MotoGP 2022

[Dicknose]

You hang on by your hands, just weight on feet+bum. So a kick to the bike will lift you up. You often see riders "sit up" when things go wrong, but you never see them let go until its either sliding or they are forcefully thrown from the bike.
If its a kick at the back (such as a "highside" when the back loses grip, then regains it) it can easily throw the rider up, holding on quickly makes the rider go forward more than the bike. As RWA said, combined with suspension and unfortunate timing of throttle it can give a big kick.

[Kchrpm]

So did he...do anything wrong, or was he doing the right thing and everything just went really wrong?

Do you know what I mean? Like, if you're in an open wheel car you're supposed to let go of the wheel before you hit the wall so you don't break your hands/wrists. Should he have let go earlier, or was it reasonable for him to be holding and trying to save it for as long as he did?

Not that I want to be accusatory of such an excellent rider, I'm just curious in general about riding in this extreme situation.

[Rare White Ape]

He probably cracked the throttle 5% too hard on exit, then was a passenger from there. There are so many variables that would contribute to it. To me, a hidden, and really hard one to calculate for is the changing diameter of the tyre as the lean angle changes. The ECU has to account for this and takes data from the gyros and lean angle sensors and matches it up with the known dimensions of the rubber.

As he was standing the bike up to get on the fatter part of the tyre, there may have been a slight delay between the signals and the ECU response, leading to inaccurate throttle retardation. And since most of the hanging-on is also done by the throttle hand, if the bike twitches or decelerates suddenly then all the body weight will be going through the arms and into the throttle. Gripping by the knees is also a thing, but you'd only do it to a certain degree if you're only expecting a certain amount of force.

It reminds me of a very humourous story of a friend who is a mad wheelie addict. He hopped on his Kawasaki ZZR1200 and proceeded to show off to everyone with a giant mono down the road, only to find that the fuel tank wasn't quite full enough to feed fuel to the engine when the bike was over 45 degrees, so it'd starve and suddenly drop down. And when it dropped, it would deliver fuel again, and my buddy was still holding the throttle open, so up it came, again to the point where it starved again.

Up-down-up-down. Each time the bike would smack him in the balls as his body struggled to keep up. All he had to do was let go of the throttle.

[Kchrpm]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, didn't realize there was so much going on in a MotoGP's ECU.

[JoeW]

Typically these incidents are the riders fault so I wouldn’t think too much about it being ECU induced. He had crashed earlier in a low side and rejoined angry and embarrassed because he’s the championship leader. These highsides aren’t uncommon. They vary in severity depending on how badly the rider misjudged his throttle input.

Traction control is designed to remove us from the old days where an elite rider’s skill and throttle control throughout the race on ever degrading tires made all the difference. But it still won’t save them from giving too much throttle at extreme lean angles.

[Dicknose]

And letting go of the bars might save you from going in front of the bike, but its not instinctive and might not actually help if you let go too soon - you could face plant into the bars.
Highsides are tricky - they feel like something you can control and get back and then they kick. Most tend to be a gentle slide with angle increasing. This one was an oscillation with feedback. Either way the explosive kick is coming but you aren't sure when.
Along with "tank slappers" (front wheel instability results in bars shaking back and forth hitting the fuel tank) they are pretty violent movement of the bike in a way that cars rarely do.

[JoeW]

Sometimes the rider even ends skating alongside the bike after being partially ejected

Most of these are highside saves. Looks like you have to click through to YouTube but it’s good.



Old Mamola save…

[Dicknose]

Oh yeah - like a stunt rider or the old cowboy style. Beside, sidesaddle, back on and away you go!

[Kchrpm]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuungible token!

[JoeW]

Silverstone was quite good this weekend.