Cycle News

VOL. 50 ISSUE 45 NOVEMBER 12, 2013 Jorge Lorenzo (99) led early with Dani Pedrosa (26), Marquez (93), Valentino Rossi (46) and the rest of the pack in tow in front of a packed house in Valencia. that reliably provides good crowds in defiance of the economic woes gripping the nation, that the tight and twisty stadium Ricardo Tormo circuit was packed. The traffic started building up soon after dawn, with the vast grandstands packed even for morning warmup. The official crowd figure of 104,441 was more than 60 percent up on last year's 61,800. In fact there were more people here on Saturday for qualifying than for last year's race. Who were they rooting for? Depended where they were sitting, often as not. A swathe of red was made by Marquez fans, and they were the ones who went home the happiest. The climax of the season had almost everything, except bad weather. Most especially a race of great variety, as Lorenzo tried to play tactics and Marquez tried to resist them, and to resist his own temptation to push for a win that he didn't need. He'd qualified on pole after a display of maximum risk, but explained later the tactics he'd developed over the course of his debut year. His Repsol Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa, asked what was the youngster's strong points, said among other things that "he rides on the limit. It seems like he is crashing all the time, but he doesn't." Marquez half-agreed. "In nearly every circuit this year I had big moments. In the second part of the season I was more clever. I still had some crashes, but I would push to the maximum in practice, then be more careful in the race." But Marquez admitted he had also been blessed to avoid injury – especially in the high-speed Mugello crash. Both his main rival Lorenzo and Pedrosa had suffered broken collarbones. "I injured my right shoulder twice… almost broken. But we can say I was lucky." P47 Briefly... cessfully tested at Misano in midSeptember but only now available to race – was warmly welcomed by riders, who for most of the year have found the existing harder option unusable. Lower grip levels with the existing hard tire allowed too much wheelspin, overheating the tire and paradoxically nullifying any supposed advantage of better endurance. According to Bridgestone, improvements in electronics had rendered the tire out of date, able to solve problems that no longer applied. The delay in fixing the problem has caused a growing chorus of complaint as the season wore on, and when the alternative arrived for testing after the San Marino GP, riders wanted the new tire at once. "It's true, at the beginning of the year there was always a clear choice (of only one tire) before the race," said Dani Pedrosa. "Now there is a possibility to choose. There is always a point in the race when the performance of the hard and soft tires crosses over." Marquez said: "This is the first race where you can use both tires;" but Jorge Lorenzo came to Bridgestone's defense, saying: "In the last five or six races there was some possibility to use the hard tire." "The new tire is super-stable and super-consistent, but it misses a bit of grip," said second-row qualifier Bradley Smith. "But it's the right tire for the race." His teammate Cal Crutchlow raised some doubts. "The tire is not as good as it was at the Misano tests. They say it is the same, but I don't believe it is. The tires are not always what Bridgestone say they are, as I've found many times." continued on next page

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