Austin MotoGP Sunday Subscriber Notes: The Secret To Alex Rins' Speed At COTA, And The Many Ways To Crash In Texas

By David Emmett | Tue, 18/04/2023 - 06:08

The complaint commonly leveled at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas, is that it does not produce great racing. And this is often true. But not this Sunday. In 2023, the fans who flocked to COTA for MotoGP saw three great races on Sunday, and a whole heap of surprises.

The Moto2 race was a great example of how a track like COTA can produce a tense and exciting race. Marc VDS rider Tony Arbolino and Pedro Acosta of the KTM Ajo squad broke away shortly before the halfway mark and a hard chase ensued. At a track which is as physically demanding as COTA, Acosta knew he had to plan an attack on Arbolino, rather than just try to pass and having to spend the rest of the race battling. The additional energy that would take would leave them both with nothing left to finish the race.

So Acosta waited. When Arbolino ran wide into Turn 1, Acosta seized the lead, but the effort of leading saw him outbrake himself and run a little wide into Turn 12. Arbolino snatched back the lead, while Acosta slid back in behind him. On the last lap, Acosta attacked again into Turn 12, the tight left hander at the end of the back straight, and snatched back the lead.

For the last half a lap, both riders were at the limit, and very nearly over it judging by the way Acosta's rear wheel seemed to be chomping at the bit to step out and dump him on the tarmac through Turns 17 and 18. Arbolino threw everything he had at trying to get past Acosta. And Acosta had to pull out every last trick in the book to keep Arbolino behind him. And even then, the KTM Ajo rider crossed the line just a tenth ahead of the Italian, closing the gap to 7 points in the championship, Arbolino leading Acosta by 61 points to 54. It was a thriller.

The MotoGP race turned out to be just as tense and even more eventful, despite the size of the winning gap. And it could turn out to have serious repercussions in the championship. We had a (mostly) unexpected winner, a surprise podium, and an awful lot of crashes, for most of which the riders involved were at a loss to explain.

It started with what had the potential to be a duel as thrilling as Acosta vs Arbolino. Pecco Bagnaia quickly established himself at the front of the race, with Alex Rins hard on the Italian's tail. The two soon pulled a gap over the chasing pack, opening up the prospect of a straight fight between the reigning champion riding what he himself has described as the best bike on the grid, versus the only rider to have won in Austin in all three Grand Prix classes, riding the bike which has won seven of the previous nine races held at the track.

The race should have been a foregone conclusion. Pecco Bagnaia has been on the Ducati since he entered MotoGP. The bike is the best machine on the grid, and is head and shoulders above the Honda. Especially a satellite RC213V such as the one Alex Rins was riding. Rins has had just three tests and three race weekends on the bike, compared to Bagnaia's four seasons.

But Rins has something special around the Circuit of The Americas. And he has adapted fastest to the Honda, after spending the previous six years on the Suzuki. His former Suzuki teammate Joan Mir has struggled more to adapt to the finicky Honda.

Perhaps that was one factor in why Pecco Bagnaia suddenly lost the front as he entered the fast downhill right at Turn 2, and crashed out of the race. He had pushed hard to try to drop Rins, but every time he pushed, the LCR Honda rider responded. Bagnaia was starting to really get into the flow of things, when the front went away without warning.

3
2023
MotoGP
Moto2
Austin, Texas
Ducati
Honda
Yamaha
Alex Rins
Fabio Quartararo
Francesco Bagnaia
Jack Miller
Joan Mir
CormacGP
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Comments

Oh no. Did Martin make a mistake and take out another rider ? Surely not. I do think the best words when on the receiving end of such a mistake are those given by Alex. All human, all make mistakes. Reminds me of Assen 2019 after Alex was taken out by Balda. He's a nice chap.

All of these comments about "I did nuffin wrong guvner....." are very hard to take. I know how much we all admire the riders but they have the same capacity for rather self serving bullshit as the rest of us. "Dear Sir - you crashed - no trolls were seen. Thank God for Jack's analysis. It reeked of honesty.

