“Scary moments”: Zarco overheats under new tyre pressure rules
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The Pramac Ducati climbed swiftly to fifth but began fading from the midway point of the 20 laps and eventually crossed the finish line in ninth.“The race was good in the first half, I chose to go on the soft rear tyre and I think it has only been a problem for the last four laps,” Zarco explained.“But the main problem has been that at half race, when I was still with Brad [Binder] and Vinales, I got the ‘over temp’ [warning] in the front tyre, had a few very scary moments and lost a lot of time.“I tried to bring down my front temperature by slowing down, but it was not going down. I’ve lost so much time and I could not fight with the other riders that were overtaking me.Aleix: My son said, ‘please be in front because I can’t see you on TV!’Next two weeks to decide Dixon, Arbolino MotoGP chances?“Honda believes in this direction”: Nakagami to continue with high downforce aero“So this was a hard moment in the race, and then at the end with a bit of rain I wanted to try and take advantage, but we were all thinking the same and we don’t want to .“So it was a bit difficult but I’m happy with the weekend and the way I could manage both races. I’ve seen a lot of things and now with all the races coming up I expect to really adjust all these things to be consistently close to the podium.”
The Frenchman had been one of many to flag up concerns over the higher starting pressures needed to ensure compliance with MotoGP’s new real-time tyre monitoring system, which came into effect at Silverstone. This requires that riders remain above minimum pressure for at least 50 per cent of a grand prix race.While a higher starting pressure is needed in case a rider spends most of the race in fresh (cool) air, if the same rider instead closely follows other bikes – like Zarco on Sunday – the usual step up in temperature/pressure from being in ‘dirty air’ will result in an even greater loss of grip than before.Related “Honda believe in this direction”: Nakagami to keep high downforce aero Oliveira, RNF miss podium by 0.070s: “It’s racing, it’s tough”Asked directly if the tyre monitoring rules had been the reason for his front issues on Sunday, Zarco replied: “For sure. As I said, the way we were doing [tyre pressures] before was not a problem for [tyre] safety. So I don’t know why the rule is there.“We were all a bit on the safe side [well above the minimum pressure].”Pecco has been struggling with it and it has been complicated [for us], I think. So yeah, it’s for this reason.“But as I say, the first half of the race has been very interesting. I was happy to do a good step and I could see many things from being with the other riders.”Other riders highlighted that the cool Silverstone conditions, late-race rain and flowing nature of the Northamptonshire circuit masked the full effect of higher starting pressures.”I think honestly this weekend we were lucky that it was cold,” Aprilia’s Maverick Vinales said of the stricter tyre pressure monitoring. “But let’s see in Austria, also with the hard braking.”Zarco, who has now slipped behind Binder for fifth place in the world championship, is contemplating a switch to LCR Honda should he be unable to remain at Ducati next season.
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