Fiery start to MotoGP’s Texas debut

MotoGP News

Date: 18/April/2013

An overnight fire inside the Monster Yamaha Tech 3 pit garage left four teams facing a substantial clean-up operation on the eve of this weekend’s inaugural MotoGP at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.

Tech 3 believes the fire was caused by a battery for an electric starter that was left on charge.

“This is standard procedure and something we have been doing ever since the introduction of the four-stroke era [in 2002],” said team boss Herve Poncharal. “Unfortunately in the night one of the batteries caught fire.”

Luckily, the brand new COTA facility is equipped with a state-of-the-art automatic fire safety system.

That successfully tamed the fire, but flooded four pit garages - full of motorcycles and technical equipment - with water and fire retardant powder in the process.

“I would like to apologise to the Yamaha Factory Team, LCR Honda and Cardion AB, as the sprinkler system was also activated inside their pit area as well,” said Poncharal.

“But it could have been much worse and with the fantastic support of Yamaha and others in the close-knit MotoGP community, I am confident we can participate in this weekend’s race without any additional problems.”

Yamaha racing boss Lin Jarvis confirmed the incident had also left the official team - whose riders Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi are first and second in the World Championship - with plenty of extra work.

However the Englishman added that if the incident had occurred at an older circuit, the cost could have been much greater.

“If we hadn’t been at this excellent facility [with automatic fire protection], we could have lost six bikes,” he said. “There was no damage to any people or the bikes, but computers, servers and spare parts have been flooded.

“We can race this weekend, but have to take everything to pieces and dry each part, to ensure we have no corrosion issues in the future. But it’s always tougher with electronic parts, as issues are not visible.”

That will something Lorenzo and Rossi will try to put out of their minds as they seek to overturn the clear COTA advantage held by Honda riders Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa during a private winter test session in March.