Confidential Box: Freediving for 1 kilometer at 330 km/h

Freediving 1 kilometer at a speed of 330 km/h.

From the first practice session it was seen that Buriram will test the physique of the MotoGP riders. Fans in their faces, faces drenched in sweat… surviving the destructive mix of heat and humidity in this region of Thailand will be a challenge for the MotoGP riders, whose powerful engines of almost 300 HP emits very strong heat. Evacuating this heat is a challenge for engineers, especially now that the fever for aerodynamics forces the use of very closed bodies. This is a factor that is not usually talked about, but every time you come to Buriram it can even decide the outcome of the races. Without going too far, last year Maverick Viñales retired from racing due to heat stroke; Aleix Espargaró is close; and Raúl Fernández admitted that he did the long straight of the circuit in apnea in order not to breathe hot air while he was stuck behind the dome… Raúl reached the end of the straight at 330 km/h without breathing. for a kilometer!; and over and over again during the 26 laps of Sunday’s race… It was beastly.

David Alonso goes for Ángel Nieto’s 12+1.

The communications managers of the Aspar team, where David Alonso plays, tell me that their driver keeps them up at night. They thought that once they were proclaimed World Champion, they would be able to breathe easy, but it turned out not to be enough for David to equal Valentino Rossi’s record for the fewest category wins – eleven – and go undefeated. And to keep the motivation in the finale of this championship, Mr. Alonso put himself between his eyebrows and no more or less than reaching 13 victories, to pay tribute to Ángel Nieto in a 12+1 that format. To do this, David needs to win two of the three remaining GGPPs to close out the season. Seeing the level of determination he’s shown this season, I’m not one to say he’s struggling. So far, he was the fastest on the first day of practice here in Buriram. “We don’t know what else to report about him. After winning the title we have said and written everything,” Team Aspar resigned from me. I think they shouldn’t worry, because it seems like David Alonso is writing his own script.

Strange situation with Aprilia, or is it just me?

A few weeks ago it became public that Romano Albesiano, the head of Aprilia’s MotoGP project since the Noale factory decided to return to GGPP in 2016, will leave that position at the end of the season to take up the same role in the ranks of Honda. Since then, for me incomprehensible, Romano Albesiano continues to lead the technical side of Aprilia. A situation that is shocking inside the team’s own box, where it is not explained how the company did not liquidate him and sent him to gardening. A term invented in F1 that specifically refers to sending engineers or technicians who will change sides at the end of the season at home ‘to amuse themselves in the garden’, and which, for example, KTM applied to Fabiano Sterlacchini – the team leader of its project for the last three years – once they decided not to renew it. Albesiano, on the other hand, continues to lead Aprilia; surprising right? And speaking of Sterlacchini, he, Albesiano’s replacement, will join his new job next weekend, as soon as his KTM contract expires on October 31. The question is whether Albesiano and Sterlacchini will meet in the box, the outgoing engineer and the incoming engineer. Probably not, but the way things are managed there, you never know.