MotoGP stars Aleix Espargaro and Marc Marquez have criticised riders slowing down in qualifying to position themselves behind faster bikes, saying it could lead to “dangerous” situations.
The debate over towing in MotoGP was reignited on Saturday at Silverstone as a number of riders ran in a group on their second runs in order to gain an aerodynamic advantage on the circuit’s three long straights.
While slipstreaming in itself does not necessarily pose a safety issue, qualifying for the British Grand Prix saw many riders get down to crawling speeds to allow their rivals to get through, before picking up the speed and latching behind them.
This led to some bizarre scenes as the clock ticked down to zero, with Aprilia’s Espargaro taking advantage of the situation to claim his first pole of the year, having managed to get a clean lap without anyone running close to him.
Reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia was the first to express his frustration with the way the grid-deciding session was held at Silverstone, saying nothing will change until the rulemakers intervene.
Despite benefitting from Bagnaia’s troubles, Espargaro joined the Italian in slamming riders for creating a “ridiculous” problem in qualifying, while warning about the dangers associated with slowing down unnecessarily on track.
The poleman said: “In qualifying you can take two risks. The first one is to go out [as the] first one [on track] because everybody is going to follow you, you are in the mix with everybody.
“Or the second one is to wait [and] go last, but then if there is a yellow flag you ruin your lap.
“I took the second one. I don't like to go behind others. I like to go by myself.
“I agree with Pecco. For me it is ridiculous that riders are waiting in the garage all the time for a tow.
“It's ridiculous to see five, six riders - and it's always the same riders - in the middle of the track that are waiting for the others [while being] completely stopped.
“You put also [your rivals] in danger because the others don't want to push or the tyres get cold and it's dangerous.
“But they can do it, the rules allow them to do it. So this is racing, but like Pecco for me it's ridiculous.”
Six-time champion Marquez followed Bagnaia on his first run in qualifying and set a lap that provisionally put him fifth on the grid after a tough Friday at Silverstone.
However, on his final flying attempt, the Gresini rider got stuck behind the slower VR46 bikes of Fabio di Giannantonio and Marco Bezzecchi and failed to improve on his previous effort, dropping to seventh on the grid.
Despite trying to gain an advantage himself, Marquez also wasn’t too pleased with the way qualifying panned out. But he also believes that switching to the superpole format - where all riders take turns in setting their fastest laps - will adversely affect the show.
“Racing was and will be like this if they don't change the qualifying practice and they put [something] like a superpole,” he said.
“But as we have seen in the past, the superpole is boring. I don't have anything against it but [World] Superbikes was like one-by-one [in qualifying] and the show was not there.
“But in the end, when you follow some bike, you gain some things and [lose] other things.
“As we saw today in the second run, everybody in Q2 was waiting for the fastest guys.”
One idea that has been pitched involves setting a maximum time limit for each sector, which would prevent riders from slowing down too much on track in qualifying.
However, Marquez doesn’t think it would entirely solve the problem, as riders will simply sit in the pits and wait for faster bikes to go out on track.
“You can change but then the strategy will be in the pitlane, like in Moto3 right now,” he said.
“You can change the sectors, but then the strategy will be in the pitlane. In the end you have different strategies to do it.
“This GP is the first one that I'm looking for a slipstream. I would like to not do it, like I did in the past races, but the rules are the rules and I'm not the guy to decide.”
