MotoGP, The asphalt doesn't drain the rain: Sepang test at risk

Today was another wasted day for the MotoGP test riders.
Unexpected rainfall in the early afternoon left the Sepang track unusable.

Garages closed along almost the entire pitlane. Every so often would exit and try to ride, like Nakasuka on the Yamaha, who came out on a freshll 'winged' M1 to carry out some aerodynamic comparison tests. The unstoppable Michele Pirro, as you can see in other sections of GPOne.com, was also out but only really to test a few details.

Aprilia was on track with Di Meglio, practicing starts, while Suzuki continued to lap but in the only way possible, with rain tyres.

The Malaysian track, fully resurfaced last year by Yarno Zaffelli's Dromo does not drain effectively, with some sections remaining wet long after the rain stops.

A problem that Dromo is well aware of; during the last Malaysian GP Zaffelli confessed to us that he was on stand-by for a possible resurfacing.

In actual fact, the technician talked about specific conditions.

“The biggest problem is the weather - he explained - In designing it, we worked based on data from the last ten years, because you always need to consider the limits of the possible conditions (…) the track temperature was always between 40 and 60°, with humidity between 50 and 100% (…)”.

According to Zaffelli, the track never went above 35° last October, and in this case the rain will not evaporate.

“Under the asphalt is an aggregate that serves as a base, with empty pockets in which the rain remains. It doesn't seep from the earth”.

It appears that the problem is caused by this particularly layer, which wasn't put down by Dromo itself, but for which Zaffelli nevertheless takes responsibility.

“With things as they are, it's becoming pointless to come all the way to Malaysia to test - states Gigi Dall’Igna - riding with rain tyres on a damp track is practically useless. We might as well test elsewhere”.

Aware of the problem, circuit management kept the track open for an extra 20 minutes after 6pm, on Yamaha's request (as it was Yamaha that booked the track, then allowing other teams to join them), but this served little purpose.

The future of Malaysian testing will depend on a complete resurfacing of the track. Lapping on a patchy wet track is of no use to the manufacturers.