Mandalika Circuit Marshall Praised by the Race Director for Agility

ADIL MAKMUR  – During the first two day of the Pertamina Grand Prix of Indonesia even held at the Pertamina Mandalika International Street Circuit of Central Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), the marshals’ agility in performing their tasks during event has drawn quite of an attention.

The great performance was praised by the International Motorcycle Federation (FIM) and the Race Director of the Pertamina Grand Prix of Indonesia, Mike Webb.

Webb said he was satisfied with the performance of the Mandalika Circuit marshals.

The marshals are said to be very capable and agile in cleaning the track surface and have shown a rapid increase in ability since they were first employed in the last MotoGP event 25 years ago.

This was conveyed by the Managing Director of the Mandalika Grand Prix Association (MGPA) Priandhi Satria at the Mandalika Circuit, Sunday 20 Maret 2022.

There are approximately 300 marshals deployed in the event, who were recruited from Pujut Subdistrict youth group members.

NTB Police Mobile Brigade personnel, the National Search and Rescue Agency (Basarnas) rescuers, and a number of professional assistant marshals from Malaysia.

Priandhi provided description during one of the major incidents that occurred when the underside of Alex Rins’ motorbike (Suzuki Ecstar) caught fire after passing Curb 12 and he left his motorbike at Curb 13.

The incident left a considerable amount of oil spill on the track that the session entered Red Flag.

However, the marshals, some of whom also served in Mandalika since the World Superbike (WSBK) event on November 19-21, 2021, acted fast.

They put out the fire, removed debris, and cleaned the track from oil spill so the session could resume.

“Mike Webb is satisfied with the marshal’s skill and speed in extinguishing the fire and cleaning the track surface from traces of gasoline and oil,” said Priandhi.

Not only that, Priandhi also mentioned how Webb saw the track marshals showed positive developments from their pre-season performance.

“During the three-day pre-season, and entering the preparation of Indonesian MotoGP from Monday, until today, their ability and skills have increased,” he continued.

The former journalist and racer said that these local marshals’ capacity have developed after receiving input from the Malaysian marshals who have exchanged their experiences.

“In fact, the Malaysian marshals have often performed in international racing events, including MotoGP.” he added.

Priandhi also said that a number of rider accidents that occurred on the second day, Saturday (19/3/2022) were not caused by track factors.

Citing the explanation from FIM that has given Grade A for the homologation test of the Mandalika Circuit, the incident was not related to track-related errors.

“That’s the FIM’s own evaluation after seeing the track conditions, it’s not a track error.”

“Today I spoke to Mike Webb, it has nothing to do with everything that happened today with the homologation that has been given.” He concluded

Priandhi also explained that his party had made minor improvements to the track surface on Saturday night to repair and patch the asphalt gravel that was torn caused by motorcycle accidents.***