British GP: MotoGP back to its best with Aprilia’s greatest race and scary aero crashes

World champion Pecco Bagnaia deserves a special pat on the back because he rode a superb race in the trickiest conditions. The 2023 series leader led pretty much all the way, even when spots of rain hit his visor. When that happens the worst place to be is in the lead, because if the rain intensifies in one part of the track you will be the first to reach that slippery piece of asphalt and you’ll most likely crash, while the riders behind can release the brakes, run wide and carry on.

So it took a huge amount of risk, commitment and judgement from Bagnaia, who as someone recently said, “Pecco doesn’t look brave, but he is f**king brave.”

Finally, however it wasn’t enough. The leading group were incredibly closely matched: Bagnaia’s Ducati, Binder’s KTM and the Aprilias of winner Espargaró and team-mate Maverick Viñales.

When the rain came Binder seemed the most likely winner, because he seems more willing to hang it out than most, like when he swept past both Aprilias in one go at Stowe with a few laps to go.

But finally it was Espargaró who triumphed, his second MotoGP win from his 310th GP start.

This didn’t come as too much of a surprise. Two years ago the Spaniard scored Aprilia’s first-ever four-stroke MotoGP podium and last year he was clear favourite to win until he smashed himself up in a huge practice highside. The next day he limped home in ninth, while Viñales nearly beat Bagnaia, taking the flag four-tenths down, the closest he’s got to victory with Aprilia.

Aprilia’s RS-GP goes especially well at fast, flowing circuits, like Silverstone and Termas De Rio Honda, where Espargaró scored Aprilia’s first MotoGP victory last year, because the bike doesn’t like straight-line braking at stop-and-go tracks and works best on layouts where low-gear acceleration exiting slow turns isn’t the biggest deal.

Also, Aprilia wasn’t sleeping during MotoGP’s five-week summer break – and a minor but crucial aero update played an important part in Espargaró’s victory. Also vital was an improved clutch and launch control system, because Aprilia ruined several races earlier this year through poor starts. At Silverstone on lap one Espargaró went from 12th to sixth!

But in the end it was the aero upgrade that helped Espargaró make the winning difference, because tiny improvements mean everything in MotoGP now.

A small wing protruding from the lower rear of each side of the RS-GP’s fairing increases rear downforce, without creating the extra drag of the seat wing, which has appeared only a few times this season. These small wings deliver more downforce, especially when the bike is leant over, and create a vortex.

What does this do? The biggest thing in MotoGP right now is getting the motorcycle turned at the apex as quick as possible. Because if you can get the bike around the apex quickly you will have the bike pointing out of the corner sooner, so you can pick up the bike onto the fatter part of the rear tyre earlier and use more throttle for faster corner exits.

And this is exactly what Espargaró did on the final lap. Accelerating out of the super-fast Woodcote right-hander for the last time he gained several metres on leader Bagnaia and then got much better drive exiting Copse, so could draw alongside the Ducati and steal the inside line into the high-speed Becketts left.

Espargaró was clever enough to resist attacking Bagnaia on the brakes, because Marco Bezzecchi had proved how dangerous this can be, especially at high speed.

Bezzecchi was Bagnaia’s biggest rival in the early stages on Sunday, chasing his fellow VR46 and Desmosedici rider until he lost the front attacking Stowe corner just after one-quarter distance.

The reason for his crash? When he hit the brakes he entered the draft – the vacuum – behind Bagnaia’s bike, so he lost front downforce, which reduces front grip, and he lost the air resistance that helps riders brake for the corners. So he had less stopping power and less grip…

“As soon as I braked I had a big front [tyre] lock, so I had to release the brake a bit,” explained the winner of this year’s Argentine and French GPs, whose tumble did immense damage to his title hopes. “Then as soon as I released the brake I went into the slipstream of Pecco, so instead of slowing down I was accelerating, so I had to brake more but the front was already on the limit and I lost it.”

This is obviously a massive safety issue because it happens frequently now that all the bikes carry so much aerodynamics, which creates a huge vacuum in their wake.

But the people in charge of MotoGP don’t seem that bothered about that kind of thing, even though it happened several times last year, with Álex Rins at Catalunya-Barcelona and Takaaki Nakagami. Most likely it will take a death or serious injuries before anyone does anything to fix this problem.

Bagnaia did everything he could to counter-attack in the final half lap, trying to set up a passing move into the dead-slow Vale chicane by taking a fast, sweeping line through Stowe. Exiting Stowe he appeared to touch the green no-go area with at least one tyre (one is enough), which carries an automatic one-place penalty if there’s a rider close enough behind you to have made a difference. And Binder was only a few bike lengths behind.

The first communication I received from Ducati was that Binder was too far behind to attack, so no, Bagnaia didn’t deserve a penalty. I disagree with that. The harder you accelerate out of a corner the wider you go and the faster you exit the corner. This is why green no-go areas exist. If Bagnaia had used less throttle exiting Stowe he would’ve missed the green and been slower, so Binder would’ve been even better positioned for an attack at the last few corners.

Not much later the official communications came through: Bagnaia’s bike hadn’t triggered the pressure sensors. Some people suggested that perhaps the sensors weren’t working, because KTM was (not surprisingly) were pretty convinced he had touched the green. Red Bull KTM team manager Francesco Guidotti visited the stewards after the race to put his point but was simply told the sensors weren’t triggered and that was that.

And it was particularly galling for Binder and KTM because at the last race – at Assen – he lost podiums in both the sprint race and the Grand Prix for barely kissing the green on the last laps.

The underground loop detectors were introduced last season to take the onus off the stewards, who until then used special cameras positioned around the circuit to make visual calls. The loop detectors are housed in rubber tubes that are placed in grooves just beyond the kerbs. They are not of the highest technology – they are basically like those rubber tubes you go over when you ride into a petrol station in a sleepy country town to alert the old boy in the shop that he’s got a customer.

Later on Sunday evening the stewards announced that they had verified their decision via camera images. Maybe these images were different from the TV camera shots I saw. If they were, why weren’t we shown them, to confirm that the stewards were correct, despite the TV cameras suggesting otherwise?

This continues a long run of MotoGP stewards’ controversies, some of which could’ve been easily dealt with by the stewards making all information public. The stewards have a massive communication problem, which is doing MotoGP immense damage. Fans hate it when a decision is made that doesn’t seem to conform with their reality and some of them lose interest in the championship as a result. So it is vital for the good of MotoGP that the stewards improve their communication to media and fans, by offering more information and evidence to back up their decisions.

I am quite happy to be proved wrong over the Bagnaia incident, but I want to see more evidence.

Espargaró’s victory gave Aprilia its greatest day in its racing history. The former bicycle company that entered grands prix in the mid-1980s and won many 125cc and 250cc world titles from the early 1990s filled three of the top five places on Sunday.

RNF rider Miguel Oliveira and his 2022 RS-GP were sensational in the closing stages, lapping faster than anyone when the rain arrived to come through from 16th on the grid to fourth, less than a tenth behind Binder and just in front of Viñales. This was the kind of form many had expected from the Portuguese rider before he got badly hurt at Portimao and Jerez.