As for Rins - that guy is seriously talented and adaptable. End of 22 and now Winning! in 23 on a Honda - wow.

 

Almost as good when he gave up the win in Misano, when he also didn’t know what happened, or maybe it was a tear off’s fault, I can’t remember… 

 

Honda and Yamaha must be in trouble when even a journalist knows they have to stop building race bikes and instead start building MotoGP - I can’t wait when Dave will tell Ken in person this little gem at the next race at Jerez, I would pay a fortune to witness that encounter in person😂😂😂

Wow indeed! Rins now has 6 GP victories. He trails only behind Marquez, Bagnaia, Quartaro, and Viñales in career wins among active riders.

Can you guess which rider, also on a satellite team, is next on the list?

Miguel Oliveira with 5. 

Before Rin's victory on Sunday, the last satellite rider to win (who was not on a Ducati) was Franky in Valencia, 2020.

 

Aero faults could well be the reason for the crashes. They are getting so good at it, that the slightest change in air passing over/through all the aero-gadgets changes grip and down they go. no telemetry can ever catch those changes.

Outlaw the damned things with the next contract-period. Rules can be very simple :

* vent's/scopes/airintakes/holes in general in/on any form of the outer skin of the bikes viewed from the front  is only permitted to guide air into the airbox or the radiator

* anything sticking out on/of the fairing/rear body/tank/front fender/swingarm/front forks is forbidden

* any "add-ons" of plastic/carbon/whatever outside the fairing/tank/... can only be parallel to the brake discs

* and most importantly : if the technical-rules-manager thinks something is an aero-device, he can forbid it whithout appeal possible (like the "Aprilia bottom fairing")

 

Bring back the racing motorcycles. aero-adapts already have F1 they can watch.

Re: Janbros' comment on aero - I had the same thought. They should/could be collecting real-time race data, just like they do with data logging from other physical sensors and the IMU. This might not help in aero design, but it would provide data to suggest just what happened leading up to a crash. Helping riders and teams understand the "I don't understand" bit would help prevent teams chasing wrong theories, or the rider losing confidence because they can't identify what they did.

Factories are now playing with fairing shapes that change flow (and pressure) in that narrow channel at high lean angles between the lower fairing and the track surface. I believe there is a whole tech sector that has solved data acquisition for these conditions. They are so innocuous they could be on the bike during races to record highly specific anomalies during the race (e.g., a localized wind gust, or turbulence from the rider ahead). Something like this: https://pressureprofile.com/aerostrip

Numbers beat no numbers, every time.

Aero had nothing to do with the crashes. The actual reason for the amount of crashes at COTA in the Sunday race was simply the condition of the tarmac.

Four different kinds of low grip tarmac all patched together with lots of bumps scattered around in various sizes. The whole circuit needs fully resurfaced and done properly.

The revenue made from F1 would cover the high cost. 

Agreed.

What struck me was the number of highsides in the Moto3 race. It was like watching a race at a wet Le Mans.

COTA needs to be told that the condition of the circuit is not acceptable and action is needed if they want to keep the race.

Silverstone did it when they fouled up and so should COTA.

 

With so many riders failing to finish I'm not sure there's too much to read into Bagnaia's crash.  I guess we'll see in the next couple of rounds whether there's a deeper problem, but I'm leaning towards a coincidence that Argentina and COTA were back to back.

Either way we could have an exciting championship if no-one is going to run away with it this year.

Team Dynamics

Although this may be evident already, I had someone with direct knowledge/insight to the Mooney VR46 team point out to me that the atmosphere inside the team is special, comparatively.  Made a lot of sense to me once he mentioned this.

So they're on exceptional bikes, and are surrounded by relationships which have been in their lives (the riders and rest of team) for years.  In some cases, decades.  Phrases like "we're friends and family" get thrown around a lot to describe social connections, but I have a hard time imagining another team with nearly this close of personal connection.  

