The Psychological Challenges Of Motogp – Motegi uses more fuel than any other MotoGP circuit, so race winner Marc Marquez only just made it to the finish: Japanese Grand Prix race review
Marc Marquez entered Mick Doohan territory in more ways than one on Sunday. At Motegi, he won his 54th MotoGP race, equaling the Australian’s 54 wins in the 500cc class between September 1990 and October 1998. No one else has won more on a Honda.
The Psychological Challenges Of Motogp
The tenth victory of the Spaniard in 2019 was also his fourth on the trot; in other words, he’s starting to make his rivals wake up on Sunday mornings wondering who will finish second. This is exactly what Duane loved to do.
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Doohan is known to have said that motorcycle racing is 90 percent psychological, that you can beat your opponents before you even get on your bike. I don’t think Fabio Quartararo was beaten before he drove his Petronas YZR-M1 out of the pit lane on Sunday afternoon, but everything he tried to get past the world champion didn’t work.
Racing isn’t just about opening the throttle all the way. It is much more complicated.
The great rookie opted for the soft option rear tire in the hope that he could leapfrog Marquez in the tricky first few laps before the tires warmed up to optimum temperature for him to run fast like the Yamaha, smooth cornering lines and get away.
But Marquez was immediately stronger using the medium rear, even though the tire gave him a bit of a scare during Friday afternoon’s cooler FP2 session. And since Saturday was mostly wet, there was no real data to tell anyone what the best bet was for Sunday.
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And with the race only starting at 3pm, with track temperatures already dropping along with the sun, Marquez’s front-row starters Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli switched mediums to soft rears at the last minute.
Still, the one near-miss for Marquez was running out of fuel, which would have been a little awkward at Honda’s own racetrack, built by the company in 1998 as a 50th birthday present to itself.
The Motegi circuit uses more fuel than any other MotoGP arena, with gas-powered bikes accelerating out of corners in low gear five times each lap. Other tracks that also come close to draining a MotoGP bike’s 22-litre fuel tank are the Red Bull Ring, where there are basically three drag races per lap, and Losail, where the high-oxygen night temperatures demand rich fuel. from the bike’s engine control system.
When you run out of gas and rubber and have a talent like Quartararo behind you, it’s not the most comfortable feeling in the world
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Marquez always knew he would be low on fuel on Sunday. Indeed, he gave serious thought to what he had done in two of the three previous races: run by his opponent throughout the race to save fuel and then dash at the finish.
But he felt so good on the bike in the morning warm-up that he decided to try to destroy everyone in the first few laps and then focus on managing fuel consumption, riding smoothly, especially minimizing wheel spin. Nothing wastes more fuel than wheel spin, because you’re burning fuel by spinning the tire instead of moving forward.
Yet halfway through Sunday’s penultimate lap, with 4.5 miles to go, his Repsol RC213V’s low-fuel alarm went off. Marquez had a 2.3 second advantage at that point, but he lost half a second to Quartararo in the next half-lap and another second in the final lap. Now it’s easy to say he was in control, but when you’re running out of gas and rubber and you’ve got a talent like Quartararo behind you, it can’t be the most comfortable feeling in the world.
However, if Marquez was worried, he never showed it after the race. Again, psychology is (almost) everything.
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Perhaps things would have been different had Quartararo opted for the longer-lasting Michelin mid-rear instead of the soft one he abused in his pursuit of the lead. That’s why Andrea Dovizioso, who also opted for the medium rear, was able to pass Maverick Viñales (who also used the soft rear) and almost stole second place from Quartararo in the closing laps.
None of this would have happened a few years ago. Until 2016, when Dorna introduced its low-tech software that let the rider do the work, the motorcycle’s little black box took care of tedious matters like fuel consumption.
The rider didn’t have to be distracted from his real job of riding the motorcycle as fast as he dared to think about turning the throttle to save fuel, because the engine management system did it all for him. If the bike’s computer calculated that it was using too much fuel to get to the finish line, it simply reduced the torque transfer and therefore the fuel consumption.
The racers really, really hated it. Imagine you’re in a frenzy for the final podium spot, trying to figure out where you’re going to beat the competition on the last lap, when your engine mysteriously loses a few horsepower, and there’s nothing you can do about it except let yourself beaten and sulking back to the pit lane without an invitation to the podium party.
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MotoGP’s modern and (thank goodness) less intelligent engine management software puts that work back into the rider’s brain and right wrist, so he once again has to think about more than just stretching the bike’s throttle cable (okay, his riding next to wire system).
And before you complain that this is nonsense because MotoGP is a motorcycle race and not a fuel economy race, that’s how racing has always been. Over the decades, many, many drivers have lost races because they burned through all their fuel before reaching the checkered flag. Racing isn’t just about opening the throttle all the way. It is much more complicated.
MotoGP’s move away from self-calculating bikes makes life difficult for everyone, not just the riders. During practice, each team’s engineers spend hours checking fuel consumption figures. They know exactly what happened in every training session. Was the rider alone? Was he hiding in someone’s reservoir? He used a lot of slippage to make up the lap time. Or did it ride smoother when the wheels were in line? And what was the fuel consumption during each of those laps?
Engineers extrapolate all of this data to create torque maps that the rider uses during the race, as well as engine braking, traction control and anti-wheel maps. All this is done in unison with the driver, so he knows exactly what to expect from his engine. This is vital because the rider has to adjust their riding technique accordingly, perhaps focusing more on cornering speed if they don’t have as much torque as they would like.
Márquez Out Of Gas With
All racers know that they have to think about their fuel consumption all weekend at Motegi, even before the race starts. The race consists of 24 laps – 71.6 miles – but before the race starts, riders must complete an inspection lap and a warm-up lap, bringing the total distance to 77.6 miles. That means they have to squeeze 16 mpg (18 liters per 100 km) from their 280 hp engines if they want to see the checkered flag.
Marquez drove the target lap at full cruise – using a soft throttle opening on the straights and tucking behind the screen to reduce drag – because every drop counts.
However, the warm-up circuit is more difficult. Do you gas it up to warm up the tires so you don’t crash on the first turn, or do you keep it simple so you don’t run out of fuel on the last? Decision, decision.
When the lights go out, the driver is left alone, but he has buttons on the steering wheel so he can choose between three different torque delivery maps. Sometimes drivers only change the map three or four times per race. Other times, they’ll switch maps much more frequently, perhaps switching to a softer, less thirsty map through the twistier parts of the course, then switching back to a stronger, more powerful map when they reach a faster sector where they need maximum acceleration and apex. speed.
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Think about doing it when you’re driving on the absolute edge, braking until the front tire locks in corners, exceeding 60 degrees of bank in corners, and accelerating out of corners with the rear tire squirming sideways.
So, when a driver says to the TV camera that he’s going to “hit the gas” from start to finish, you know he’s not necessarily telling the truth.
On Sunday, Marquez gave it as much gas as he dared and ran out of gas halfway through the deceleration lap, meaning he crossed the finish line with what must have been a pint of fuel in the fuel tank; that’s a mug of coffee worth the gas. Hafiz Syakhrin was kind enough to push him back to the pit lane.
First, Marquez’s close finish showed just how close he came to the red