MotoGP: Scott Redding explains stunning helmet-scraping photo from German GP

MOTOGP riders have long scraped the road with their body parts for balance — but this is a new one.

Aprilia’s Scott Redding was snapped scraping his helmet along the tarmac during the warm-up for the German Grand Prix!

Lean angles through corners have reduced as tyre technology improved over the history of motorcycle racing.

LIVE Stream every 2018 MotoGP World Championship practice, qualifying session & race ad-break free on FOX SPORTS. SIGN UP NOW >

GERMAN GP: Marquez makes it 9/9 at Sachsenring with emphatic win

WATCH: Miller ‘bitch-slapped’ by ‘idiot’ rival’s Lap 1 crash

Riders in the 1950s began to lean so far they scraped their toes on the tarmac. Every rider now puts their inside knee down on the road to go fast, but it was Kenny Roberts who pioneered that in the late 1970s, and even he took inspiration from the late Jarno Saarinen’s style from earlier that decade.

French 250cc cult hero Jean-Philippe Ruggia took that a step further — he used his elbow for balance, having to fit cut-down knee sliders to the arms of his leathers.

Tyre advances in the last decade have allowed riders to regularly lean MotoGP bikes up to 65 degrees, while the fastest riders now lean way off the bike to improve corner speed.

So is the helmet the next frontier? Will we see Marquez, Rossi and co scraping their noggins to find those extra tenths?

No, probably not; Redding was just having a bit of fun in what could be his final season in MotoGP, set to be replaced at Aprilia next year by Andrea Iannone.

“I nailed it!” he grinned to crash.net among other media after the race.

“(I’ve been planning it) a long time! I did it in Valencia, but it was only a little touch. That was on a soft tyre with a small bike, so that was cheating.

“So I thought, f**k this, I need to do it before I leave the paddock this year, I need to get it down.”

Redding achieved the feat in the morning warm-up at the Sachsenring, getting the job done at the final corner as he headed back to the pits at the end of the session.

“I’ve been trying to do it all weekend and I’m like, ‘COME ON!’” he explained.

“I said to the photographer, ‘get in that corner, because it’s happening’.

“I went in, and I leant more, and I thought, ‘f**king hell, where is it?!’ Then ‘krrcchhh’.

“There it is. Nailed it! Mission accomplished this morning.”

Let's block ads! (Why?)

: https://ift.tt/2NkFmrm

Let's block ads! (Why?)