The 2020 San Marino and Riviera of Rimini MotoGP Grand Prix according to Brembo

9/8/2020

A guide to Brembo braking systems in the premier class and their use on the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli

According to the Brembo technicians who work closely with all the MotoGP World Championship riders, the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli is a moderately demanding circuit for brakes. On a scale of 1 to 5, it earned a 3 on the difficulty index, the lowest score of all the tracks raced on this year: Jerez and Brno have a score of 4 and Spielberg 5.

The extreme winding nature of the track, as clearly shown by the longest straight section which is only 530 meters (0.33 miles) long, stops the bikes from reaching 300 km/h (186 mph) even once. Although there are 16 bends, the speed gap between the start and end of braking exceeds 100 km/h (62 mph) on only 3 of them. On the other hand, cooling of the braking systems could be hampered by the high ambient temperatures.

The Brembo radial master cylinder

The Brembo radial master cylinder is widely used in MotoGP. Both the strength of the fingers on the brake lever and the strength of the lever itself move in the same direction, i.e. radially with regard to the point where the cylinder is fastened to the handlebar, without generating friction or locking. This ensures that no energy is wasted.

For road motorcycles, on the other hand, Brembo has come up with the R19RCS Corsa Corta radial master cylinder: with this cylinder, the bite point can be adjusted to 3 different levels and two different wheelbases can be selected. By integrating the two systems, 6 different combinations are obtained so that every motorcyclist can choose their favorite solution.

Brake use during the San Marino MotoGP Grand Prix

On every lap of the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, riders use the brakes 12 times for a total of 31 seconds. These 12 braking sections are all different either due to the stopping distance or braking time or even the start speed or pressure on the lever.

The third section of the track is where the brakes are used the most, 5 times, i.e., on all the bends in this section. In the first section, on the other hand, they are used on only 3 of the 5 bends and on one of these the drop in speed is really low, just 35 km/h (22 mph).

The most demanding braking section of the San Marino and Riviera of Rimini Grand Prix 

Of the 12 braking sections at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, 3 are classified as demanding on the brakes, 3 are of medium difficulty and the remaining 6 are not very demanding.

The most demanding braking section for MotoGP is bend 8: the bikes go from 268 km/h (167 mph) to 79 km/h (49 mph) with a speed gap of 189 km/h (118 mph) obtained by applying the brakes for 4.7 seconds. The riders exert 5.9 kg (13 lbs) pressure on the brake lever, are subjected to 1.5 G deceleration and cover a distance of 209 meters (686 feet).