Aleix Espargaro brake failure at Motegi | GTAMotorcycle.com

Aleix Espargaro brake failure at Motegi

N3WMAN

N3WMAN

Well-known member
Aleix Espargaro's bakes failed going into turn 11 forcing him to jump ship.

[video=vimeo;77901405]https://vimeo.com/77901405[/video]

Gotta hand it to him for realizing what was happening and having the sense to bail out instead of trying to ride it out.
 
Awesome quick reaction to something like that. Almost like its happened before.
 
that's pretty weird. hard to imagine BOTH brakes failing.

also I sure wouldn't think to bail.
 
johnp said:
that's pretty weird. hard to imagine BOTH brakes failing.

also I sure wouldn't think to bail.
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You'd never get the bike stopped from that speed with only the rear brake.

jordzaniac said:
looked like they worked originally the back end came up? wonder what actually happened
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Back end comes up and then the front just slowly rises. Looking at him pumping the clutch lever it almost makes me think the transmission packed up and he lost all engine braking.
 
I think he might have just fallen off.
Went to hang off the bike and missed the right foot peg.

ha ha I wouldn't have admitted it either.
 
A pro would rehearse what to do in situations of critical failure such as this, using visualization techniques. He reacted quickly because he had probably thought of it well before, probably many years ago. Preparation beats raw instinct every time.
 
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It's got to be hard to intentionally jump off a bike at speed, that's just unnatural.
 
johnp said:
that's pretty weird. hard to imagine BOTH brakes failing.
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Those rear brakes are barely just useful in the pits. This was a track they commissioned the use of especially thick carbon front brakes for - the rears are always the dinky steel disks, which are going to do less than nothing when the bike is pitched the way these do.
 
Bermuda said:
Those rear brakes are barely just useful in the pits. This was a track they commissioned the use of especially thick carbon front brakes for - the rears are always the dinky steel disks, which are going to do less than nothing when the bike is pitched the way these do.
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lol yeah. If he did rear brake to slow down the bike would prolly highside.
 
johnp said:
I think he might have just fallen off.
Went to hang off the bike and missed the right foot peg.

ha ha I wouldn't have admitted it either.
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His right foot was on the peg all the way down the straight and it was the last part to lose contact with the bike. Did you even watch the vid?
 
Video won't play on my phone for some reason but I saw this during the race. Didn't the commentators say it was a stuck throttle? At least they did on eurosport.

SkyRider said:
how come so many ppl had brake issues at this track? rossi had a problem too
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Motegi is especially hard on brakes due to the design of the track. Lots of hard braking going into a corner followed by hard acceleration out followed by hard breaking again. The rotors can only take so much heat before they become useless so Race Direction authorized the use of larger 340mm discs to help soak up all the heat.

Rossi apparently went with a harder compound tire than Jorge which contributed to his issues.
 
SkyRider said:
how come so many ppl had brake issues at this track? rossi had a problem too
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Most tracks have 1 or 2 long straights. Motegi has 4, with 3 of them coming one after the other, and all of them lead into low speed 90 degree corners. The majority of the track is full throttle into full brakes. There are only 2 sections with linking corners that do not require extremely hard braking.

Basically, four times a lap you are going from top speed to full braking to make a low speed corner. This generates extremely high brake temps which lead to issues as seen in the race.
 
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