Revolutionized starts
The weekend at Sachsenring saw the introduction of a novelty officially announced a few weeks ago by MotoGP: the new starting grid with more spaced-out slots. The vertical distance between one rider and another has increased from three to four meters, while the vertical space between one row and another has risen from nine to twelve meters. This is the other safety measure – along with the removal of the front lowering devices – designed to try to reduce the risk of accidents at the start of races. An ongoing intervention taken by the Grand Prix Commission but which has not convinced everyone.
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Exclusively interviewed by FormulaPassion.it, the historic former MotoGP manager Carlo Pernat pointed the finger at these mid-season revolutions, a sign, in his opinion, of a lack of professionalism by the category’s leadership. But not only that: according to Pernat, if rules are changed while the season is in full swing, it implicitly means admitting that previously a poor job was done in writing the regulations.
Lack of professionalism
“I think very badly of these rule changes made during the season – Pernat said bluntly to our microphones – it’s true, removing the lowering device at the start is good for safety. But you can’t keep changing everything mid-season. It’s a World Championship. First you remove the lowering device, then you lengthen the starting lines...then it means the regulations of the last two years were badly made. And earlier this year there was also the rule change for what happened with Marc Marquez at Jerez, when he cut the pit lane. Changing so much during the season means you have done things wrong“.
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Finally, Pernat is not even so sure that changing the rules – in this case lengthening the distance between the various positions on the starting grid – is the right way to have more safety on track. While on the issue of lowering devices the Genoese manager recognized a step forward, on this last point he is much more skeptical: “They got scared of the starts, but the starts are always the same. Does spacing out the positions solve the problems? No. It has positive aspects, but also negative ones: for example, those behind, starting even further back, might want to take even more risks to recover“.
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