SEPTEMBER 18

he Motorland Aragón is located near Alcañiz, a town in the Spanish autonomous community of Aragon. It was inaugurated in 2010 and is the latest of the four Spanish tracks that are part of the MotoGP World Championship (the others are Jerez, Barcelona and Valencia). Alcañiz has a long tradition of motorcycle racing: it hosted road races from 1963 until 2003, now the MotoGP runs on a modern track of 5078 m, with 17 curves and a straight of just over 900 meters. The track was designed by German architect Hermann Tilke, it is a fairly technical track, but not very demanding for the brakes: the hardest braking is at turn 16, the MotoGp bikes reach 330 km/h and brake up to 166 km/h, with a deceleration of almost 1.6 g. The mixed part is also very demanding, characterized by a tight sequence of minor braking sections. The track is located in an isolated and desert area: besides Alcañiz, the nearest (small) towns are more than 20 km away.

he track is one of the most modern and recent not only in the MotoGP, but also on the international scene. Famous road races were held here between the 1960s and the 2000s, when it was decided to build this 5,077-metre track with 17 curves, 10 left-hand and 7 right-hand curves, a 15-metre wide roadway and a main straight of almost one kilometer: 968 metres, to be precise. The track record is now five years old and belongs to Marc Marquez, who to snatch the pole in 2015 turned in 1'46''635, while in the race the best performance is of the current Yamaha tester Jorge Lorenzo, in 1'48''120 in the same year. The speed record is instead more recent, and belongs to Andrea Dovizioso, who last year with the Ducati touched 346.1 kmh on the straight!