MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

When the 2023 MotoGP season is over, the Motegi round is likely to be seen as one of the turning points. Either because this is the place where Pecco Bagnaia and his team fixed their problems with the Ducati GP23 and stopped Jorge Martin's momentum in its tracks, or because he couldn't, and Martin would go on to sweep the title.

It is still too early to say which of those two versions of events will transpire, and the sprint race at Motegi did little to clarify the picture. Jorge Martin was unstoppable, shattering the pole record, beating the race lap record by over a second (though the sprint races don't count toward setting race lap records), and leading from start to finish, after shaking off a brief challenge from Brad Binder. But Pecco Bagnaia looked a lot better than he has done in recent races, finishing third and limiting the damage to Martin.

When Michelin entered MotoGP, their official objectives were to use premier class motorcycle racing as a laboratory to be able to do R&D at the very highest level, to learn lessons about designing and building tires that simply can't be learned on the street.

Unofficially, of course, they also wanted to show up Bridgestone – or as Michelin refer to them, the previous supplier – by smashing the lap records set on the Japanese rubber as quickly as possible. They did that pretty quickly, and within a couple of years most of the lap records were gone.

But a few hung on stubbornly, year after year. The outright (Marc Marquez, 2014) and race lap (Valentino Rossi, 2015) records at Argentina are still from the Bridgestone era, as is the record at Phillip Island, which is in the hands of Marc Marquez from the bizarre 2013 race where the brand new track surface was generating so much heat in the tires that the race was shortened and compulsory pit stops to swap bikes were introduced.

Chapter 2 of MotoGP's Eastern Tour sees the paddock alight at the Twin Ring Motegi circuit, a couple of hours north of Tokyo. After the excitement of tension of a brand new venue, the Buddh International Circuit just outside of New Delhi, Motegi is almost the polar opposite. Everything about Motegi is known: owned by Honda, and raced at since Daijiro Kato's untimely death just over 20 years ago made it impossible for MotoGP to return to Suzuka.

Honda and Yamaha test here – Cal Crutchlow was here in August, testing the latest iteration of the Yamaha M1 – and the riders, teams, and bikes all have thousands of laps around the track. MotoGP is back into its familiar routine, driving from the same hotel they have been staying in for the last decade at Mito up the hill to the Motegi Twin Ring circuit, then after the race to the same bar for Karaoke and strong drink.

Motegi is very much a known quantity. So much so that it gets its own mention in the MotoGP technical regulations: as the circuit where the brakes are tested the hardest, Motegi was the first track to be added to the list where the use of 340mm brake discs are compulsory, to prevent the brakes from overheating and fading. Spielberg in Austria and Buriram in Thailand were added to that illustrious list a little later.

Burning brakes

The proof of any pudding is in the eating. And the proof of any MotoGP event is when the rubber hits the road for real: when the racing starts. The Grand Prix of India has been through a real rollercoaster in the past few months, from doubts that the circuit would be ready a few months ago, to worries that the track wasn't safe enough a couple of weeks ago, to the circuit being embraced by the riders yesterday after they finally got a taste of the Buddh International Circuit on a MotoGP bike.

But practice is practice, and only racing is for real, and the first ever grand prix motorcycle race to be held at BIC exposed a few weaknesses in the circuit's preparation. And it once again exposed the rather worrying state of MotoGP in 2023. There was a long delay due to the rain, the sprint race starting at 5pm, 90 minutes after the originally scheduled start. And there was yet another first-corner pile up, with another rider forced to miss Sunday's race due to injuries sustained in the crash.

After all the worries, concerns, fears that the Indian MotoGP round would not happen, because of missing visas or missing riders, inadequate facilities, or an unsafe track, things are looking pretty bright for the first ever motorcycle racing grand prix to be held in India. There were plenty of bumps along the way (and there may yet be a few more bumps ahead), but the stage is set for what promises to be a remarkable event.

Was the panic over visas unwarranted? Not entirely. The fact that Marc Marquez only arrived first thing on Thursday morning is far from ideal preparation for a grand prix weekend in the intense heat and humidity of northern India. Lessons will have to be learned when MotoGP comes back next year, about planning to tackle the various bureaucratic challenges posed by racing in India well in advance. It is normal for the first race at a new track to face bumps in the road, but these bumps were nearly large enough to qualify as a whoops section.

With just two days of testing during the MotoGP season, track time outside of race weekends is like gold dust. Just over halfway through the season, teams and riders find themselves with a lot of questions needing urgent answers. Factory engineers have their own agendas, with prototypes and new ideas to collect data on in preparation for the first post-season test at Valencia, to give themselves enough time to get bikes and engines ready for 2024.

Michelin, too, have things they want testing. New compounds for 2024, and very early work on the 2025 front tire which is meant to solve the current woes with tire pressure caused by ride-height devices and aero. That tire is reserved for test riders, however. The MotoGP regulars won't get their hands on it until Valencia or Sepang at the earliest.

So there was an awful lot to test on Monday at Misano. A new engine, chassis and aero for Yamaha, a new bike (sans engine) for Honda, carbon-fiber frames for KTM and Aprilia, and experiments with suspension and setup and bike geometry to work through.

There are days when you are reminded that racing is not quite as important as we like to think it is. Saturday was one of those days. The news that Mike Trimby, IRTA CEO, had died on Friday night affected everyone in the paddock. To say that Trimby was a giant of the sport is an understatement. The only person who has had a greater impact on the shape of MotoGP and motorcycle racing in its current guise is Carmelo Ezpeleta.

And arguably, Trimby did more to make motorcycle racing safer than Ezpeleta, because he was elected by the riders as a safety representative, and went on to form IRTA, which had the political clout to improve safety because they had the power of collective bargaining. And Trimby had the moral courage to use that power to force race promoters and circuit owners to make drastic changes to make the racing safer. There are riders alive today who probably wouldn't have been if Mike Trimby hadn't taken the stance that he had.

The contrast with Barcelona is stark at Misano. Not just in terms of grip – it is absolutely night and day between last weekend and this weekend – but also with the weather. Where in Barcelona the weather was fickle, with spots of rain constantly threatening, at Misano the sun comes out in the morning and the sky stays blue until sunset. The only confounding factor is the wind.

That was causing Luca Marini problems in the afternoon. "I expected a little bit better in FP2, but with the raised temperatures I struggle a lot with the edge grip, and especially also with the wind," the Mooney VR46 rider said. "I made a lot of wheelie, and exiting from the corner for me was really really difficult, and we need to work a little bit if the conditions will be the same tomorrow in the sprint, especially because I think here the wind in the morning is every time a little bit lower and also the temperature will be better. But for the races, we need to find a little bit better compromise."