VOLUME 57 ISSUE 33 AUGUST 18, 2020 P33
Crash Mars Austrian MotoGP
T
he 2020 Austrian MotoGP at
the Red Bull Ring will long be
remembered for the devastating
crash involving Franco Morbidelli
and Johann Zarco, an accident
which very nearly took the lives
of both Maverick Vinales and
Valentino Rossi.
Rossi wasn't alone in ac-
cusing Johann Zarco of being
responsible for the horrific crash
that so nearly claimed his life.
"In Italian, we say to brake in
the face [brake check]. Zarco
is very wide, and he braked in
the face of Franco, maybe to not
let Franco overtake him back
in braking. But he's too close,
and when you are at 190 mph
you have a lot of slipstream, and
Franco didn't have any chance to
brake. At the end, there is a lot
of risk, we risk a lot, especially
me and Maverick. So, it could
have been a disaster."
Zarco stood his ground, how-
ever. "The bad things they were
thinking—I did it on purpose,
that I wanted to stop Morbidelli
or avoid Morbidelli overtaking
me—but this was not my thought.
I was braking, for sure I could
expect that maybe he would try
to overtake, but I didn't cut the
line to stop him. It's too crazy to
do it and too dangerous and I'm
conscious enough to manage it."
The Zarco-Morbidelli crash
brought the long-held fears re-
garding turn three, and the kink
that precedes it, back into focus.
The issue is how exposed riders
flicking into turn three are when
someone behind may crash
when touching the brakes. "It's
so easy for something to happen
there," said Takaaki Nakagami.
"We have to discuss about this
layout. It's quite tricky and quite
a dangerous area."
Danilo Petrucci concurred:
"The bikes are so powerful, and
in that part, we arrive at maybe
45, 50 degrees of lean angle,
in sixth gear, and then take the
front brake there. And there are
many lines there, every bike
stops in a different way. So I
think the only way is to change
a bit the track, to make it more
straight in that part so we brake
a little bit more straight."
Neil Morrison
