Box Confidential: Beware of Phillip Island ‘traps’!

Beware of Phillip Island ‘traps’! When they ask me what my favorite race is or what GP I recommend attending, I always answer the same thing: Phillip Island. When you ask the drivers about their favorite World Championship circuit, nine out of ten admit that they are fans of the very special, unique, track ‘at the end of the world’, as I like to call it. This preference of the riders, in my opinion, stems from the fact that Phillip Island is the circuit with the least braking of all visited by MotoGP; That is, it is gas, to accelerate. And that is, by definition, what a pilot wants… But Phillip Island has a payoff. As we saw this morning – there is a 9 hour difference relative to CET – and as happens almost every year, the dates chosen to hold the MotoGP GP mean being at the mercy of the terrible, completely unpredictable period. Cold, torrential downpours, intermittent downpours, gale-force winds, all kinds of animals crossing the track or a combination of some of these phenomena, are in the script for each day doing the this race an unpredictable and dangerous weekend for pilots fighting for certain things. Be careful, Phillip Island can destroy what has been built throughout time, and give wings to those who seem to cut them off … No need to name names, right?

Aleix Espargaró, last station. In English there is an expression that I really like: soft landing. Literally translated it means ‘soft landing’, but the Anglo-Saxons use it to describe a calm, gentle end to the cycle. This is a strategy that emerged from Aleix Espargaró’s remarks in Australia. Aleix admitted before the start of the GP that while packing his suitcase to travel to Phillip Island he realized it was his last chance. “I know that as a Honda test rider I will drive again at Jerez, at Mugello, but I will not do it again here at Phillip Island.” Among the fans there is a thought that a driver who has announced his retirement will give everything in the last stage of his racing career to end it in a spectacular way. But in my many years at the World Cup I have verified that the sporting epic that fans expect does not correspond to reality. What a retired pilot wants is to fully settle into his new ‘civilian life’. While your mind is focused on the race, accidents are included in the salary; When they saw the exit door, they applied the English soft landing. It’s normal, just human, and in Aleix’s case, it’s not to blame. All you have to do is enjoy what you have left; more than he earned

The ‘other World Cup’ was held in Jerez. While MotoGP is on the opposite side of the race in its 17th GP of the season, closer, in Jerez, the World Superbike Championship, WSBK, will decide the champions in its four categories. And with three of them the Spanish pilots can become World Champions. Where there is no doubt is in the Women’s World Cup, where Ana Carrasco from Murcia, María Herrera from La Mancha and Sara Sanchez from Catalonia as the three candidates who will debut a championship celebrating its first edition this year. And by the way, the competition between the first two is tight. Adría Huertas, confirmed next year as a Moto2 rider in the GGPP, is also very good while in Superbike, the top category, Toprak Razgatlioglu is likely to retain his World Champion crown. The Turk, currently a WSBK super icon, looks like a future MotoGP rider. He’s had offers in the past, “but we’re only going there on an official, competitive motorcycle”… Australia in the early morning, Jerez de la Frontera until midday, what a fuel weekend!