tire weirdness
4. Develop successful and separate setups for qualifying and for the race
5. Qualify up front and nail the starts so you always get away with the lead group
6. Conserve presciently chosen tires while either leading or staying close
7. Be successful and <i>lucky</i> in tire conservation (did you get good ones? Is one a bit strange?), even though your bike has become very tricky in the final laps, and (possibly) other riders are trying to distract you
8. Win

The top five this time were Oliveira, Zarco, Miller, Mir, and Maverick Viñales, yet the way this game is going, the order next time might have no discoverable relation to this one. Find the pattern!

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