The third of Asian-Oceanic races poker, the Australian GP, is scheduled for October 25-27 at Phillip Island and will be the 17th MotoGP World Championship race of the season. Inaugurated in December 1956, the track has hosted the 500 cc MotoGP since 1989 and World Superbike since 1990.
Located on Phillip Island 140 km (87 miles) from Melbourne, of all the circuits in the championship, this one is the closest to the South Pole. The last four editions saw the position on the 38th parallel south translate into rigid temperatures: During the race in 2016 and 2019, the air temperature never went over 13° C (55° F) and in 2018 it maxed out at 16° C (61° F).
To maintain the correct operating temperature of the brakes, the MotoGP bikes often use carbon covers, the same they use on other circuits too when it rains. The riders could switch to steel discs when it rains but in 2017 in Motegi, the first 9 riders proved that it is also possible to race in the rain with Brembo carbon discs getting also great benefit from it.
According to Brembo technicians, who assist 100% of the 2019 MotoGP pilots, Phillip Island Grand Prix Circuit is only slightly demanding on the brakes. On a scale of 1 to 5, it earned a 1 on the difficulty index, a score that only Assen of the other 18 tracks earned. The same score was given for the Superbike race.
Even though there are 12 corners, the Australian track only has seven points where the MotoGP bikes use their brakes, which is the same number than the Superbikes. No other MotoGP World Champion track requires less braking: Buriram and Spielberg have seven braking sections too.
On average, the brakes are used for 22 seconds per lap at Phillip Island, which comes to 25% of the overall duration of the race. And the nearby icy waters of the Pacific Ocean ease the dispersion of the accumulated heat. The average deceleration is 1.07 G, but for four of the seven braking sections, it doesn't exceed 1 G.
Adding up all of the force a rider applies on the brake lever from the starting line to the checkered flag, the result comes in at just under 5.9 tons, the lowest in the entire championship. For the Superbikes however, the value is closer to 4.9 tons because their races are only 22 laps long, as opposed to the 27 laps of the MotoGP races.
