VOL. 50 ISSUE 28 JULY 16, 2013
P41
Briefly...
Although Jorge Lorenzo and Dani
Pedrosa crashed elsewhere, the
vast majority of spills were at the
famous "Waterfall" corner – Turn
11, one of only three right-handers
on the short and intense 2.2-mile
counter-clockwise circuit. Riders
arrive there in sixth gear, after a
series of six left-handers taken at
ever-increasing speed. These corners require a hard tire compound;
but while the rear Bridgestone is
asymmetric, with a soft compound
on the right shoulder, the front is
not. The result is that the right hand
of the tire cools too much, making
it all too easy to crash. The difficulty
is exacerbated by the fact that it is
over the brow and down a steep
hill.
Sachsenring circuit – 61 over the
weekend (two short of the 2009
record, 20 of them in the premier
class).
Marquez was different. He
Marc Marquez (93) was nearly
perfect in winning the German
Grand Prix. Here he leads Stefan
Bradl (6), Valentino Rossi (46)
and Cal Crutchlow (35) early in
the race.
So is the track up to the job of a
full-bore MotoGP race? And what
would the riders do to reduce the
risk? A poll of top riders found that
while a few thought that only a
change in track layout would solve
it, most thought that a dual-compound front tire would be a better solution. The corner is clearly
dangerous, but it is also the best
corner on the track, and one of the
best all year. To spoil it with a chicane would be a travesty. "I used
to love that corner, but it's really
tough because you don't brake and
you're going downhill, so you never
load the front," Nicky Hayden said.
"And it is so important for the lap
time. If you back off just a little bit,
you lose three tenths. You have to
push."
Valentino Rossi: "Every time you
come to that corner, you look for
a yellow flag, and after you try to
don't crash. It's too much. But for
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