Photo credit: Rob Gray (Polarity Photo)
I got into watching bike racing a couple of years after I got into watching car racing. Car racing in the bitter era of Ayrton Senna versus Alain Prost, that was. And though more years than I care to think about have passed since then, I still remember one of the first things that struck me when I ogled my first 500cc World Championship broadcasts. It’s a thing that keeps coming back to mind in the remarkably violent 2023 MotoGP season.
In those days, you see, the Formula 1 people, most infamously Messrs Prost and Senna, spent a lot of time driving into each other. These were big, tearful, dummy-spits of accidents. Then - and this is the bit that has passed out of fashion - they would accuse each other of 'not using their mirrors'. Ad nauseum. I seem to recall shrugging at this and taking it at face value.
When I subsequently starting paying attention to the work of Mick Doohan, Wayne Rainey, Kevin Schwantz, et al, two things registered within just a few Grands Prix. First, it was noticeable how rare it was for these men to ride into each other. Second, they had no mirrors at all.
So the men on four wheels were putting accidents down to people not looking at who might be coming up behind them. Meanwhile, the men on two couldn't see what was behind them without looking over their shoulders - not common practice - yet they had few comings-together.
Even to a 12-year-old, something didn't add up.
But even to that 12-year-old, the two-fold explanation seemed clear. First, the car drivers had a degree of protection. They were used to walking away from accidents with barely a scratch - a notion any bike racer from the 500cc two-stroke era would have found risible. So it seemed understandable that the four-wheel brigade were somewhat more lax about using any accessories that might help them prevent accidents.
But given that the bikes had no such accessories at all, there had to be more to their abstinence from torpedoing each other in that era. Hence the second part of the explanation as I saw it: defensive driving. Or, in this case, riding. The idea, which I think we're all supposed to learn ahead of our road licence tests, that you assume other people can't see you and aren't paying attention. And its offspring: make darn sure they have seen you before you do anything they might not expect.
It seemed evident even to a small child that the Grand Prix bikers had to bring this attitude to the track if they wanted to live long. They knew that the guy in front did not have mirrors, and they rode accordingly. If you couldn't get into someone's peripheral vision in good time, your medical insurance would thank you for holding back until a better opportunity came along.
For a long time, to my recollection - which may admittedly be rose-tinted - it stayed that way. I specifically remember remarking at just how clean so many multi-bike squabbles were. Not just in the World Championship categories, but in the World Superbike Championship’s heydey. Oh, they raced hard and they raced close, but they all erred on the sensible side. And on some far more terrifying tracks than feature on today's schedule too — remember the slipstreamers on the old Hockenheim, or the Salzburgring?
But this year in particular, riders dive-bombing each other to the point that they both end up on the floor (or, worse, in hospital beds) has become commonplace. The opener in Portugal and the latest race at Jerez stand out as particularly messy, with first-lap incidents marring both sprint and Grand Prix at the latter. Not only has all this bike contact led to riders sitting out with injuries - Enea Bastianini, Joan Mir and Miguel Oliveira to name just three - but penalties and protests have begun dominating the headlines to an unhealthy degree. One of the wonderful things about MotoGP 'back in my day' was that we were spared F1-style bickering over who drove into whom. Stories that wear thin over time, if you ask me.
Is this new level of over-aggressive riding down to the arrival of sprint events? Are riders spending too much time in virtual reality/simulators and thus feeling a little too invincible in real life? Is it mostly down to the nature of the tyres, as Franco Morbidelli suggested following the Jerez event? Theories will abound, but it seems clear that something has changed.
So I ask: has defensive riding stopped being a thing in MotoGP racing? Why? And if so, is it all about kamikaze attacks, or have 'in-front' riders become more robust in their efforts to stay there?
Or am I just romanticising the past altogether?
PS This post appeared first on my other Substack dedicated exclusively to MotoGP. Jump across there and subscribe, and I might start updating it more often!