“We shouldn’t run here”

Suddenly a guest entered the main characters of the MotoGP tests that ended yesterday in Portimao. Riders and their bikes are accompanied by… the gravel runoffs! Fabio Di Giannantonio, who suffered a fall on Saturday that ended up taking him to hospital, has once again put the danger of escape routes on the Portuguese circuit on the table. A contradiction considering that these escape areas are definitely a safety element in favor of the pilots. A problem is created by the type of landfill that these areas have in Portimao.

“It’s not possible,” complained Di Giannantonio with obvious anger. “Yesterday the fall was normal, another fall, but with the first blow to my head on the gravel – a term used in the competition to refer to the material that fills the escape areas – I ‘killed’.

And with that impact the Italian pilot lost consciousness, with him not even riding his Ducati today to complete the final day of tests before the World Cup starts in two weeks. “We’ve been talking all day about improving equipment to make bikes safer from here and there, and then we hit it. Riders were complaining about the type of rocks in the run-off and assumed that they were going to trade them for boulders, but they only did it in turn #1; I crashed in turn #5.”

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Just a few minutes after these statements by Di Giannantonio, Alex Márquez crashed at turn 5 where the sharp rocks on the escape route destroyed his Ducati and he got up in his overalls as if he had fought a tiger … and very angry. too.

We are not facing a new or unexpected problem, as Pecco Bagnaia recalled that he had already warned about the wrong material for the escape routes in 2020, the first time the World Cup stopped at the Algarve International Circuit. The reigning World Champion was also the star of a strange scene last year, when after a trip that ended with him on the gravel, he filled both hands with stones, took them to the box and showed them to the equipment manager. .

There has been a commitment on the part of those responsible for the circuit to resolve this issue, but very little has changed. “I don’t want to talk about this topic anymore”, commented Aleix Espargaró. “We have been complaining here for 4 years and they are not doing anything. The wrong thing is to be silent, but no. We are complaining but we are not being listened to… What do you want us to do. ?”

Aleix, Bagnaia, Alex Márquez, Di Giannatonio and the other riders did nothing but claim the application of the rules issued by the FIM on the composition of the gravel in the runoffs of the World Championship. Something completely controlled and revised recently, exactly at the request of the pilots.

The material for the holes must consist of rounded pebbles, which in their latest version must have a diameter between 6 mm and 15 mm, and the layer must be 25 cm thick. In other words, the regulations are perfectly defined; Whether it is fulfilled or not is different. The reason is none other than the cost of replacing all the junk in a circuit. We are talking about millions of stones.

At the end of Sunday afternoon, those responsible for the Algarve International Circuit promised to resolve the situation before the first GP, that is, less than two weeks. To do this, they need, on the one hand, to find financing and, on the other hand, the tens of thousands of tons of boulders they will need to cover all the escape areas. We’ll see what we see next March 24, when the practice sessions for the Portuguese GP begin.