Sensing the bike : creating a collaborative understanding of a multi-sensorial experience in MotoGP racing

This article concerns the analysis of work interaction of a motorcycle racing team during pre-season tests, drawing on ethnomethodology, and conversation analysis to explicate the ways in which the manager and the driver collaborate, through everyday gestures and language, to create a shared understanding of the bike’s mechanical issues and disambiguate the driver’s accounts of the bike’s performance. We report on a set of video-recorded encounters between the manger and the driver, examining how the multi-sensorial experience of the driver is recollected and understood by team members, while overcoming interactional constraints imposed by the unique professional setting.