VOL. 51 ISSUE 42 OCTOBER 21, 2014 P67
to beat. The reason why he lost?
Tires again. Both had chosen
the extra-soft front, and Lorenzo
said after the race that he had
got a dud. Bridgestone denied it,
blaming "set-up and riding style."
"As always," said a resigned-
looking Lorenzo. "What else
would they say?"
It had happened before this
season, he asserted, to himself
TIRE WOES
Bridgestone may have gone a bit
far the other way in trying to eradi-
cate the humiliation of last year.
Back then, the grippy resurfaced
track was so destructive that the
race had to be shortened from 27
laps to 19, with a compulsory bike-
change halfway through.
This year, after earlier tests of re-
vised construction rubber, the tires
were clearly fit to last the distance,
but left MotoGP riders complaining
about a lack of grip. The situation
was exacerbated by track tempera-
tures some 50 degrees cooler than
last year, and qualifying times were
half a second down on 2013.
"It is difficult to adapt to the
harder tires," said pole man Marc
Marquez; "but they are the same for
everybody."
And pretty much everybody
complained about a lack of rear
traction... nobody more bitterly than
Alvaro Bautista, whose exclusively
Showa-suspended satellite-Factory
Honda suffers already from this
complaint.
Rossi spoke for many about the
relief of not having to worry about
the rear tire blistering.
"I think Bridgestone have worked
well," he said. "For sure you lose
grip after some laps, but it looks like
it will make race distance, and this
is the target."
But set-up work would be fo-
cused on avoiding wheelspin.
"The biggest problem is when
you pick up the bike and go full
throttle, the tire spins. Even without
a lot of angle."
However, there were still con-
cerns about endurance, especially
for the tire-heavy Ducati riders.
"The rear is good for 10 laps
before it drops off," said Cal
Crutchlow, back on the front row
for the first time this year. "But there
are still 17 to go."
The complaints were focused
more on the front, however; with
several riders including Jorge
Lorenzo crashing under braking for
the Honda hairpin.
While the soft option was the
favored choice, the harder choice
was "too hard," according to all.
Dunlop had been similarly strick-
en in Moto2 and took part in the
same pre-season tests. Although
there were 11 crashes (mainly from
cold tires) in the first Moto2 free
practice (of a Friday total of 34 in all
classes) the Dunlops garnered less
rider complaints than Bridgestone
did, and set generally faster lap
times than last year, with Jack Miller
setting a new lap record in Moto3.
Marc Marquez earned pole
position for the Grand Prix,
but the talk of the paddock
was tires.
