Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 28, 2014 P105 onds in the lead. Britain's top rider, little more than a mile away from a landmark second place. Spain's reigning Moto2 World Champion, eyeing a first premier- class podium. And that was just in the race. In practice, Spain's other two- time World Champion did exactly the same. Along with a gener- ous number of lesser folks in the smaller classes. We refer to Marc Marquez, Cal Crutchlow, Pol Espargaro and Jorge Lorenzo. All of whom had exactly this crash, in the dry, while not even a single degree from the vertical. This was part two of Bridges- tone's Australian misadventure. Last year the resurfaced track was so abrasive that tires started to come to bits after little more than 10 laps. The 27-lap race was cut to 19, with a mandatory pit stop halfway through for fresh rubber. You may recall that Mar- quez's crew bungled the task of counting to 10 – and he was dis- qualified. The tire company, along with similarly stricken Dunlop – spec tire suppliers to Motos 2 and 3 – pledged it would never happen again. Special hard-construction covers were made, and tested pre-season. Success. These new tires would go the distance. In this aspect, at the recent GP, Bridgestone's special rub- ber (including a first-time dual- compound front) were largely successful, Lorenzo's dud front was the exception. In other as- pects, not so much. Hence the costly straight-line crashes, with carcasses and compounds that were too hard for the job. To an extent, they were caught out by conditions cooler than expected. In another way, they had got it wrong again. It was the new asymmetric tire at fault. It was too hard, or cooled down too much because of poor heat transfer, whichever way you want to describe it. Phillip Island was hard on tires even before the resurfacing; sev- eral very fast corners, most no- tably Stoner Corner, taken in a full drift in fifth, and then the pair of lefts at the end of the lap, the power on hard in fifth and sixth. They are one reason why riders love the track: a rare chance to thrash a MotoGP bike. Mixed in are a pair of slow rights: Honda Hairpin and MG; the only hard braking spots. It is for these that the softer rubber was stripped in to the right-hand shoulder of the rear and now also the front tires. It was here that the braking crashes took place. Of 12 factory riders, seven chose the asymmetric front; of these three crashed under brak- ing. Rostrum finishers Valen- tino Rossi, Lorenzo and Brad- ley Smith plus the two Pramac Ducati riders chose the extra-soft single-compound front. One of the last named, Andrea Iannone, also crashed, but in different cir- cumstances. With supreme irony, Crutchlow had originally chosen the extra- soft, but switched to the fatally flawed asymmetric. The flaw was that this dual- compound tire married the right- hand extra-soft with the harder tire option, and this was the rub- ber presented to the road when the bike was upright. It's easy to pan Bridgestone. Indeed, to take the flak is the un- enviable role of a control tire sup- plier. Riders are never happy with tires. Never, ever do they say "my tires were rubbery." Even if they haven't fallen off. But the rubber men are not the only culprits. If they had been allowed to do more testing, for one thing... Or if they had been obliged to work harder, by be- ing in competition with other tire companies. As real warfare ap- plies white heat to technological development, so too do tire wars. All this, however, is banned. In the interests of saving money – Dorna's great arbiter of every- thing. Grand Prix racing it might be, but if it's not cheap, it's no good. That's the principal prin- ciple. But there is a cost other than the monetary, and it was paid by the riders who fell while still bolt upright. CN

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