Sachsenring, Germany

It seems entirely self-evident: the winner of any given motorcycle race on any given Sunday will be the best rider, on the best bike, with the best tires. The rider with the most horsepower, the sweetest handling and the stickiest rubber - and the skill to leverage this magic triptych -  should, barring incident, win every race.

And that's what's so great about racing in the rain. Horsepower becomes irrelevant, as any surfeit of power simply disappears in wheel spin; electronic traction control quickly becomes so intrusive that it slows you down rather than speeding you up; handling characteristics which have been a major disadvantage in the dry lose their relevance, as the lower speeds being reached aren't pushing the handling envelope quite so brutally. The rain takes all those factors and throws them overboard, reducing the racing to its most basic elements: The rider who can judge the limits of traction most precisely - and more importantly, dares to go looking for just where those limits are - will win the race. His bike may be a stable-full of horsepower short, he may be struggling with grip in the dry, the bike may refuse to change direction on sticky rubber: These things no longer matter. The only question is are you brave enough to find the limit, and good enough to keep it there?

When you add soaking conditions to a tight and technical track like the Sachsenring, the truth of this axiom becomes even more obvious. With no straights to speak of, and with the bikes spending much of their time heeled hard over through an intricate set of turns, racing motorcycles here in the rain truly becomes a question of exploring the outermost limits of adhesion. There is nothing left to fall back on, no more odds stacked in anyone's favor, it  comes down solely to the rider, and what they are capable of.

Here Comes The Rain Again

So despite the truly miserable conditions which greeted the MotoGP riders as they headed out for the sighting lap, there were a few happy faces among the riders and teams at the back of the grid at the Sachsenring on Sunday afternoon. The rain had been threatening to arrive all weekend, and after a brief downpour which disrupted Saturday morning's free practice session, then another shower during the warm up on Sunday morning, it finally started in earnest after the 125 race finished and as the 250 race got underway.

But the rain did not please everyone. The wet conditions left many teams worrying about a wet setup. Most of the riders, including Casey Stoner and Valentino Rossi, had sat out the first half of Saturday's wet session, waiting for the track to dry. Then there were the riders who just don't get on with the rain, riders such as Jorge Lorenzo. As fast as they are, the wet weather makes them tentative, and tentative means slow.

Finally, there were the tire men. Surprisingly, there has never been a proper, full wet race at the Sachsenring before, and so the men from both Michelin and Bridgestone were having to second guess themselves for tire choices. With so many left turns, too soft a compound would mean that tires not lasting the whole race, especially if a dry line started to form. The flip side of that coin was that too hard a tire would not retain enough heat in the right side of the tire, with so few right handers to cope with.

In the end, Michelin decided to play it safe, only providing their riders with a medium compound wet tire, hard enough to last the entire race, whilst Bridgestone gambled a little, supplying a mixed compound tire with a harder left and a softer right side. But if the rain eased up, a dry line started to form, the race would be up in the air once again.

Despite Germany's status as an economic powerhouse and one of the motors behind European economic growth, the German language has failed to make very many inroads as a global means of communication. Coming too late to Imperialism to spread the language through the methods which worked so successfully for Britain and France - foreign conquest - it wasn't until the 20th century that words started filtering into other languages from German. While French, Spanish and English words went on to permeate the languages of almost every country on Earth, German left most other tongues completely untouched.

One German word, however, is almost universally understood, because the thing it describes has gripped the imagination of motoring enthusiasts around the world. The Autobahn has come to signify more than just the two or more grade-separated lanes of tarmac that form the backbone of Germany's transport network. Despite its troubled history, the German Autobahn has attained an almost mythological status, one of the few places on the planet where hardcore speed freaks can get a legal hit of their personal high. Although at least 25% of the Autobahn system does actually have enforceable speed limits in place, and many of the unlimited stretches of road have so much traffic on them that any speed much above the advisory 130 km/h is extraordinarily perilous, if not physically impossible, Germany's motorway system remains a place where motor vehicles can be held at their maximum speed for many minutes on end.

Slowhand

How ironic, then, that the German MotoGP round should take place at the Sachsenring, a circuit at which the world's fastest racing motorcycles never reach anywhere near their maximum speed - even after last year's capacity reduction to 800cc. Indeed, so tortuous is the circuit that many bikes never even see 6th gear, their riders preferring to use a longer 5th gear instead of a severely shortened 6th down the Sachsenring's short front straight.

Officially, the track has 10 left turns and 4 right turns, and technically speaking that statistic is correct. However, a cynic might say that as the bikes never actually lift between many of the turns, there are more like half that number. And the way the corners run together, this is not such a wild claim. Though the first tight right and then the open left which follow the front straight are quite clearly separate turns, from there, the corners all run into one.

The first and most obvious exponent of this is the Omega Kurve, the double right hander which, unsurprisingly, looks like the Greek letter omega. After close to 270 degrees of going right, the track then flicks back left, through an almost interminable sequence of left handers, to climb the hill before heading on down to the back straight behind the paddock. A quick flick right as they bikes fire down the hill, gaining speed and momentum until they hit the main overtaking zone at the Sachsenring, the Sachsenkurve.

Take A Chance

This is the point at the track where speed and braking allow you to stuff your bike up the inside of an opponent, and steal a place. But it isn't quite as simple as it sounds: coming down the hill, you often find yourself carrying more speed than you anticipated, and with several sizable bumps on the entrance to the turn, front wheels are for ever on the verge of tucking, ready to deposit you at the track's busiest gravel trap of the weekend.

Even if you do get past, there's no guarantee of still being there when you cross the line. Braking up the inside into the Sachsenkurve leaves you open to counter-attack along the short straight before the Quickenburgkurve, meaning you can lose the place you just gained in as much time as it took you to take it in the first place. And with just a short run up to the finish line, losing out at the final turn usually means losing out at the line.