Marc Márquez became the youngest six-time world champion of all time at the
age of 24 this year. But he has set yet another record: Never before has
someone become world champion with 27 crashes in one season. "27 and a half,"
he admits himself. "Because the save in Valencia could easily have ended
on the asphalt." But Márquez is not the only one to drive up the
statistics. In the last eight years, the number of crashes in the Motorcycle
World Championship has almost doubled. In 2009 there were 642, this year 1126.
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| Marc Márquez: 27 crashes in 2017 pic: motogp.com |
For many observers it is clear: riders always take full risk. Racetracks and
protective gear become safer, they fear less and fall more. "In my days,
the racetracks were much more dangerous," recalls 15-time World Champion
Giacomo Agostini. "The helmets and the leathers were also far from what
the riders wear today. That's why we just could not fall. I withdrew before
each race because I was feared to death and I did not want to share it with the
others. There were so many mortal crashes at that time that you always had it
in mind. "
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| Giacomo Agostini pic by Imre Paulovits |
Two times World Champion Dieter Braun, who rode in the same era, agrees.
"In our time guardrails, trees or curbs limited the tracks, the risk of
serious injury or death was much higher. Now there is a lot of runoff space
today plus an additional piece of asphalt, on which you can ride a wide line. Riding
has simply become safer.” Braun appreciates the big difference to today's
development. "We did not have a lobby at the time. Today, Franco Uncini is
safety representative at the FIM, he inspects the tracks, and if anything is
not right for him, there will be no race there. Also, the protectors and in recent
times the airbag have shown much positive effect. But the riders crash much
more today, because their fear is much less. "
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| Dieter Braun pic by Imre Paulovits |
In addition, in recent years, the competitiveness has increased in all classes,
so each place must be fought harder and for a top spot you have to risk more.
In the premier class, there has been such balance in the past two years that in
2016 there were nine different winners and in 2017 the battle for the title
raged between five riders and the title was decided in the last race. And the
MotoGP title is about so much prestige and money that some of the very best are
willing to take very extreme risks.
Marc Márquez, who is an extremist in this respect, admits quite frankly:
"This year I was so at the limit that crashes belonged to my strategy to understand
the limit exactly. If I had not crashed so often in practice, I would not have
understood the limit for the races so well and would have crashed more in the
races at the risk we had to go. "
" Had he done that in our time, he would have died at five of six crashes,
"says Giacomo Agostini. "That's his way. If he does not hurt himself,
that's fine," dismisses Dieter Braun. "Only for the risk, he took at
the last race in Valencia, I would have had clear words as his team
manager." But the approach of Márquez is not really new. Wayne Rainey did
it the same way once, though not with quite so many falls. Unfortunately, for
him finally it had a bad ending.
What really stands out, though, is that during the last two years the crashes
in MotoGP have escalated, while they have even dropped in the smallest class.
And these are the two years since Michelin took over the control tires of
MotoGP from Bridgestone. At first it was easy to explain that the French
manufacturer had a different tire design than its Japanese predecessor, and the
riders and the designers had to get used to the change and Michelin to the
needs of the class. Bridgestone had a grippy front tire, Michelin had a better
rear tire, so front wheel crashes were inevitable. However, since then, the
French and also the chassis builders have done immense development effort,
nevertheless, the number of falls over the season has not declined. Partly it
was due to rookie Sam Lowes´ 31 falls and world champion Marc Márquez´ 27 that raised
the statistics, but there is also more behind the numbers.
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| Sam Lowes: record braking 31 crashes in 2017 pic by motogp.com |
"With Bridgestone, things were much easier," says Stefan Prein, riding
coach at the Estrella Galicia Marc VDS team and winner of the 1990 Yugoslavian
Grand Prix. "There was a wide range of performance, but even there you
could see that if the tires were not used properly and cooled out, people crashed."
Michelin initially wanted to bring tires that work over a wide temperature range,
are as universal as possible and satisfy all.
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| Stefan Prein pic by Imre Paulovits |
Then Michelin had to understand that this is simply not possible at the
level of performance and the competitiveness of MotoGP and had to rethink the
requirements. The new competitiveness of MotoGP and the desire of even more
manufacturers and riders to win have pushed the fight at the limit once again
into a new direction. "Who wants to win in MotoGP today, must create a
very clever tire management with his technicians ", Prein knows. "Due
to the asymmetric tires, one of the main problems is that even when racetracks
are relatively cold, like this year's Misano, the rider already has to
challenge the tire very close to the limit in the outlet lap, otherwise they
will cool down so much that they never get back to their performance. And in
that lap, the rider just builds up the feeling, sometimes even with a new setup,
so this is particularly difficult. So, we had a lot of crashes this year,
mostly over the front wheel, because at this stage, the tire did not have the
correct operating temperature." The asymmetric front tires also have
another difficulty. "Last year in Australia, for example, the problem was
that the transition from the hard center to the softer side was exactly where
people fell," Prein says. "Because the temperature difference between
these two compounds within the tire was almost unimaginable for the rider. If
then the track temperature has changed, the riders were sometimes confused. Cal
Crutchlow crashed two laps from the end, and he did nothing else than the
previous lap. In the meantime, Michelin has brought other tires there."
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| Cal Crutchlow pic by motogp.com |
The problem in the fight for the last fractions of a second, however,
remains. "Jack Miller told me it's getting harder and harder to find the
confidence to properly push the tires in the first few laps. Marc Márquez has
confirmed this to me. And today, MotoGP racers need to be able to get their
full performance from zero to a hundred the moment they pass the lights at the
pit exit. There is no outlet lap anymore, where you slowly look left and right,
how it feels. Lorenzo and Márquez are doing very well, and the other top
drivers are getting better and better. They go out, and already in Split 2 of
the outlet lap they are close to the ideal time. That is one of the reasons for
the many crashes: Because the rest hasn´t got their feel and understanding. A
MotoGP racer who is only hard on the throttle is long past. The focus today is
on understanding the tire and tire management.”
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| Young Jack Miller pic by motogp.com |
Racing is exciting, and crashes pump up our
excitement, especially if our favorite rider crashes out. But they also make
races more unpredictable. Thanks to all the safety measures, riders get less
and less hurt, and when from next year on air bag systems will be compulsory in
all classes, we should reach a new level of safety. But let´s hope, engine,
chassis and tire development also goes the way that riders will crash less in
the future. Because with every single crash a rider is challenging his fortune.
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| statistic byDorna |
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| statistic by Dorna |
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| statistic by Dorna |
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| statistic by Dorna |
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| statistic by Dorna |
