MotoGP riders discuss flag-to-flag changes

The main discussion at Friday's meeting of the MotoGP riders' Safety Commission in Austria was how to reduce the level of danger in pit lane, when making bike swaps in flag-to-flag races.

The issue has been raised once again following several incidents in last weekend's Brno race, most notably an accident for Andrea Iannone after crossing paths with Aleix Espargaro.

"We had many ideas - and now Race Direction must try to analyse all these ideas," confirmed reigning champion Marc Marquez. 

"One of the ideas was try to reduce the pit lane speed to 40km/h. It will be safer because you have more time to see where your mechanics are and where the other riders,"

This pit lane speed change is due to come into effect from Sunday's race at the Red Bull Ring. The main downside is that a slower pit lane means more time lost during a bike swap, increasing the temptation to stay out on slicks in the rain, for example.

Other more radical ideas were also proposed, but not agreed.

"Another idea was changing who has priority; the rider going out [of the pit box] or the rider going in," continued Marquez.

At present, the rider ready to re-join pit lane on his second bike must give way to riders arriving from behind. The is the normal system for pit stops in just about every motorsport category, but some riders feel those at the front of a group of riders entering the pits together ends up lose out by having to wait.

For Marquez, it would be safety if the riders on pit lane gave way to those leaving the box: "I think it is better if the priority is for the rider going out, because the rider coming in can [see].

"Then another idea was to have a lollipop guy, just to make a signal with your number or something that you are going out of the pits. So the other riders can see that you are going out.

"They are trying to analyse all the ideas and I think we will have the answer soon."

Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso highlighted the difficulty in trying to get riders to agree on a way forward.

"Imagine 22 riders in the same room, it's very complicated," he smiled. "Still we didn’t fix it. We suggest some ideas, but it's very difficult. You can have positive things in one way, but negative in another. I think it’s impossible to fix completely, we can only improve it a little bit, but we still have to take a decision, I believe."

Team-mate Jorge Lorenzo felt only a drastic change would make any meaningful difference to pit lane safety.

"In my opinion it's difficult to remove all the risk we are taking in the flag-to-flag. My thinking is just for everyone to enter the pits and then restart the race, avoiding the flag-to-flag and all this casino in the pits. Because it's difficult to solve all the dangers that we have in the pit lane."