'If COTA isn't resurfaced, MotoGP won't come back'

MotoGP may have avoided a rider revolt after the opening day at a ridiculously bumpy COTA, but it was made clear that the world championship won't be back unless resurfacing work is carried out for 2022.

"For me it’s a joke to be here. We cannot race. It’s very dangerous. Nightmare. I’ve never ridden a track like this," Aleix Espargaro had said after Friday practice.

"If we hold a vote in the Safety Commission I would say not to race. For me no way. It’s very, very dangerous," added the Aprilia rider, who went on to fall five-times over the weekend.

COTA has been battling the emergence of strange bumps - thought to be caused by instability beneath the track's surface rather than the usual wear and tear - for years. But like a gardener clearing molehills from a lawn, no sooner has one area been treated than the problem pops-up somewhere else.

While work done on the 1.2km back straight, the longest in MotoGP, made the bump situation better than in previous years, new outbreaks at the fast Turns 2-3 and 10 were the main target of rider complaints.

"For sure we were expecting some bumps. But these bumps are so dangerous. Going into corner 10, both wheels are in the air," said Suzuki's Alex Rins.

With Brno in the Czech Republic being dropped from this year's world championship due to a lack of resurfacing, COTA knows it must act – and has only six months before the scheduled 2022 race, in early April.

"They need to fix it next year otherwise we won’t race. Now the track is not safe," said Rins, who added that the circuit in its current condition would not meet the necessary standards to host MotoGP:

"If they made the homologation checks now, for sure [the track] would not pass it."

While a (costly) full resurfacing, including any sub-surface remedies, is the best option, the compromise reached in the riders' Safety Commission meeting at COTA was that MotoGP will tolerate a partial resurfacing, covering the problematic Turn 2-10 area.

"All the riders had big complaints about the bumps. Some said that it's impossible to race, some said it's too dangerous, that this is the worst track on the calendar," Takaaki Nakagami said of the Safety Commission meeting.

"Dorna said that they will try to push to resurface, not all the circuit, but at least from Turn 2 to Turn 10 they need to repair everything. And this is what the riders' requested.

"The final decision is from the circuit. But from MotoGP's side, if the circuit says they don't want to resurface, I don't think we will come back."

"Dorna understood the situation perfectly. All the riders complained. The truth is we cannot repeat another weekend in these conditions," said Rins team-mate and reigning world champion Joan Mir.

"It looks like the ground has moved and it's a big difference [from 2019]. Everyone got more used to the bumps [as the weekend went on] but they’re not normal. If they don’t resurface minimum Turns 2-10 we will not come back here."

"They will ask not just to resurface, but to change under the ground from Turn 2 to 10. And if they don't change it, we won't come back," reiterated Pramac's Jorge Martin.

However, a partial resurfacing would mean the growing issue of COTA now having a patchwork of different asphalt sections, each with different grip and drainage properties, will be exacerbated.

"It’s true that the best thing you can do here is resurface completely. Not one sector and another, with different types of asphalt," Mir confirmed. "But [a full resurfacing] is really expensive."

Retiring at the end of this season, Valentino Rossi didn't want to get caught up in the discussions over what needs to happen for 2022.

"Next year I don’t race! So it's not my problem!" Rossi smiled.

However, given that past attempts to fix the COTA bumps have largely failed, the Italian was sceptical that all will be well for those returning next April.

"I think that they asked to improve the [surface] situation for next year - but at the end, that's what we asked for, for this year. But the situation was not better," he said.

"So I hope for the MotoGP riders in 2022 that the situation can be better because like this it's a bit dangerous."

COTA's next big event will be the American F1 Grand Prix on October 24. While the four-wheel grand prix competitors, whose world championship includes several street circuits, have also highlighted issues with the bumpy COTA surface it is more of an inconvenience than a safety issue.