It’s something like a dress rehearsal. There is no audience. There is hardly any one here other than the teams, and even they aren’t fully represented. No sign of Hervé Poncharal, for example. Only a handful of guys in IRTA shirts, very few Dorna people. A marshal here and there out on the track, a couple of ambulances. Grandstand deserted. VERY few media. I’m one of maybe seven or eight photographers, and there are perhaps the same number of writers/editors. Most teams have at least one of their PR people here, but since this is only a MotoGP test, none of folks from the Moto2 or 125 teams are here. In short, the usually humming media center is relatively deserted.
The test lasts five hours, 6pm to 11. At times pit lane is relatively busy, but there are periods like the one shown here when you can barely tell anything is going on. Maybe one or two bikes out on the track and if they are on the other side of the circuit pit lane is quiet.
Riders go out in general for three, four or five laps, then come into the garage for 20, 30, 45 minutes. Stoner did the fewest laps, 32, so we didn’t see much of him on track. Barbera did 69 laps in his pleasantly re-liveried Aspar Ducati. Stoner’s fastest lap was number 13 of his 32, while Rossi’s fastest lap was his last of 57. Rossi worked toward improving the bike and made progress in spite of a crash. Stoner went out early, said Yep, the thing still works, and took it easy.
Riders look uncomfortable in brand new leathers not yet broken in. They spend much of the time behind closed garage doors, come out for a few laps, and disappear again. Frankly, it doesn’t look like much fun. They have to put in consistent efforts to see if changes to the bike yield desirable results, but they are all racers who aren’t really racing.
This is speculation on my part of course, I don’t really know what it is like for them. When I raced bicycles, my bike either worked (shifted, stopped, kept the chain on the rings) or it didn’t, and adjustments to it fixed simple problems. But MotoGP bikes are extremely sensitive. Adjustments are made in tenths of degrees to the many directions a front fork can move, for example, and these subtle changes make noticeable differences to the riders. The temperature drops, the humidity rises, both of which affect the performance of the bike, and the rider must compare the new settings to how the bike felt 45 minutes ago based on a couple of laps at speed. It’s hard work.
It’s hard work covering the test as a photographer, too. According to the still unresolved question of our credential status for 2011, I took advantage of a possibly temporary access to pit lane to spend most of the session there before heading out onto the track. As ever I am looking for images that are not the same old thing, that tell the story, but find that the opportunities to catch those images come in spurts with quite a lot of waiting in-between. Once I sat at the pit lane exit because I had an idea for an image, and waited for what seemed like ten minutes without a single bike coming my way to be part of a photograph that never happened.
But Grand Prix motorcycle racing is so exciting that even when it comes at a slower pace than a race weekend, it is still amazing to watch and be a part of. There are more questions than answers, more possibilities than disappointments. And while most of us expect the title to be contended by a handful of elite riders, we still hope for sentimental favorites that their fortunes will improve for 2011. You simply don’t get to MotoGP by being a slouch, and you don’t keep a ride in a paddock this full of pressure unless your talent keeps you here. So even for those not at the top of most people expectations, anything can happen, right?
