It was the event that no one predicted in terms of safety in this Indian Grand Prix. And for good reason: while all the attention was focused on the Buddh pise with its coating and its escape routes, the danger actually came from the closed park... It is in fact in this apparently secure place that the doctors had to intervene due to the vagal discomfort of a dehydrated and exhausted Jorge Martin. In the boxes, many survivors of this grueling race recovered from their exhaustion, starting with Pol Espargaró who was surprised to reach 198 BPM. However, according to medical experts, anything above 200 is dangerous, even for elite athletes...
Until this event in India, it was taken for granted that motorcycle riders were capable of enduring Grands Prix without a shot in torrid heat with leather suits, helmets, and the heat of their motorcycles evacuated onto their bodies already largely subjected to torment. But at the arrival of the thirteenth round of the season on the Buddh track, it was reminded that its gladiators were above all men.
A brutal return to the reality of the limits of organisms that we expected to see one day in Malaysia, riding a Thailand, or Indonesia, which are also rounds to follow on the calendar. But for its first at this level of the competition, India had hidden from us that it was not to be underestimated from this point of view either. On the Indian track on Sunday, the highest mercury levels reached 35 degrees in the air and 45 on the track. On some graphs, we saw that a certain point was at 48°. The humidity was not as high as in Sepang or Buriram, being 62%, but the feeling of suffocation was absolute.
Pol Espargaro: “ India was one of the hardest races of my life, if not the hardest »
To understand what the pilots experienced, you have to listen to a Pol Espargaro moreover not yet fully recovered from his serious injuries at the start of the season: “ I had been warned the previous days and I even wore a 'cooling' vest under suit. But even with that, it was one of the hardest races of my life, if not the hardest ", did he declare.
He adds : " I lost a lot of time in the race because I felt very weak physically, about half a second per lap. If I hadn't slowed down, I wouldn't have finished the race, but I guess it's part of the recovery process ". Then he mentions brand : " I had never reached 198 beats per minute before. I was very surprised, because I don't reach these levels even at home, training on the bike. This race was very extreme ».
Fortunately, the competition had been reduced from 24 to 21 rounds … “ We asked the safety commission to reduce the race distance because, in addition to the high temperatures, if we had covered the initially planned distance we would have spent 42 and a half minutes completing the event » recalls the pilot GAGAS Tech3. We will remember that the unofficial temperature record was reached in Jerez, in 2020, with 42 degrees in the air and 60° on the track. But India will still remain etched in the memory of pilots as the most exhausting competition ever.
MotoGP India Race: ranking
Championship after India (13/21):
Credit classification motogp.com
