MotoGP, Bradl: "I burned my foot and hand on the Honda, that's not acceptable"

In the past three seasons, Stefan Bradl has been a great professional in being Marc Marquez’s replacement. The German rider got on the bike to replace the injured champion after Jerez 2020 and, whenever Marc needed to stop, he responded to the call, acting as a great teammate as well as an excellent professional.

But, yesterday, at the end of the Sachsenring race, he issued some statements to colleagues at  Speedweek, who are certainly not loyalists and accused the Japanese constructor, guilty of having  put on the track a bike that wasn’t suitable to face a hot race like yesterday’s. It was, in fact, a German GP with prohibitive weather conditions, as we could tell by the riders’faces before getting on the podium and also their statements. The winner, Quartararo, candidly admitted: "This race was worse than Thailand or Indonesia. The heat as terrible."

A situation that has brought to light a problem with the Honda, which has aerodynamics that are not able to dissipate the heat generated, as we heard from a rather angry Bradl.

"Pol stopped because of the bruises and I because of the heat," Stefan said. "I don't even know why I finished the race. I was more than twenty-one seconds behind the second to last. You feel stupid when you look like the last fool in the German Grand Prix. It was terrible. Honda failed to develop a fairing that would allow riders to survive this heat. This message must be heard. This situation is not acceptable. I've been through a lot of bad, hot races, but I don't really know why I finished this race."

A situation that reminds us of Loris Capirossi’s burns on the first MotoGP Ducati. Fantastic bikes, but also real nightmares for the riders from this point of view. 

"After two laps, I couldn't pull the brake because my fingers were burned. With so many left-hand turns, your right hand only gets a little wind, which made the problem even worse. After ten laps, my right foot was also burned. In these weather conditions, the bike is impractical. We have to urgently find a solution."