Track Map Courtesy of Brembo.com
Track Details Courtesy of MotoGP.com
Gran Premio Red Bull de España
Circuito de Jerez - Angel Nieto
Spain
|
LENGTH
4.4 km
2.75 miles
|
CORNERS
5 left - 8 right
|
WIDTH
11 m.
36.09 ft.
|
LONGEST STRAIGHT
607 m.
1991.47 ft.
| Circuit Record:
1'38.735
Jorge Lorenzo |
| | MotoGP | Moto 2 | Moto 3 |
| Laps | 25 | 23 | 22 |
| Red Flag Finish | 18 (3/4 laps) | 15 (2/3 laps) | 14 (2/3 laps) |
| Total Distance | 110.6 km
68.8 miles | 101.7 km
63.3 miles
| 97.3 km
60.5 miles
|
Weather Courtesy of Weather.com
| DATE | DESCRIPTION | HI/LOW | PRECIP | WIND | HUMIDITY |
FRI
May 3 | Partly Cloudy | 78° / 56° | 0% | S 12 mph | 58% |
SAT
May 4 | Mostly Sunny | 79° / 54° | 10% | SSE 9 mph | 57% |
SUN
May 5 | Sunny | 81° / 56° | 0% | SSE 12 mph | 52% |
Law & Order: MVU
Season 01 Episode 01: The Bumpy Ride
In the racing justice system, technically based offenses are considered especially heinous. In Moto GP, the dedicated stewards who investigate these vicious technicalities are members of an elite squad known as the Moto Vehicles Unit. These are their stories.
(DUM DUM)
EXT: A wolf's moon hangs over the night skyline of downtown Austin. Two amorous pit crew members enter the scene from beneath the bleachers of the Circuit of the Americas. The man hugs the woman from behind as she laughs and tries to tuck her shirt into her overalls. She turns around to kiss him when a rustling sound distracts her.
WOMAN: Did you hear that?
MAN: (Grabbing at her hips) No, but I wouldn't mind hearing you scream my name again.
WOMAN: (Shyly) Oh shut up! (Slaps his chest and kisses him) Wait... (wiggles fingers at him) I hear something.
The woman moves cautiously away as the man reluctantly follows. They approach the track, walking along the runoff to a patch of light where they suddenly stop short. The woman hides her face in her hands and screams as the man pulls her to his chest to shield her.
MAN: Oh my god... (Fumbling in his pockets) I'm calling the track marshals!
(Intro Music)
EXT: Rain hammers against the tarmac of the Circuit of the Americas as lightning forks across the sky. Two race stewards approach a bustle of activity as the wind whips their clothes.
STABLER: (To a track marshall walking by) I'm Detective Stabler, (nodding his head) my partner Detective Benson. What've you got for us?
MARSHALL: (Nodding in greeting) Detectives, I'm afraid it's a double homicide. (Walking them toward the crime scene) Championship lead for a Caucasian male, early twenties. (Pointing) Scuff marks seem to indicate that the championship lead was killed in the middle of the corner over there (pointing past the hastily erected on-track medical barrier) but the body ended up here in the run off. At the same time the unbeaten win streak was also killed, same spot, same body.
He walks them around the barrier. A man in orange and black leather picks up a motorcycle, attempts to straddle it but then upturned-turtles to the wet and unforgiving floor. He stands dejectedly, picks the bike up and repeats the process. Over. And over.
BENSON: (Disturbed) What the hell are we looking at?
MARSHALL: (Walking away) You tell us! This is your problem now.
The rain stops and the brutal Texas sun begins to bake the Earth. A fine mist rises briefly as the moisture is baked away. Within moments everything is dry and everyone begins to wilt in the punishing heat.
BENSON: (Squatting to examine the racing number at the front of the bike as it tilts, is stood upright, and then tilts again) Number 93. That's Marc Marquez, the reigning world champion. He's never even lost at this circuit Elliot, much less lost the race
and the championship lead at the same time.
STABLER: (Looking thoughtful) So someone, or something, kills Marquez's race and his championship lead in the middle of the corner. The body is moved onto the run off for this insane ritual, but why? Moto-murder?
BENSON: (Starting to look over the bike) Or maybe just the race win was killed in the corner, he drags
himself to the runoff and realizes that it's over, and offs his championship with the turtle stunt.
STABLER: (Not really buying it) Moto-suicide then? Either way, why call us? Doesn't sound like our department.
BENSON: (Surprised as she looks at the belly of the race bike) Maybe not. Elliot, take a look at this!
STABLER: (Hushed) Bag that. I'm calling the technical director.
Office of Technical Examiner
INT: Cold technical examining room. Harsh white lights hang from the ceiling, illuminating the shrouded forms of several race bikes waiting to be autopsied. A pair of examination tables lay uncovered as three people talk at a desk.
WARNER: The wounds to both the race win and the championship lead looked self inflicted at first, but there's a chance that he may have been pushed.
BENSON: (Disbelieving) Come on doc, we were there. It was a clear track. Nobody was anywhere close!
STABLER: Not to mention that the next race is Jerez. The past 3 years he's been 3rd, then second and first last year. With Dovi qualifying so low in Austin, he'd have a massive championship lead after race 4 and all he had to do was maintain the status quo. I don't see the pressure.
