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In unveiling what he described as a ‘modern’ route for the 2027 edition, the new Giro d’Italia boss Luca Guercilena highlighted a few striking details, one of which was the presence of not one, not two, but three motor racing circuits.
One of them, the iconic Monza track, will host the start of the all-important stage 15 time trial, but the other two – the Marco Simoncelli circuit on stage 4 and the Mugello circuit on stage 11 – are set to play host to big bunch sprint finishes.
This, said Guercilena, who took up his role as cycling director of RCS Sports following his departure as Lidl-Trek team manager this summer, was a deliberate ploy in the ever-more-urgent push for rider safety.
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“The initiative stems from listening to athletes and teams regarding the need for safe finishes,” he said on stage during the presentation of the route on Tuesday.
“This ties into the broader requirement for environments where even children can train securely. We believe that the Giro d’Italia, which also has a role in fostering cycling culture, can promote the use of motor racing circuits as new hubs for youth teams, allowing young riders to train in a safe setting. This offers families peace of mind, knowing their children can cycle in a secure environment.
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“From a competitive standpoint, it also ensures that athletes have a very wide finish area, enabling them to perform at their best, and, above all, safely,” he added.
The use of motor racing circuits, which have wide tracks and smooth surfaces, would intuitively appear to make sense when it comes to safety, avoiding the road furniture and pinch points associated with city-centre finishes on public roads.
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However, the evidence – admittedly very limited – is not so supportive, with the last Grand Tour sprint finish on a motor track resulting in a slew of crashes and several riders airing safety concerns.
The 2023 Tour de France example
That last example came at the 2023 Tour de France, where the fourth stage finished on the Paul Armagnac circuit in Nogaro.
The first crash occurred on one of the straights with 1.7km to go, with a bump of shoulders sending multiple riders to the ground, including a stage favourite, Fabio Jakobsen. A second crash through a left-hand bend inside the final kilometre sent more sprawling and further fragmented the bunch, leaving only around 25 riders to play out the sprint. Another crash against the barriers in the full swing of the sprint capped off a finale that was remembered more for the spills and less for the thrills.
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The crashes were not all necessarily linked to the fact this finale was taking place on a motor racing track, but there were interesting comments from several riders suggesting this might indeed have had something to do with it.
“A circuit is not safer than a road to finish, I can tell you this,” said Mathieu van der Poel, who provided the lead-out for the day’s winner, Jasper Philipsen. “It was really fast and the corners are quite difficult to judge in the bunch and you also have nowhere to go so I’m really happy I managed to stay upright.”
Philipsen himself cited the bends in expressing his surprise at how unsafe it felt, while his rival’s lead-out man, Jasper De Buyst, expanded on why motor racing tracks might not be so safe as you might think.
“None of us are used to finishing on such a wide course, the entrance which is pretty small, then big lanes again. These kind of corners, everybody can keep pedalling and you can just take them 10 next to each other. In the end it’s like having a long straight but even more dangerous,” he said.
“Sometimes people think the wider we make the roads and the more we go on circuits and whatever, the safer it becomes. But today we see the opposite. I think sometimes what makes it more safe is when you stretch out the bunch, like yesterday for example with the U-turn. Then the bunch gets stretched out, and from there on everybody keeps his position or kind of keeps his position, and then you get safer sprints.”
It remains to be seen which exact sections of the two circuits are used at next year’s Giro d’Italia, and crucially how many corners are involved, while various other factors naturally come into play as well – it’s worth pointing out that some of that Tour de France chaos was attributed to the relative freshness after a very slow day until that finale.
But until everyone arrives safely and securely on stages 4 and 11, there might still be some holding of breath and some reserving of judgement when it comes to the suitability of motor tracks for cycling sprint finales.
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