Lusail Turn 1: from 337 km/h down to 99 km/h
Brembo rates Lusail 3 out of 6 for brakes. The hardest stop, at the end of the 1.068 km straight, takes 4.9 seconds and 259 metres.
2 min readLusailQatarBy PitPin Desk
A medium track for brakes
Brembo's engineers rate the 5.38 km Lusail International Circuit 3 out of 6 for brake demand. A lap has 11 braking zones adding up to 34 seconds. Three of them are classed as High, four as Medium and four as Low.
Brembo's High zones last more than three seconds, with at least 4 kg on the lever, at least 1.4 g of deceleration and more than 8 bar of system pressure.
Sepang, Jerez, Silverstone, Aragón and Misano also have 11 braking zones per lap. Brembo rates Sepang 5 out of 6. How long each stop lasts, and how close the stops sit, goes into the rating along with the count.
The stop into Turn 1
The hardest stop comes after the 1.068 km main straight. A MotoGP bike slows from 337 km/h to 99 km/h in 4.9 seconds and covers 259 metres while braking. The rider puts 5.6 kg on the lever, the deceleration is 1.5 g, the system pressure reaches 12.1 bar and the discs go above 550 °C.
Why the discs glow
The MotoGP race starts at 8 p.m. local time, and under the hardest braking the edges of the carbon discs glow red. Brembo says the discs are no hotter than at other tracks. Without sunlight, their emission shifts into the part of the spectrum the human eye can see.
Brembo on every bike from 2016
The 2016 Qatar GP was the first in which every MotoGP rider used Brembo brakes. That year riders could choose between two aluminium calipers: a light-duty one for standard pads and a heavy-duty one for high-mass pads. The regulations also banned aluminium-lithium calipers from 2016.