MotoGP stewards cracking down on a sneaky Moto3 strategy

MotoGP’s race control and stewards panel are set to clamp down on the latest rule-bending trick being utilised by the top racers in the Moto3 championship, with a briefing held at this weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix to warn the participants.

The issue of riders cruising in the final moments of Moto3 timed practice and qualifying sessions as they jostle for on-track position and slipstreams is nothing new, and has been something that race control has increasingly worked to legislate away in recent years with new rules.

Those rules now see riders penalised for completing sectors that are more than 135% slower than their best previous time, a cutoff that is normally around 10-15 seconds slower than normal in a typical circuit sector.

However, according to The Race’s sources among Moto3 teams, a new issue is being addressed at Jerez.

It has been observed that some racers who have already set their fast times will act as if they’re still fully committed to time attack mode in the final minutes of timed sessions, hanging off the side of their machines as if they’re trying to lap faster while in reality riding considerably slower than on their fastest lap of the session.

The issue first came to a head during the final minutes of the timed practice session on Friday at the Qatar Grand Prix. That session determines who progresses directly to Q2 and who does not.

A number of top riders were believed to have tried the tactic in the closing stages of the session, with some like fastest man Jose Antonio Rueda completing their fastest times with three or four laps to go, then finishing the session setting times up to seven seconds slower - without visibly appearing to slow down.

This not only potentially impedes rivals, but may specifically serve to trick those who are looking for another rider to follow in qualifying - as they latch on to a rival who has no intention of going at representative speed, and thus end up with their lap wasted.

A major collision during Q2 at Lusail between Scott Ogden and Rueda’s team-mate Alvaro Carpe seems to have been the inciting incident behind the stewards’ action on the issue.

A late Q2 scare