Wheelspin at almost 230mph: Why Mugello is MotoGP's wildest track

Rossi, Ducati, Pecco Bagnaia – vanquisher of three grands Prix and two sprints from 2022-2024 – have left their mark on Mugello. But the circuit serves one principal master: pace.

It’s here a faction that’s travelled from 425 miles away to the north enters the fray. In 2023 KTM and Brad Binder were pushed by a gentle tailwind and rattled the speed traps to a record-setting 366.1km/h (227.4mph). The exact same figure was equalled by another KTM RC16, steered by wildcarder and current test rider Pol Espargaro, during the 2024 Grand Prix. “Pretty fast. Quite impressive,” the typically understated South African said of the rate in 2023. “It’s the progression of racing so I think we will be in the 370 soon enough.”

“I still remember very well the first design phase of the bike and visiting some GPs and seeing the engines flat out on straights like these,” recalls Sebastian Risse, KTM’s MotoGP technical director in an exclusive chat with Motor Sport. “I thought ‘holy s**t…it’s quite scary’. Those speeds were our benchmark and our target and especially the Honda at that time: it was the bike to beat and now we are at a level where we can beat them and also in terms of these [speed] numbers.”

Mugello’s start ‘straight’, in the loosest sense of the word, is a deformed ‘runway’, with an uphill crest on the cusp of the 200m braking zone into San Donato corner. Preceding the crest is a slight kink that means riders often use part of the pitlane exit to slipstream. This is more frighteningly prevalent in the Moto3 class where up to fifteen motorcycles file into multi-tiered formation as they hunt or try to shirk valuable airflow from opponents. The crest, or the ‘jump’ as it is half-affectionately called, is the beginning of one of the most exhilarating phases of MotoGP: the top speed, the 15-degree lean, the whoosh of the air across the downforce loading aero and then the forearm-loading braking into turn one.

“This track is quite particular because we have that ‘jump’ and the rear end of the bike is losing contact and is spinning at 350 and if you want a number like that [366.1] then it’s being generated after that point,” Risse explains. “It matters whether you are closing the gas or you can keep it wide open because you have front-end contact and confidence.”

The spinning phase happens in an instant, but the effect is profound. Sensors are returning a reading of nearly 400kph (248.5mph) if the wheel had constant adhesion. “You have to make sure you don’t blow-up your engine because if you run into a bad rev limiter over the jump then you will be at maximum load and rpm and it will be quite harsh in-and-out,” Risse says. “First of all, you need to make it safe and then keep the bike stable.”

Binder and Espargaro’s 366.1 is the equivalent of covering the length of a football pitch in 1 second. They are then slamming eleven bars of pressure into the Brembo brakes (mainly on the front but also rear to stabilise the bike for the tight San Donato). It must be a rush. In 2025 Yamaha’s improved engine power allowed Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 GP winner, to make 356kph (221.2mph). “I mean, the first laps are always pretty scary, but it’s something that I really like,” the Frenchman told us. “It’s one of the only times with the MotoGP [bike] you really have the adrenaline coming up,” he said, raising his hand along his abdomen “because the first lap you don’t really see the first corner and then you get used to it. But the first lap here is one of the best moments…”

In recent years Mugello’s open canvas for horsepower has invited consternation. Heavy crashes for Marc Márquez and Michele Pirro through this section of the track in the last decade have produced alarming scenes for MotoGP. Sadly, although not a consequence of the speed, rather the flowing nature of the course that can bunch riders together, it was also the scene of the championship’s last fatality with Jason Dupasquier’s Moto3 qualifying fall and contact from following riders in 2021.

Risse cites other factors. “It is not the speed that is the dangerous point but rather the tracks and the areas around them. If something goes wrong, then you need to kill the speed. They [the circuits] are getting too small.”

Mugello was able to widen the track boundary and extend the run-off for San Donato in 2024 as well as alter the curbs but some facilities just don’t have the real estate for more expansion. “Thinking of the adaptability of other sports, you could just say ‘OK, make other tracks to suit these beautiful bikes’ but this is not reality,” Risse adds.

“They have to fit on the tracks that exist…and we have to find a compromise for the future.”

Mugello sizzled in strong early summer temperatures last weekend and the expectations for KTM’s record to fall and for the tacho to reach 370 were dashed by a headwind. The 366.1 is intact in a season where lap records have tumbled in seven of the nine grands prix. There will be one final chance for a fresh milestone in 2026 before MotoGP pivots radically with new regulations reshaping the bikes into 850cc machinery with limited ride height devices and aerodynamics and the start of the Pirelli tyre era after ten years of Michelins.

“It is a very different tyre and a very different game,” Risse says, even if KTM has yet to indicate if they will commit to another five-year contract window to provide four of the 22 bikes on the grid. “2027 will be a reset and every company can show what they are capable of,” he continues, optimistically. “I think we are the youngest company in the competition and can perhaps remember best how to make a bike from scratch! We want to use this skill.”

Red Bull KTM have been striving for their first podium finish in 2025 as it search for a solution to optimise the characteristics of Michelin’s current rear tyre construction. Maverick Viñales came close with a P2 in Qatar for round four but was penalised down to 14th after unwillingly skirting outside of Michelin’s controversial pressure parameters. It’s a quandary that has existed since the French changed the rubber for 2024. Despite Espargaro’s speed at Mugello and some advanced tricky with F1’s Red Bull Advanced Technologies for their aerodynamic output, KTM has been frustrated by understeer and ‘edge grip’. They have been trying to tweak the RC16’s versatility to function at the same elite level on high grip tracks. It’s been a stubborn puzzle, but the Austrian motor is still howls the most through the radar.

“We have a bike with a strong engine, that’s clear but to fast at the end of the straight you need more than that and it’s also clear that it’s not the most adhesive point to make the lap-time,” Sebastian says. “But it is an important tool for the rider to pass or to be able to get into the position to pass if they are strong on brakes, and we are strong on brakes.”

“Around 2020 we had quite a versatile bike that you could ride in certain ways and with different riding styles but it was very particular to the front tyre. We found a problem when the tyres changed. We had to make another bike.” KTM were then thrown a curveball with the rear last year. “It seemed to have more grip and to use that effectively you had to carry a lot of speed but the bikes were more prone to chatter, and you had to work on limiting that to take benefit of the tyres,” he explains. “Again, the bike has to change, and in all aspects: aerodynamics, engine – and of course the way you want to make the lap-time has a consequence on the chassis set-up with stiffness and geometry and so on. It is never the same bike, even if it has the same colours. And it’s all peanuts to what we’ll see in 2027.”

So far, the silverware shelf is bare this season but that sexy ‘Top Speed’ billing still belongs to KTM. “It is not the most important thing in the world but it makes every engine guy smile, every person involved in the project smile, and also the rider…because it makes his life easier.” The easiest administration of adrenaline.

Almost fifty years after Sheene won a 29-lap race on 500cc machinery, Marc Márquez took his 300+bhp 1000cc Desmosedici to victory at Mugello last weekend, clocking 109mph as an average rate of knots. The trap was relatively unperturbed by Marco Bezzecchi’s RS-GP Aprilia at 362.4kph (225.1mph). MotoGP heads to more hallowed turf in Assen this week, but for many Mugello is still a place to worship a two-wheeled blur like no other.