{"id":305531,"date":"2025-11-24T12:21:07","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T12:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305531\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T12:21:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T12:21:07","slug":"towing-in-motogp-for-your-mind-but-technically-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305531\/","title":{"rendered":"Towing in MotoGP \u201cfor your mind” – but “technically worse\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luca Marini believes that deliberately searching for a tow during a MotoGP time attack offers no technical advantage and actually hurts performance.<\/p>\n

The Honda<\/a> rider argues that with today\u2019s aero-dependent machines, riding in clean air is always faster, with any gain from following another rider coming only from the psychological boost of having a target to chase.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that following somebody is something for your mind, but technically it’s worse,\u201d Marini<\/a> said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause now with the aero, the bike works better if you are alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Marini added that even if a rider feels more motivated when lining up behind another competitor for a time-attack lap, the loss of downforce and front-end stability from the dirty air makes it counter-productive.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIf you need something extra for your mind, your motivation or something else, it’s good to follow somebody for the qualifying lap. But if you are alone, the bike expresses itself best.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo I think for trying to make a pole position it’s always better to go alone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Luca <\/p>\n

Luca Marini<\/p>\n

The Italian pointed out that riders often set an impressive lap while following someone else, only to beat it later when riding alone.<\/p>\n

Further proof that following closely is detrimental can also be seen in the gap between riders during MotoGP<\/a> races.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhen we make a race, the gap is like one second between one bike and another because the bike starts to work better when you are quite far from the guy in front of you,\u201d Marini said.<\/p>\n

As well as the loss of aero, front tyre temperature, and therefore pressure, rises when riding in the hot air behind another machine.<\/p>\n

That’s almost always a disadvantage, although in cool conditions – such as the Valencia finale – following closely helped maintain front tyre temperature.<\/p>\n

Subscribe to our MotoGP Newsletter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luca Marini believes that deliberately searching for a tow during a MotoGP time attack offers no technical advantage…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305532,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,9400,9399,806,805,803,804,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-305531","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-motosport","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-honda-hrc","11":"tag-luca-marini","12":"tag-motor","13":"tag-motor-sports","14":"tag-motosport","15":"tag-motosports","16":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305531"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305531\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}