When the first attempt at starting Sunday’s MotoGP Americas GP was red-flagged, and then restarted with everybody allowed to change to their ‘dry’ bikes, massive anger broke out in the Trackhouse Aprilia pit. Team principal Davide Brivio was incensed that his rider Ai Ogura – one of three to have already fitted slicks on the grid – would not get the reward for taking that gamble.
You could understand just where Brivio, who expressed his outrage on live television, was coming from. Taking a tyre risk in changeable conditions is, for a team not usually in with a chance of winning, the only opportunity to make the impossible possible. So when, having sat patiently through dry (or fully wet) races for months or even years, that magic mixed-weather day finally dawns, teams like Trackhouse dare to dream.
