La MotoE it is a completely new category, the many aspects of which must be understood race after race. One of these is the driving style that the drivers are developing with respect to their starting styles. There are those, like Mike di Meglio, who started from a style similar to that of Moto3, or others like Tuuli and Garzo, who come from Moto2 championships. Bradley Smith raced in MotoGP for 6 years and is currently the official tester for Aprilia MotoGP. Here we report some considerations of the English driver on the driving style of the MotoE, taken from a long article by Peter McLaren on Crash.net
The start
"There are not really too many secrets to a good start to be honest! With no clutch, it's literally a case of twist-and-go to propel the Energica machines off the start line. It's he who reacts fastest!" said Smith.
The Englishman missed the Valencia race simulation due to Aprilia test riding duties, but from watching videos of the event he was able to see that "wide open" off the start was the way to go.
While riders could try and get a better jump by opening the throttle slightly and holding the bike still on the front brake while the lights are still red, Smith said it's just not worth the risk. "The thing is I don’t want to creep. That's the risk that you take [doing that]. You're not recovering from [a jump start penalty] in an eight-lap race. "It's just about being patient and reacting to the lights, but it's kind of eerie because there is no bike noise at all!"
Overtaking
“Don't back off when overtaken. Whether it's electric or combustion, the way of racing is kind of similar," said Smith, now the first rider to take podiums in 2GP, Moto3, MotoGP and MotoE. "The main difference is when you have to try to 'restart' 260kg." In other words, it's important not to lose momentum. "When someone passes you on the inside, you have to almost stay on the outside of them, because if you roll off too much and then accelerate again, you've lost so much speed because of the XNUMXkg."
The throttle
One of the things Smith needs to adapt to is more aggressive use of the throttle, rather than the gentle use of torque required in MotoGP.
"With the weight that we have and grip from the Michelin tyres we don’t need any electronic assistance.”
"My problem is that I'm so programmed from the last six years to go 'waaaaaaaaaaaap' [open the throttle gently] because that's what MotoGP is nowadays. Especially with the Michelins, you're really feeding it in. Everyone thinks 'Traction Control, just pin it. No-one is pinning it out there in MotoGP. Everyone is feeling it on and so on and so forth."
The full post by Peter McLaren on Crash.net is available at this link.
