[cycleworld.com] - MotoGP Report: Silverstone 2022

[Ninjette Newsbot]

In the first race after MotoGP’s summer pause, the point chase is suddenly a lot closer.

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Giant Triumph banner in the background? Must be Silverstone! Fabio Quartararo saw his once-sizable point lead diminished to just 22 after the race, thanks largely to a “long-lap” penalty roasting his tires. He ended the day finishing eighth after qualifying fourth. (MotoGP/)When MotoGP went on summer break five weeks ago, Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) was in command and the challenge from Ducati’s Red Army seemed like smoke. One race changes everything. At Silverstone, Quartararo was fast, but the long-lap penalty earned at the previous event put him back in the pack. His tires baked in the collective slipstream, and he struggled to salvage eighth. Francesco Bagnaia, hoping all weekend to make it into the top five, found something in Sunday morning warmup and was competitive, coming through opposition from Johann Zarco (Ducati), Álex Rins (Suzuki), and Jack Miller (Ducati) to lead and win from Maverick Viñales (second, Aprilia), with Miller third. What had been Quartararo’s towering lead has melted to 22 points. That’s racing.

Through Silverstone practice Quartararo performed as expected, topping FP2 and breaking into the 1:59s. He commented that “…the track is much better than last year.” We know that when grip is good his Yamaha goes well. Hanging over him was the yet-to-be-imposed long-lap penalty for a collision with Aleix Espargaró at Assen. Introduced in 2019, the long-lap penalty involves requiring a racer to take a lap through a defined area (usually an asphalt runoff area outside of a turn), which is some seconds slower than the normal racing line. Accordingly, Quartararo practiced the maneuver four times in FP1. Others expressed the view that the penalty would be no biggie and would cost him no more than 8/10 of a second.

The Ducatis improved, Quartararo commenting, “On Friday we are fast, but then during the weekend they emerge.” They emerge because Ducati, with the greatest number of entries, quickly amasses data from which workable setups become apparent. An exception was Bagnaia, who later said, “For the whole weekend there was something missing,” resulting in his wistful pining for a top-five finish.

“My pace is not at the level of our rivals,” he said.


At the end of the day, Ducati’s Francesco “Pecco” Bagnaia was the victor. Coming into the event, he wished for just a top-five finish, but he and his Ducati found speed as the weekend progressed. (MotoGP/)Meanwhile Zarco and Miller put in strong qualifying performances, with Zarco topping FP4 and setting pole, Viñales second (his first front-row start on Aprilia), Miller third, and Quartararo fourth after some rapid-fire last-moment changes in the order. In fifth was Bagnaia, still seeking that something.

The Aprilia threat of Aleix Espargaró and Viñales continues, but has yet to gel into something solid. Espargaró high-sided in FP4, leaving him hammered and in pain but unfractured. He passed medical scrutiny and managed to qualify sixth, largely without the usually essential ability to move rapidly about the bike (think of a MotoGP bike as a 220-mph gymnastic pommel horse event). He would take heart at being sixth in warmup and then finished ninth.


Ducati’s Jack Miller was the third man on the victory rostrum. He’ll be leaving Ducati at the end of the season to ride for KTM. (Ducati/)The Importance of Qualifying Well

On Saturday Suzuki’s Joan Mir articulated some pointed observations. “Right now in MotoGP, if you start on the first or maximum second row, you have half the race done.” This notes that:

1. Earning a forward starting position saves your tires from the “taxation” of passing others, and
2. A rider largely ahead of the pack in clear air has a greater chance of keeping his tires out of the collective “oven” of heated slipstreams.

A similar remark was made decades earlier by Ferrari F1 driver Niki Lauda, who said, “Half of what it takes to win consists of just being on the start grid with a car.”

Mir continued with general remarks about tires: “A brand new, or [during] the first few laps, of a hard tire—you need to take your time to activate it. It is easy to make a mistake like this and be surprised.”

This is not just another way of saying “Take care on cold tires.” It is a statement that the softer the tire, the easier it is to feel the limit, and vice versa. In other words, it is not only grip that changes along the soft/medium/hard line, but also the communication between tire and rider.


Maverick Viñales was happy on the podium, finishing second. Silverstone was his first front-row start on an Aprilia. (MotoGP/)For Silverstone, Mir observed, “…when you haven’t turned left for a while it’s easy to lose grip.” Tires do not just warm up in the first three laps and remain at peak grip. Their temperature—and the distribution of that temperature—changes from minute to minute and from place to place. A few years ago Dunlop published a false-color graphic showing how a rear tire’s traction surface gains temperature through a corner, then cools again after exit. We’ve heard a lot said in the past year about rear tires arriving at corners unready to deliver the grip for early turning. Similarly, on a right-hand course like Silverstone, the left sides of the tires operate cooler than the rights. This is the reason tire companies build asymmetric tires, with softer rubber on the less-used side.

Zarco’s crew chief Marco Rigamonti also had truths to air, saying that there are riders who use the front and others who use the rear. He said, “At Ducati we call him [Zarco] ‘the traction king.’ He knows how to use the rear tire very well; he always finds a lot of grip. At the beginning he was lacking braking, but this year he made a good step forward. He still has to work in that area, but in managing the gas he is very good.”

Despite this Zarco crashed out, his late choice of a medium front identified as a possible problem.

The End of Quartararo’s Race

On lap 4, the last allowable, Quartararo performed his long-lap penalty loop. He said, “After the long-lap penalty I was behind four riders and the rear tire overheated. There was no more performance, and the tire drops much quicker. So, at that moment our race was gone.”


The other half of the long-lap story was Aleix Espargaró, the rider Quartararo took out at Assen. A nasty highside in FP4 saw him qualify sixth, and finish ninth. (MotoGP/)Had we forgotten that much of Quartararo’s success has been coming from qualifying up front and staying where the breeze is fresh? Once “sent back to the minors” by the penalty he became just another luckless backman whose tires so often and mysteriously let them down.

He wasn’t the only one. Running in eighth, Mir lost the front and was out, because race day was hotter and being in a group overheated his front. He tried to give it fresh air “but the pack was intense.”

Teammate Álex Rins, after leading laps 6-14, suffered rapid decline of his rear tire, moving him down to seventh.

The Wasting Asset

How do some riders sometimes survive coming through that pack without such tire effects? Compare Quartararo in corners with those others. Everyone has his inner knee and elbow down, but Quartararo is offsetting his whole body radically to the inside like Marc Márquez when he was on Bridgestones, with barely room enough for his arm and leg between his body and the pavement. This is a man trying his hardest to stay off the vulnerable tire edges, the “wasting asset” that constantly threatens to wilt the very advantages that the corner-speed riding style seeks. Working his tires this way asks a lot, perhaps making his style most workable at the front.

What did Bagnaia find in warmup? That the hard rear could be made to work—the tire that Quartararo and crew neglected to try. If only! But the minds of professional racers are full of such what-ifs. All they are is data points that may guide a thinking person to better performance in future.

With regard to the remaining races of the season, Quartararo said, “The next races will in fact take place on tracks with many accelerations and long straights.”

Acceleration and top speed are not his Yamaha’s strengths.

After Silverstone the championship standings of the top five are:

1. Quartararo 180
2. A. Espargaró 158
3. Bagnaia 131
4. Bastianini 118
5. Zarco 114

The Spielbergring (now called the Red Bull Ring) in Austria is next, with seven more rounds after that.


Take a good look at the blue and silver bike: Suzuki is leaving MotoGP at the end of the season. Álex Rins led laps 6-14, but burned through his rear tire and finished seventh. (MotoGP/)