WARNER: I didn't say he was pressured into a mistake, I said he might have been the victim of a push. Here, (directing the detectives to the first tray) look at this sample we took of the track at the run up to the corner. Do you see all of those undulations so close together?
BENSON: Jeez, that would make any bike a bucking bronco.
WARNER: More like one of those cheap, violent mechanical bulls in a dive bar. Do you know how many people those send to the hospital every year in this state alone? At least one rider was brave enough to admit that it snapped his steering stops. Fortunately his session made it out alive... that time.
STABLER: But everybody had to deal with those conditions. Sure the bumps would have been pushing at his steering input, but enough to off his race and championship?
WARNER: (Leading them to the next table) That's where this comes in. (Points at the swingarm on display) What do you see?
STABLER: Looks like a swingarm from the Honda with an aero device fitted.
BENSON: Those things are all the rage these days. Not sure if it's legal, but it's definitely the latest in aero fad. It seems that anybody who wants to be anybody has to be seen wearing one in the paddock. Are you saying he had some illegal aero?
WARNER: Oh no, the part's legal and looks... "normal" to the naked eye. But on closer inspection it actually looks less polished and rushed. Like somebody came late to the aero party and slapped something together without a lot of testing. And you know what does an aero device, even an improperly calibrated one, does....
BENSON: It pushes. (Dawning clarity) Elliot, the pictures we saw of Marquez winning in the Americas. He was always at the top, the race in 2016, 2017, 2018....
STABLER: (Interrupting) Even the practice sessions in 2019. He was always on top. Except this race. This year. And the only thing different was....
BENSON: (With finality) Was the aero. And who's responsible for that aero?
STABLER: That sonofabitch....
Both detective rush out of the room.
Fade away
Engine Case 243 Day 45
INT: A packed courtroom. Along the walls reporters furiously scribble notes as sardine-like spectators whisper to each other. The defendant sits poised on the stand, seemingly almost bored as the prosecution begins to ramp up their cross examination.
MCCOY: Mr. Dal'Igna, are you not the person who brought this swing arm aero device to Moto GP?
GIGI: Actually Mr. McCoy, I wasn't. Yamaha actually used a similar device in 2018 during wet sessions. Aprilia tested with a similar design.
MCCOY: But you were the first to use it in a dry race setting.
GIGI: Correct.
MCCOY: Knowing that the other manufacturers would try to copy you.
GIGI: That was always a possibility.
MCCOY: (Almost speaking over him) Knowing that the additional downforce would be potentially disastrous if not carefully tune.
GIGI: I think that you may be mistaking me for someone else Mr. McCoy. Our device adds only a negligible amount of downforce at 150 km/hr. It's main function is to cool the rear tire.
MCCOY: But your Ducatis don't travel for very long at that speed, do they?
GIGI: (Sensing the trap) They do for some time.
MCCOY: But they often go faster, especially at a track with multiple long straights like the Circuit of the Americas.
GIGI: Yes, that is correct.
MCCOY: (Suddenly switching tactics) Your rider is currently leading the championship, correct?
GIGI: Dovi has a 3 point championship lead yes.
MCCOY: (Emphatic) And he got that lead, with the aero device that you had been testing for a longer time.
Didn't he Mr. Dal'Igna?
GIGI: (Ol' father Christmas geniality) Mr. McCoy, he only finished 4th, not even on the podium. Alex Rins in first place? No aero. Valentino Rossi in second? No aero.
MCCOY: (Pouncing) But Jack Miller in 3rd... on a customer Ducati with the fully tested swingarm aero, in second. And your Dovi in 4th place after a disastrous qualifying. And you expect us to believe that your well tested device had nothing to do with it.
GIGI: I think that the first and second place results speak for themselves. All of the crashes are the only reason we placed. If not for Marquez's.... accident, we wouldn't even have made the podium.
MCCOY: (Seething) You knew that Honda would feel obligated to try to follow your lead....
GIGI: Honda have always gone their own way. Remember the V5? Why follow such the lead of such a small European factory?
MCCOY: (Gaining momentum) You're setting up Jack Miller to be a championship spoiler by giving him the aero having Dovi qualify badly....
GIGI: Jack has only finished 6th at Jerez last year on the Ducati Mr. McCoy. He crashed out on a Honda the year before that and only managed 17th the year before that. That's hardly a spoiler.
MCCOY: And with Rossi being susceptible to being picked off by younger riders....
GIGI: (Ticking off on his fingers) 2nd in Austin this year, 1st in Jerez in 2016....
MCCOY: (Pouncing) But only 5th last year, and 10th in 2017! You knew Honda would be desperate to keep whatever advantage they had and you baited them to make a rash decision that resulted in the death of a young man's championship lead!
GIGI: (Spreading arms benevolently, like Italian Jesus welcoming the little children to the Redbull Rookies) Mr. McCoy, I am capable of a lot of things. But mind control?
MCCOY: I know what you're capable of... (looking at the jury) and they do to.
Engine Case 243 Day 47
INT: Hushed courtroom. The bailiff takes a folded piece of paper from the jury foreperson and hands it to the judge without looking at it. The judge unfolds the paper, reads quietly, then places it before him.
JUDGE: Mr or Ms Foreperson, has the jury reached a verdict?
FOREPERSON: (standing) We have your honor. We find the defendant....
Fade to black.
- END -