If all true, the psychological boost this affords must be significant.  I'm excited to watch this team throughout the rest of the season.  

At the current rate of progress, how long will it be until there aren't any tracks big / safe enough for the MotoGP bikes? And how many of those that are will produce close racing?

Perhaps MisterJ has a point. I believe the golfing world (a mile away from motorcycle racing), has had to face something of a parallel issue with modern club and ball technology starting to outstrip the old restrictions of the existing golf courses, as players are able to drive new distances. Where to next with technological advances?

Been to a few meetings (WOW!!) but I don't follow it at all... didn't top fuel drag racing (NHRA?) have to drop down from the quarter mile to 1/8mile because the cars were just going so so fast?  Over 600kmh and increasing... within 400m!

I'd hate for the same to happen to MotoGP.  Keep the same engine regs, 81mm bore and drop them down to three cylinder 750's. Fixed.

Top Fuel tyre supplier was becoming very nervous about the speeds they were hitting on the 1/4 mile and after some very bad accidents, NHRA in consultation with all major suppliers, tracks etc decided 1/8 mile was best bet
They had already tried to limit the speeds by mandating a set diff ratio, direct drive and a number of other restrictions but as with racers everywhere, they worked out how to go even faster
 

 

 

I noticed that after one of the televised crashes you could see lines of cracks on the track surface. Surely that would effect grip and create traction issues?

Provided it is consistently crap(ish) lap after lap it's ok. Deteriorating across a race, dangerous. I think riders love beautifully smooth perfect track surfaces which is understandable. I like uneven because I'm watching on TV. The number of crashes point to an issue but I keep falling back to the fact that more riders, Rins in paticular, managed it. 

Bagnaia is prone to crashing on the right side. Anyone else notice this?

COTA is a problem. Attendance was even worse than last year. We were there and my thoughts are "where else can you experience 3 seasons of weather in the course of three days?" Arm pump returns after pre-season and two races. Changing the track (digging it up and dealing with the substrate) is just not an option. The original design was for Formula 1; motogp was an after-thought; so there really is no flow; it's like 3 or 4 tracks pieced together.

That being said; weather and changing asphalt is and will always be a factor for this sport. If every track was indoors and perfectly smooth with awesome grip, this would get boring really quick.

NHRA did shorten the track....to 1000', not an 1/8th mile. The record speed, in the 1/8th mile is 299.89 mph....not a misprint. MGP tried slowing them down, with the 800's, and looked where that ended up. At the moment, M2 is 'usually' about 5 sec's slower a lap then MGP. WSBK is tougher, due to the tire difference, but 2-2.5 sec's is ballpark, so slowing them MGP down to WSBK/M2 would be..... There really is no simple/easy solution to slowing them down.

 

Probably re-paving won't last. We just got back from COTA using our motorhome. We camped at Lot N, which is a field outside of T2/T3. The only roads around there that are smooth are the Interstate highways nearby. Everything else is lumpy as can be. Even the COTA parking lots! To make Cota smooth long term, they need to rebuild it on an Interstate type base. Regarding the crashes, most seem to be low speed low-sides. Only Pecco's was at the high speed T2, and I guess Martin's was at 'even throttle' T3. Also Sunday was much cooler than Saturday. Maybe the change in wheather simply affected the grip offered by the track, tires or both?

It is nearly a week after Rins' great performances and I still can't understand how he managed them.

He was riding a Honda which recent evidence and results proves isn't much good and that has a recent record of more high sides than any other type.

He was on a track with low grip and variable surface that resulted in many other crashers, ranging from high sides in Moto3 to front end loses generally in MotoGP.

He reportedly achieved his speed by taking advantage of edge grip while feeding on power with the bike leaned over and with the traction control turned down. He managed this task without high siding or losing the back followed by the front for 30 racing laps.

In retrospect it was one of the best performances I can recall.