Latest Posts:
Asphalt & Rubber
Tag

French GP

Browsing
MotoGP

MotoGP Preview of the French GP: An Open Track, Suzuki’s Withdrawal, & Tire Pressures

By 1 Comment

There is a MotoGP race at Le Mans this weekend, but to be honest, it is hard to concentrate on the race. A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks, which has shaken up MotoGP to a degree we hadn’t expected even as late as two weeks ago.

Suzuki’s withdrawal blows the MotoGP silly season right open, with not just rider seats up in the air, but grid slots and bikes too.

Then there’s the controversy over tire pressures being routinely under the minimum allowed, and whether that is even an issue or not, given the MSMA have agreed not to do anything about it.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Saturday MotoGP Summary at the French GP: Uncertainty Reigns

By No Comments

If you want to get an idea of what might happen during the race at any particular MotoGP round, the tried and tested method is to pay particular attention to what happens in FP4.

Watch the session carefully, and then pore over the analysis timesheet carefully, checking to see who was using which tires, how many laps they had on them, and the average pace they were capable of doing.

Disregard the fast laps set at the end of each the three free practice sessions which select who goes through directly to Q2, and take the qualifying results as a guide to be viewed through the lens of a rider’s projected ability to convert a strong grid position into solid race pace.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Friday MotoGP Summary at the French GP: Why Le Mans Is Such a Crashfest, Rossi’s New Speed, & Alberto’s Return

By 1 Comment

It was an expensive first day at Le Mans. Bikes in the three Grand Prix classes hit the deck (and the gravel trap) 44 times on Friday, a colossal number, even for Le Mans.

To put that into perspective: at the first race in Qatar, there were 37 crashes over all three days of the first Grand Prix, and 27 over three days of the Doha round at Qatar.

In fact, six of the nineteen rounds held in 2019 had fewer crashes over all three days than Le Mans did on Friday, and another five rounds only had a handful more.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

MotoGP Preview of the French GP: Racing Without Fans, Racing in the Rain, & The Evils of Technology

By No Comments

There are some tracks MotoGP goes to where you can pretty sure of what to expect. Jerez will be sunny and warm, though some years are warmer than others. Motegi will be cold, with a good chance of rain.

The heat in Thailand and Sepang will be brutal, with a 4pm downpour in Sepang pretty much guaranteed.

There are other tracks where you are pretty much guaranteed a bit of everything. Sachsenring will invariably have one cold morning and one wet morning, and a sweltering afternoon.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Paddock Pass Podcast #168 – French GP

By No Comments

Episode 168 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one sees David Emmett and Neil Morrison  on the mics, as the pair discusses the French GP at Le Mans.

The guys kickoff the show with a discussion of how the weather affected the race, and especially how it turned tire choice into a gamble, but one that produced a popular winner.

Of course, there has to be a conversation about Danilo Petrucci’s victory, along with Alex Marquez getting on the podium.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

Friday MotoGP Summary at the French GP: Mixed Conditions, Miller’s Trick, & KTM’s Holeshot

By No Comments

“It was a very tricky day in Le Mans, like always,” was the verdict of Fabio Quartararo on Friday evening, after a wet morning session and afternoon practice on a track which was rapidly drying, but never quite dry.”

“He spoke for just about everyone, the track proving especially treacherous in the afternoon, ending FP2 almost completely dry with a few damp patches, enough to catch a few riders out, including Aprilia’s Bradley Smith and Aleix Espargaro, Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, KTM rookie Brad Binder, and the LCR Honda of Takaaki Nakagami.

Most were just harmless falls, the front washing out on a damp patch, but Bradley Smith found himself propelled into the air when the traction control on his Aprilia RS-GP couldn’t react quickly enough to the rear spinning up when he hit a damp patch on track.

Keep Reading
By
MotoGP

MotoGP Preview of the French GP: High Grip, Wet Weather, & A Wide Open Field

By No Comments

And so we enter the final stretch of the 2020 MotoGP season – and the fact that six Yamaha engineers are stuck in Andorra due to one of them contracting Covid-19 is a reminder that the end of the 2020 season might come sooner than expected.

MotoGP heads to Le Mans, for the French Grand Prix, not in May, when the series usually heads there. That means cooler temperatures, not just in terms of air temperatures, but in solar intensity as well.

Le Mans in early October gets four hours less sunshine than in mid May, and with the sun much lower in the sky, it doesn’t heat the asphalt as much even when it is hidden by curtains of cloud, or drenched in rain.

But Le Mans has some saving graces. Firstly, the weather in October is pretty much as you might expect, something which proved problematic in Barcelona, where temperatures were about 10°C colder than expected.

Keep Reading
By