If you have seen footage of this amazing save by Marc Marquez during practice for this year’s Australian GP, you’ll most certainly be amazed (as you should). While Marquez has gained a reputation for being able to save the seemingly impossible, this save must be the best one yet.
To give perspective, most street riders can only manage a lean angle of about 45 degrees. Most racers can reach about 60 degrees. MotoGP riders, riding the best motorcycles in the world, on the best tires, can average around 65 degrees of lean. Once you reach to 65 degrees of lean, you are playing on a literal knife edge. Very few riders ride past this, except of course, for Marquez.
During practice, while testing tires for the 2020 season, Marquez lost control of the front-end of the bike, something that normally results in a crash, only to save the crash and recover from at a lean angle of 70 degrees.
To say it was miraculous is an understatement, however, if you follow the trajectory of the save, it could have very well resulted in a tragedy.
Behind the #93 was the #9, Danilo Petrucci. In most cases, when a rider loses the front-end of their motorcycle, they will fall and as a result will slide to the outside of the corner. This is the reason that passing on the inside is the most common way to overtake, because it is not only faster (shorter distance), it is also safer. No one could have blamed Petrucci for noticing Marquez lose control of the bike, and taking the inside trajectory to avoid hitting him. However, that is neither what Petrucci did, nor Marquez. Thankfully for both of them, they did the opposite to common sense.
In his quest to regain control of the falling motorcycle, Marquez used his knee to keep the bike from falling as he applied additional throttle to reduce the load on the front tire and give it time to regain traction. The strategy worked, Marquez was able to uncrash. And yet, as the front tire regained traction, its angle was such that it catapulted him to the insider of the corner. Had Petrucci followed common sense, and changed his trajectory to avoid him, he would have certainly torpedoed the HRC rider with the most dire of consequences.
Racing is the never-ending quest for new limits. There is a famous saying “if you are not crashing, you are not going fast enough“. This is to say that one must constantly be searching and breaking limits in order to improve, compete and hopefully win. Marquez has been uncrashing long enough that it has become normal for MotoGP watchers. When he first arrived to MotoGP, said uncrashing was only documented in photos, during tests. Soon thereafter, MotoGP fans saw it for themselves during a race and now it is normal.
One can only assume the #93 will become more adept and one can only hope when it happens again, it does so in the move vacant conditions that are practices and tests, rather than the overcrowded group that is racing.
