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Catalan GP: Challenge awaits the MotoGP Teams

For its seventh round of the championship, this weekend MotoGP returns to resurfaced and modified Circuit De Catalunya.

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Catalan GP: Challenge awaits the MotoGP Teams
Fuente imagen: MotoGP

After a thrilling Italian GP, MotoGP riders will be facing a challenge at Catalunya’s newly surfaced track.
The track is already one of the challenging on brakes with high track temperature managing brake temperature is key for a good pole lap and victory later on. Teams are completely blind about the tire choice and bike setup for this weekend’s race. Due to fresh tarmac tire wear plays a key role this weekend. Hot temperatures at Catalunya always present a hard challenge for the bikes.

This weekend will be the home race for Spanish riders Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez. They will be more than happy to be back at their home soil after a hostile Italian GP. Montmelo is just a few minutes’ drive away from Marquez and Pedrosa’s homes.

Despite being home grand Prix Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa both have won only once in premier class racing at this circuit. Whereas Italian Legend Rossi has won 6 times. Marquez’s victory after a hard fought battle came in 2014, where we saw a nail biting last lap, Marquez pushing Pedrosa wide at last corner and doing a favor to Rossi. Whole race we saw some amazing overtakes between Marquez, his teammate Pedrosa and Italian Valentino Rossi.

Both riders are motivated going into their home race and expressed positive thoughts

“I’m very happy anytime we race at home, in front of our fans, and I hope to give them an exciting race on Sunday, as that special atmosphere always gives you extra energyWe had a good test in Catalunya a few weeks ago, when we also had the chance to check out the layout, in particular the final section, which has been revised. I think they also did a really good job with the resurfacing: the tarmac now has very good grip and is very nice to ride on, even if the F1 cars are already starting to affect it by creating bumps at some of the braking points. The kerbs are still one of the track’s most challenging aspects; the inside kerbs are very high, and it’s a bit difficult to adapt your riding style to that. That said, it’s a nice track and we’ll try to make the best of it and fight for the podium again.” Marc describing the track and layout.

“The Catalan GP is always a special race because all our family, fans, and friends are there. It always has a great atmosphere and a great feeling. The track itself is very nice, though demanding, especially for the tyres. You need to work a lot on the suspension and chassis setup to make sure you have good grip because you’re leaned over most of the time. Having partly returned to the original layout, we got back the final two downhill corners, which are really beautiful”, Dani Pedrosa expressing his thoughts about his home race.

Coming to the circuit and layout. The circuit is 2.94 miles consisting of 13 corners:  5 left and 8 right. Longest straight is almost over 1000 meters longs. The characteristics of track are mixture of Le Mans and Mugello. First two sectors resembling high speed characters of Mugello and last sector resembling slow speed corners of Le Mans.

The circuit was opened in 1991 and it wasn’t until 1992 when it was officially used for premier class racing, when legend Mick Dohan won the 500cc race from American Wayne Rainey.

Originally, the Formula 1 circuit changes were not instituted for MotoGP; however, after a fatal crash in the 2016 MotoGP round involving a Moto2 rider, Luis Salom who died after crashing during FP2.

Turn 1 in Catalunya circuit is one of the most favorite site for riders to overtake. Turn 1 is high breaking zone with riders deaccelerating from over 300kph to 90kph. Similar amount of deaccelaration encounter at turn 10. According to Brembo’s data time spend under braking in both corners is almost 5.1s with 6 kg of maximum force on the liver.

Turn 3 is one of the toughest corner of the calendar where people cannot pass from the outside but Marquez made it stick on Pedrosa in 2015. Coming to turn 4 we all remember it by Lorenzo-Rossi battle a few year ago. Turn 5 is the tightest riders make it through in first gear. Last corners of the track are also suitable for overtaking where we have seen some crunch battles over the year.

Private testing at this circuit a few weeks ago proved that Yamahas of Rossi ad Vinales will be decent around the circuit and if things went positive chances of victory or podium are high for factory Yamaha.

New asphalt will definitely give extra grip to riders and we might see some new lap records as was the case during F1 race where pole lap was significantly faster than the previous record.

Some breaking and deacceleration analysis by MotoGPs official Break supplier Brembo.

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