Several top MotoGP riders have called for the Australian Grand Prix to be moved to earlier in the season for safety reasons, due to the high number of crashes caused by unpredictable Phillip Island weather this time of year.
The Phillip Island circuit is typically hit with vastly changing weather and temperature conditions over the course of the grand prix weekend, with numerous crashes occurring across all three classes as a result.
This weekend LCR Honda's Cal Crutchlow was ruled out after he broke his ankle in a fast off at Turn 1 in FP2, while Tech3's Hafizh Syahrin had to be taken to the medical centre after a similar tumble in FP3 on Saturday morning – though fortunately escaped unscathed.
When asked about potentially changing race times and dates for safety purposes, Yamaha's Maverick Vinales believes racing an hour earlier at 1500 local time would make “a lot of difference”, but would “push” to have the race staged earlier in the year.
“I think for sure changing the race time one hour earlier will help, because here we reach the top temperature at 3pm,” said Vinales, who qualified second.
“But the matter of the crashes is the weather, it's really cold always and especially this year it's so windy.
“So I think it's always going to be difficult in that period of the year, but if I'm going to push I want to change the dates because when we came here in February last year [for testing] it was excellent.
“It was quite warm, and not many crashes. So let's see, but for sure it will make a lot of difference to race at 3pm because it's the best temperature on the track and for sure the win is a little bit more warm.”
Yamaha stablemate Johann Zarco echoed Vinales' thoughts, with the Tech3 rider admitting he “expected” to have better weather this year due to the Thai Grand Prix pushing the triple-header flyaway back a week.
However, poleman Marc Marquez believes changing race times and dates will not have much effect on the number of crashes seen at Phillip Island due to the fast nature of the track, and feels there are more pressing safety issues with the track, such as the amount of grass lining the circuit.
“Will be maybe better for the race time, but the amount of crashes will be very similar,” commented the world champion.
“The thing is here, we are riding very, very fast, it's cold and everything becomes stiff, all the tyres.
“Then the reactions of the bike become more on-off, more aggressive, so for that reason we have a lot of crashes.
“So, yeah, if we change the time schedule, just advance it one hour, maybe it improves a little bit.
“But it will not change much. I think first of all we speak about this but also we speak about other safety issues on this race track that are more important to push.
“That is, for example, to remove the natural grass in some areas because it is the only circuit we have the natural grass.”
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