“Now it’s easier to leave the grid” - Lessons from MotoGP’s new bike-change rules at Le Mans

Pre-race bike swaps are likely to become more common in MotoGP under the revised penalty rules.

That was one of the main takeaways from Sunday’s French Grand Prix, where the new regulations were put to the test by changeable weather.

Modifications were introduced following confusion at COTA, where many teams and riders were unclear on the correct procedure - and the corresponding penalties - for leaving the grid to change bikes before the start.

In response, the Grand Prix Commission moved to simplify the rules.

Among the key updates was the removal of a distinction between leaving the grid due to a tyre change and exiting for a technical issue.

The result was that the penalty for switching to a bike with a different tyre type before the race was reduced from a ride-through to a far more lenient double long-lap.

The rule changes faced their first serious test during Sunday’s French Grand Prix, where unpredictable wet-dry weather meant:

• At the end of the warm-up lap, all riders entered the pits to switch from dry to wet bikes. With more than ten riders set to start from pit lane, the automatic delay to the race start (a previous rule) was triggered.
• As the weather improved before the restart, 13 riders then pitted at the end of the sighting lap to revert from wet to dry bikes. Those riders were permitted to rejoin the grid after the warm-up lap (previous rule) but, under the revised rules, were handed only a double long-lap penalty to be served during the race.

Slick riders held the advantage in the early laps but were soon forced to pit again when the weather worsened, changing back to their wet bikes.

The race was sensationally won by home star Johann Zarco, who elected not to pit for a dry bike on the sighting lap.

But the main factor in Zarco’s victory wasn’t the double long laps for his rivals but the weather, which swung in favour of the eight riders starting on wets and forced the slicks to pit again.

Had the track conditions stabilised, the double long lap penalty for a pre-race bike change was a price easily worth paying.

By the end of the opening lap, dry tyre riders filled the top ten places, with Jack Miller leading the wet challenge.

Even after serving their double long laps - rather than the previous ride-through - dry tyre riders still filled the top ten, with Miller in eleventh (+20.695s) and Zarco 13th (+30.845).

Luca Marini, one of those to start on wets, said: “Now for the riders, it's easier to go out of the grid and change the bike, because the penalty is just two long laps.

“So you say, ‘Why not take these two long laps instead of 40 seconds to change the bike in the pit lane?’.

“So with this new regulation, it's easier to go and change the bike, because the penalty is not so much.”

Marini, who made an ill-fated decision to pit for slicks before rain returned, emphasised he didn’t disagree with the revised penalties:

“I cannot say that it's correct or not correct. It's just like this. It’s OK, perfect, no problem.

“I think now it's clear and this is the most important thing, to have clear ideas.”

“I don't know if they carry over...”

Despite the pre-race bike swaps requiring Race Direction to issue an unprecedented 13 double long lap penalties (12 for the bike swaps, since Joan Mir was already out on lap one, then a pit lane speeding infringement for Enea Bastianini), clarity over the procedure and punishments was a welcome contrast to COTA.

Afterwards, only a few minor details remained to be cleared up.

“It's always good when you know exactly what the procedure is,” said KTM’s Brad Binder, among those to start on slicks. “So I knew I had those two long laps.

“I just wasn't quite sure if I could just do them [straight away], or I needed to wait for the signal. So I just waited for the signal.

“It seemed like they sent us at different times because I saw some guys had gone and I hadn’t got the long lap warning yet.”

The dashboard messages officially informing riders of the need to serve a double long lap penalty were sent after the first lap.

However, the messages do not arrive at each rider’s dashboard at exactly the same time, because each bike picks up the message on the next timing loop and it takes time for the software to send and confirm receipt of the signal.

For that reason, the race timeline lists Enea Bastianini as the first rider to receive a double long lap penalty at a timestamp of 14:16'33 (the race began at 14:13'32).

Binder and Alex Marquez were the last riders on the timeline to be issued with the pre-race bike swap penalty at 14:18'05 and 14:18'12 respectively.

By then, Fabio Quartararo (14:17'33) and Enea Bastianini (14:18'02) had already served the first of their long laps, confirming what Binder saw.

Physical sign boards are also used at the finish line to alert riders to a double long lap penalty, however, they cannot fit 13 numbers at the same time!

Race Direction is understood to have been impressed by how smoothly race control and the FIM Stewards handled issuing, monitoring and signing off the completion status for a record number of long laps in such a compressed timeframe.

The last of the twelve riders to complete both long laps for a pre-race bike swap was Pedro Acosta at 14:24'56, just eleven minutes after the race started.

Team-mate Binder crashed out not long after completing his long laps, but later raised the question of whether the penalty would have been carried over to the next race if he had not completed it at Le Mans.

“I'm really glad I didn't prang before I did the second long lap... I don't know if they carry over?” he asked on Sunday evening.

After inquiries over the rules, Crash.net can confirm that because the double long laps for starting the warm-up lap from pit lane are ‘in-race’, they do not carry over to a future race.

“Anyway, it was a really tricky situation out there today and well done to Zarco, super stoked for him!” Binder concluded.