MotoGP | Brembo, the Qatar GP from a brake point of view

Once the winter break is over, the MotoGP restarts as usual at night from Qatar. From 23 to 26 March the Losail International Circuit will host the 1st round of the 2017 World Championship. Located 23 km north of Doha, the track cost 60 million US dollars and was inaugurated in October 2004. Although located in a hot area of ​​the planet, it does not present particular temperature problems because the race starts at 21pm, i.e. more than 3 hours after sunset. In 2016 the asphalt temperature was 23 degrees while in 2015 it reached 28 degrees. The night race also allows you to admire the glow of the carbon brake discs during the most violent braking. According to the Brembo technicians who work closely with all the MotoGP riders, the Losail International Circuit falls into the category of circuits that are moderately demanding on the brakes. On a scale of 1 to 5 it earned a difficulty rating of 3, equaled by 8 other slopes.

However, the rating is lower than that of the other 2 Asian tracks in the World Championship.

The 16 corners of the track require brake intervention in 13 points, a World Championship record shared with Austin: at Phillip Island, however, there are just 6 braking stops per lap. For this reason, from the start to the checkered flag, the riders use the brakes 286 times, a value lower only than the 297 braking sessions in Jerez. As in Austin, the brakes are on for over 37 seconds per lap. In Qatar the brakes are used for just under 14 minutes, equivalent to almost a third of the race. The average deceleration of 1,16 g is in line with that of the majority of the World Championship tracks. Adding all the forces exerted by a driver on the brake lever from the start to the checkered flag, the value exceeds 14 quintals. To make a comparison with the Superbike, that is over 6 quintals more than the overall load on the lever exerted by Jonathan Rea in race 1 of the last round in Thailand.

Of the 13 braking sections on the Losail International Circuit, 3 are considered highly demanding on the brakes, while 4 are of medium difficulty and 6 are light. Thanks to the 1.068 meter straight that precedes it, braking at the first corner after the finish line is the second most difficult of the entire World Championship: the MotoGP bikes arrive at 350 km/h and slow down to 99 km/h by exerting a load on the lever brake of 7,5 kg. To set the curve, pilots brake for 5,1 seconds during which they travel 289 metres, equivalent to the length of 4 Airbus A380s.