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WHO WILL BE THE ROCKY OF THE RING?

This weekend's German Grand Prix on the narrow and twisty Sachsenring track marks the exact midway point of the 2022 World Championship season, with a Tony Arbolino determined to get the best results in Sunday's 28-lap Moto2 race.

The Italian rider is confident that the front end improvements seen during last week's Motorland Aragon tests will help him maintain his title challenge as he sits just 44 points behind.

With points won in seven of the first nine races, Arbolino is poised to gain more momentum by aiming firmly for the top spot on German soil.

Until 1990, Sachsenring belonged to the territory of the then German Democratic Republic and passed through the urban center of Hohenstein-Ernstthal. Today, the circuit lies on the outskirts of the Saxon town, is run counterclockwise and is the shortest of the Motomondiale circuits at 3,671 meters long!

However, it is not very wide: 12 meters, with 10 left turns and only 3 right turns. The first part is very mixed to be almost a 'go-kart track,' and the second very fast.

Although the track is rather short, the straight is 700 meters and all uphill: this means that the engine power will be felt a lot.

According to Brembo data, the twistiness of the Sachsenring translates into modest use of the brakes: there are 8 braking sections, 6 of which are in left-hand turns (only in Austria and Thailand are there fewer).

Reduced are also the braking distances: in half of the 8 braking sections not even 100 meters are reached. Adding up all the forces exerted by a driver on the brake lever from the start to the checkered flag, the value is 7.9 quintals.

Of the 8 braking sections, Turn 1 is the one that involves the most effort for the riders and braking systems; one has medium energy and the remaining ones are all low energy.
The MotoGP enters Turn 1 at 73 km/h after 265 meters of braking. Moving on, we find a kind of 'corkscrew' from turns 2, 3, and 4, where you go down, make an 'omega', and come back up.

A distinctive feature of the German circuit is that from Turn 4 to the exit of Turn 10, the bikes always remain leaning to the left side: the tires, therefore, work really hard and wear a lot.

Characteristic turn 11, where suddenly you go back to the right after a long time and that side may have inevitably cooled, both in the front and the rear. From there the nosedive also begins: so a very technical and quite a difficult corner to negotiate.

'Violent' detachment halfway up Turn 13, which leads into the straight: it will be important to have a very stable bike, allowing you to corner hard to present yourself with good grip and gas in hand, also because there are not so many overtaking points on this track!