[kropotkin thinks...] - Barcelona MotoGP Friday Round Up: New Parts, Seen And Unseen, And...

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Why are the MotoGP bikes so much slower at Barcelona than last year? In FP1, fastest man Marc Márquez was a second and a quarter slower than Valentino Rossi was in the first session of 2018. Fabio Quartararo, fastest rider in FP2, was 1.2 seconds slower than Jorge Lorenzo was in the same session in 2018. "If you compare to last year, in FP2 somebody did a 1'38 and many riders were able to do a 1'39, but this year, nobody was able to do a 1'39," Takaaki Nakagami wondered. "More or less 1 second slower than last year."

The answer came from the skies. When I walked to my car this morning, I found it covered in thick drops of very fine dust. According to the locals, this is a fine dust carried from sandstorms in the Sahara, 1000km south of Barcelona. Heavy rain earlier in the week, then brief showers overnight, and at the start of the afternoon, left this fine Saharan sand all over the track, making it dusty, and robbing it of grip.