Riders had mixed feeling about the revised bike-change procedure tested after Friday’s FP2.
“It has,” as Rossi said, “something good and something bad compared to the old system.: But, he added, if it was intended to prevent collisions like that between Espargaro and Iannone, “it will not fix that”.
The good was generally agreed to be the lollipop-man system, with a crew\ member directly responsible for rider release. The bad was having to spot your mark in pit lane – stickers put on the surface to ensure riders enter their pits at the correct 45-degree angle – and the risk of crashing into your pit box because of that angle.
This point was raised by Dovizioso, envisaging a situation where rain struck while riders were on slick tyres. “So the asphalt is wet, you have a slick with carbon brakes, and you have to stop.” It would be easy to crash into your own pit.
Pit lane bike swap stop lolipop, British MotoGP 2017
He and other riders also made the point that a test was potentially very different from a race situation. Scott Redding told press: “In practice, no-one is in a hurry, no-one is winning a race, so everything ran smoothly.”
Marquez had missed the practice after crashing at the end of FP2, but had his own practice in FP3. Pioneer of jumping from one bike to another without touching the ground under the old parallel-parking system, he displayed similar prowess in the new angled nose-to-tail parking, with a quick and clearly well-practised pirouette between the bikes.
By Michael Scott
Pit lane bike swap stop lolipop, British MotoGP 2017