Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 28 JULY 16, 2013 A German leads the German Grand Prix: Bradl (6) had the crowd fired up when he led briefly. Marquez (93), meanwhile, gets it out of shape on the entrance to turn one. from Austin, because Dani [Pedrosa] and Jorge [Lorenzo] are not here," Marquez said. "It was a different kind of race, and I had to manage the gap. I prefer to race with everybody here." Crutchlow didn't concur. "Marc shouldn't discount his win," he said. "He rode fantastically, the race time was faster than last year. I think he would have won anyway." Lorenzo's absence had been confirmed after a huge crash on the first day of free practice bent the fresh plate in his left collarbone. He flew back to Spain for another bout of surgery, and this time put the heroics of Assen on hold, saying he would also miss next week's U.S. GP to give it time to recover. Pedrosa's was in doubt until a couple of hours before the race. He'd crashed on Saturday morning, and was helicoptered to hospital after his blood pressure dropped radically as a result of the pain and trauma. Next morning it was still low and he was ruled out of morning warm-up and - after further tests - the race as well. Andrea Iannone was also missing the GP after dislocating his shoulder. The other theme of the weekend was the strength of the CRT bikes – especially that of the always-outstanding Aleix Espargaro. Like most of the other Aprilia ART riders, the Power Electronics rider has the advantage of Aprilia electronics rather than the control Magneti Marelli package supplied by Dorna, and still a long way from perfect. Like all the CRT riders, he has the advantage also of a softer grade of Bridgestone tire. At Sachsenring, where there are many more slow corners than P43 Briefly... me the problem is between the track and the tires." Andrea Dovizioso: "The characteristic of Bridgestone is that to warm the tire you have to put a lot of pressure on it. When you have only three corners on the right, every time the temperature is not the normal range. But we saw also many crashes with Dunlop in Moto2 and Moto3, so the layout of the track puts the rider more easily over the limit." Would a dual-compound front save the day. Hayden: "I haven't tried a dual front Bridgestone but with Michelin we used them and raced them, and they were a good option. There's a few tracks that in my opinion need dual fronts: especially here, Phillip Island and also Laguna, in the morning when it is cold. Here you have a real soft compound on the rear on the right, so some guys when they touch the gas, they push the front. Bridgestone don't want to make a dualcompound front because it would cost a lot of money, but as it is it costs a lot of crashes." Rossi: "For me it is a good idea. It is very easy logic. I raced it with Michelin, but they were different harder in the center, softer on the edge, but still symmetrical. I hear when Bridgestone tried an asymmetric front, the riders didn't like it. So is a question mark." Marquez: "Maybe in some tracks, especially this track, would be a good solution. But for most tracks one compound should be okay." What about redesigning the corcontinued on next page

• Cover