Category: MotoGP

This post has some tips for people wanting to visit the MotoGP race at Phillip Island.  Those with plenty of time on their hands will be better off renting a bike and riding the coastal roads.  This post is aimed more at those making a flying visit (acknowledging that those without much time on their hands are unlikely to be reading this blog)

Phillip Island itself may be famous for its fauna, but anyone who likes cities will want to stay in Melbourne.

The Phillip Island circuit is about a two hour drive from Melbourne.  It isn’t really possible to get there any quicker as the Victoria police are (in)famous for their merciless treatment of people caught speeding.  This is clear – even to the casual visitor – by the number of sport bikes on the way to the circuit sticking religiously to the speed limit.

Upon reaching Phillip Island proper there may be a bit of a tailback but nothing major compared to other international motorsport events.  The organisers seem to do a decent job of getting spectators into the circuit.  Perhaps this is because attendance is about 35,000.

Phillip Island is in southern Australia and the MotoGP takes place in their spring.  But it’s still Australia: spectators need Factor 50 even if it looks cloudy.

Watching from top of the Gardner straight it is possible to see the drop down from Lukey heights to MG and most of the long left onto the straight.  There is also the added bonus of one of Dorna’s video screens showing the global feed.

The final race itself starts relatively late, presumably to better accommodate global TV audiences.  After the slow down lap, the marshals open the track promptly to let spectators make their way towards the podium ceremony.  The podium ceremony finishes at about 17:00 by which time all the trackside vendors, official or otherwise, seem to have closed their stalls.

Getting out of the car park is not as easy as entering, so it would be wise to find something else to do.  Unfortunately this is tricky because, as mentioned above, all merchandise, food and drink stalls seem to shut the second the final race finishes.  Those needing either sustenance or souvenirs would be advised to make purchases before the final race starts.

MotoGP at Mugello is one of those “classic” European rounds, so camping at the circuit will be a lot of fun for those not planning on getting much sleep.  Expect loud music, drinking and, of course, novel applications of the unsilenced internal combustion engine.

Conventional wisdom says those wanting a comfortable bed should stay in Florence.  Florence may be closer to the circuit and much prettier, but Bologna is a bigger city and easier to get to if you’re flying in from afar.  Plus, of course, Ducatisti will want to make some sort of pilgrimage to Bologna before or after the race.

Bologna Fiera to Mugello takes about an hour on the main highway (E35).  Navigating is easy enough but this is the 21st century so satnav and smartphones make this pretty much idiot-proof.  The E35 is a toll road which costs about €6 each way.

Circuit entrances (“ingressi”) are generally well signposted but the flow of traffic invariably leads to the fields nearest to Ingresso Palagio.  Those wishing to watch from San Donato to Arrabbiata 1 will probably want to use Ingresso Luco. However, the signposting for Luco seemed to disappear somewhere around the small town of Scarperia e San Piero.  That said, this diversion does seem to provide a route avoiding some of the traffic and leading back towards Ingresso Palagio.

On race day 2017, there was a 10km tailback at 08:30.  This may have been racegoers with fake passes trying to access Ingresso Paddock because once that turn had been cleared traffic seemed to start moving again.  Nonetheless this last 10km took 2½ hours in a car.

Parking in a field near Ingresso Palagio will cost €10-20 and it’s a short walk to the circuit.  The closer you park to Ingresso Palagio the shorter the walk, but the longer you wait after the race while the fields further away are cleared first.  There will probably be a good two hour wait for the traffic to move, followed by diversions enforcing a circuitous route around the local landscape back to E35.  Go on a bike if you can.

The circuit itself is easy, if long, to navigate.  There is a well tarmacked perimeter road almost all the way round the circuit.  The exception being the south side of the circuit: there is no way to get from from Ingresso Luco to Ingresso Arrabiatta without leaving the circuit.

This is Italy so food at the circuit is plentiful and good: nary a doughnut to be seen.  Merchandise is plentiful if a little uniform: it is hard to buy anything without a yellow 46 on it.  It is even harder to find anyone willing to sell it when they’re busy selling VR46 merch.

It would be surprising if there were anywhere at Mugello that wasn’t a good vantage point to watch the racing.  The landscape means several parts of the track are visible from most locations.  A grandstand seat isn’t necessary but it does guarantee a degree of comfortable viewing and, perhaps more importantly, screens which show the global TV feed.

This post relates to events taking place almost 18 months before this blog even existed. The bitterness that followed has never really gone away so this is still, in some small way, relevant to MotoGP today. This first post will cover a quick analysis done shortly after València 2015.

First a quick recap.   At the penultimate round of the 2015 championship Valentino Rossi accused Marc Márquez of having “played” with the other riders during the previous round at Phillip Island. He went on to say that he thought Márquez did this to support Jorge Lorenzo’s world championship. Márquez denied this and the two riders clashed during the race. This earned Rossi three penalty points; relegating him to the back of the grid for the championship decider in València. Lorenzo won the final race and with it the championship. Then the real bitterness started, as Rossi accused Márquez of protecting Lorenzo in the race to ensure his championship victory.

The accusations generated plenty of opinion but not much actual analysis. Here are my observations, based on the lap times published on motogp.com.

The first figure shows lap times for the top four riders at Phillip Island. The second figure simplifies this by showing times for the podium contenders over the last four laps. It is pretty clear to see that Márquez won the race by riding the fastest lap of the race on the final lap. This fits the narrative at the time: Márquez having gone all out for glory with an amazing final lap. We can also see that his penultimate lap was quicker than the other podium contenders and that they all slowed – while he went quicker – on the final lap.

Márquez’s final lap was 0.38s quicker than his penultimate lap, which was itself a good lap. There’s not much point comparing the last lap to a trended average lap time because his lap times were so inconsistent. In fact, we see a lot of inconsistency in lap times for the top four over the race. This is understandable given the amount of overtaking in the race.

The next two graphs show the same information for the top four riders at the València round. Once again we see that Márquez has a great final lap (0.49s quicker than his penultimate lap). Crucially we also see that both Lorenzo and Pedrosa are also quicker on their final laps, each by 0.24s.

It’s hard to see anything in the lap times to indicate that Márquez wasn’t really trying at València. It looks very much like he’s trying to win the race, just as he did at Phillip Island. Admittedly the teams and riders have access to more data than this but what could they possibly have that would contradict the obvious conclusion from lap times?