Brembo Brake Facts For World Superbike Round 3, In Aragon

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As round 3 of the World Superbike championship is set to take place this weekend at the Motorland Aragón circuit in Spain, Brembo has released this interesting infographic detailing the challenges the track offers from a braking perspective.

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Round three of the World Superbike Championship is scheduled to take place April 13-15 at MotorLand Aragón.

The track was designed by German architect Hermann Tilke in collaboration with Formula 1 driver Pedro De La Rosa and was inaugurated on September 6, 2009.

World Superbike began to hold races here in 2011. Measuring 3.15-miles long the track is identical to the one used for MotoGP, but the Superbikes are 2.7 seconds slower. Last year, Chaz Davies won the Superpole with a lap time of 1:49.319.

While the circuit is considered fairly technical, it is pretty hard on the brakes because it doesn’t allow the steel discs to cool well, especially in the first stretch where the tight sequence of braking sections can be challenging on brakes.

According to the Brembo technicians, who work closely with 16 World Superbike riders, MotorLand Aragón is a demanding circuit for the brakes. On a scale of 1 to 5, it earned a four on the difficulty index, as did the tracks at Magny-Cours and Villicum.

Brake Use During the GP

On 10 of the 17 turns of the track, the Superbikes have to apply the brakes. The time spent braking is multiplied because of the .39-mile straightaway and various shorter ones that end at tight corners. For the first time this year, the riders have to brake for over half a minute per lap, 31 seconds to be precise. Over the course of the 18 laps, the brakes are used for almost nine and a half minutes, a figure that is decidedly high for races that last 33.5 minutes.

The significant number of turns positioned close together on the first part of the track results in an average deceleration that is fairly contained, just 1.13G, which can be compared to the 1.24G on the Thai circuit where the previous round was hosted. Summing up all of the force applied by a rider on the brake lever from the starting line to the checkered flag, the result is more than 1,873 pounds, which is equivalent to the weight of 91 whole Jamón de Teruel hams.

The Most Challenging Stops

Of the 10 braking sections at MotorLand Aragón, three are considered very demanding on the brakes while six are of medium difficulty and one is light.

The last turn is by far the most difficult because the Superbikes enter it immediately after the .60-mile straightaway, approaching at 189 mph, the riders brake for 3.5 seconds to set up the turn and take it at about 93 mph. While braking, they experience a deceleration of 1.5G, which is 0.28G more than what a Porsche 911 GT3 RS 4.0 registers when braking from around 62 mph.

The 222 yards traveled while braking here are less only than the 232 yards of braking in the first corner, which is equivalent to two times the length of the nearby Estadio de la Romareda soccer field in Saragozza. In the first corner, the Superbikes go from 168 mph to about 56 mph in 4.5 seconds and the braking system reaches 11.7 bar in pressure, which is about double the amount of pressure in a bottle of champagne.

The heaviest load on the brake lever is registered on curve 12: the riders brake hard for just 1.9 seconds since they need to reduce their speeds by 53 mph, but this requires applying a load of 13.2 lbs. and drives the pressure of the braking system to 12.8 bar.

Brembo Performance

Bikes with Brembo brakes were victorious at the last eight races contested at MotorLand Aragón, four of these were won by Ducati and just as many were won by Kawasaki. In 2017, the bikes with Brembo brakes managed to monopolize the top eight spots in both races.

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