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Despite some minor problems in the morning session, the weekend at Magny-Cours began with good performances for Jonathan Rea , who was the best Yamaha rider, setting the 7th quickest time in both of the day's rounds and reducing his gap from the top by about three tenths in FP2. First position monopolized by BMW, which saw Michael van der Mark end up in the lead on Friday after picking up the baton from his boxmate Toprak Razgatlioglu, who was halted by a nasty-looking accident. A supremacy, that of the Bavarian manufacturer, that did not surprise the six-time Superbike champion all that much.
"In the last two seasons we have seen that BMW has been competitive, inconsistently. Last year in Race 2 at Mandalika, Mikey had the fastest lap on the last pass, and you can't do that if the bike sucks. Garrett Gerloff was also inconsistently fast last year - remarked Rea - now there is Toprak who is showing the true potential of the bike, but that also drags down the whole project: the other riders have good data available and we are more than halfway through the season, so they will arrive. Mikey and Garrett are good riders and so is Scott Redding. Toprak seems to be showing the benchmark, and I think they deserve to be where they are because they have worked hard the last few years."
Leaving time references aside for a moment, the Yamaha rider commented on the Turkish rider's crash.
"Yes I saw it, I don't know why TV decided to show the incident again, because it was horrible. We discussed a lot about that spot, every year, but there has to be s a wall, because otherwise the bike can go through the barrier and hit someone. However, Toprak hit the wall, and if the angle had been different, the consequences would have been disastrous. I had my helmet on, looked up, saw the TV screen and screamed. It was horrible," underlined the six-time world champion, who was very upset by the broadcast images, "A miracle? He was lucky, because he hit the wall with his side and not with his head. My mechanics had to calm me down a little bit, telling me not to worry because he was fine and walking, but I don't understand why they have to show something like that in the middle of a session when we have to go back on the track again to race. It's pretty stupid on the part of the TV director."
An incident that raised several concerns about the safety of the track between turns 14 and 15.
"There is this situation on many tracks. We are World Superbike, and now even in MotoGP the bikes go really fast and the circuits don't get bigger and bigger. If you look at lap records, everyone wants to go faster. Pirelli wants to make the tires even faster, and Dorna wants the teams to have superconcessions. Everything is moving forward, but the barriers are not being moved further back," Rea noted, taking a lucid picture of the situation that has arisen in recent years as speeds have increased.
But wouldn't it have been necessary to at least place an air fence at that point on the track?
"Yes, maybe that is an area that can be improved without making big dramas. But FIM has been here, and even though they have simulation programs now that can simulate a crash, sometimes strange things happen, like a straight where you don't expect a crash. We are not lucky enough to be able to choose the circuits where we go," acknowledged the Yamaha man. "As Superbike, we are lucky to go for example to Most, or somewhere else, because we have a 12-race championship and it is difficult. This is the reality. So, we have to accept certain circumstances and we can't always have good days. But yes, an air fence would be needed. I'm sure they will get some from our warehouse. We will have the Safety Commission soon and I'm sure we will talk about it."
Returning to his day, Jonathan then explained what the mishap was that slowed him down during this morning's FP1: "I lost a lot of time because we had a small electrical problem, so the bike kept shutting down. We worked by exclusion, so I was in and out of the box a lot. I didn't have a good session, I did a few laps, but I was mostly in the box trying to fix the problem and check it out. Fortunately, the guys were able to find the problem in the last run and we started FP2 in a normal situation."
