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MotoGP 2012 Valencia Results

November 11, 2012

An edited version of this article, complete with hi-rez photos, will appear on Motorcycle.com today or tomorrow.  Until then, enjoy the raw version here.

Dani Pedrosa wins for the seventh time to close out 2012 

The Gran Premio Generali de la Communitat Valenciana got underway today in the worst weather conditions possible for MotoGP racing—half wet and half dry.  20 minutes before the start, the 22 crews were going completely mental, trying to decide whether to send their guys out on slicks, rain tires, or perhaps one of each.  The resulting demolition derby left eight riders licking their wounds in garages and provided perhaps the strangest podium of the year. 

Valencia was the fourth race of the season in which the rostrum featured the two Repsol Honda pilots, Pedrosa and the retiring Casey Stoner, flanking a factory Yamaha rider.  In each of the previous three—Jerez, Estroril and Laguna Seca—that rider was Jorge Lorenzo, who was today gunning for his 17th podium of the season.  Having clinched the 2012 championship last time out in Australia, it was the only goal left for him today, but it was a biggie, an all-timer that might have stood for years.  Today, however, the man in second place was Katsuyuki Nakasuga, the factory test rider assigned to take the injured Ben Spies’ seat for the finale.

To understand how this came to pass, we direct your attention to the fourth sentence of our preview article of Round One in Qatar back in April:

For the first time ever, the high fliers of MotoGP will be overtaking slower CRT bikes in the turns during the second half of races.  Courting disaster, if you ask me.

On Lap 14 today, race leader Lorenzo came up on the rear of the Paul Byrd Motorsports nag beneath James Ellison who, heading into the race, held 28 points, a complete non-factor all season, having already lost his seat for 2013 to “rider unknown, just not James Ellison.”  It appeared that Ellison was unaware of the major presence behind him, as he failed to yield and held his line in the turn, forcing Lorenzo to brake hard, move off the dry line, wobble furiously, and go airborne in a violent high side that ended his day and hopes of securing a spot in MotoGP history.  With Lorenzo in the gravel, Ellison plodded on, apparently unaware of the disaster he had just been involved in, only to come this close to repeating it two laps later with the new race leader, Pedrosa, who somehow managed to save his bike and day. 

 Cluster at the Start 

If you look up “mass confusion” in the dictionary, you’ll likely find a picture of the grid of today’s race, with the caption, “Pandemonium reigns at the start of a grand prix motorcycle race.”  Most of the riders chose rain tires for the start, with the notable exceptions of factory Yamaha riders Lorenzo and Nakasuga and rookie Stefan Bradl.  Four riders—Pedrosa, Crutchlow, Nicky Hayden and Alvaro Bautista—entered pit lane after the sighting lap to change bikes, preferring to start from there on slicks rather than from the grid on wets.  To illustrate the scale of disorder, the race leaders at the end of lap one, all on wet tires, were:

  1. CRT champ Aleix Espargaro
  2. Yamaha Tech 3 refugee Andrea Dovizioso
  3. Casey Stoner
  4. Lame duck Ducati icon Valentino Rossi, and
  5. Bradl, on the LCR Honda

The riders electing slicks gambled and won; the track dried fairly quickly, and the downpour forecast for later in the afternoon held off until the race had ended.   One by one, riders entered pit lane to ditch their wets in favor of slicks, with all losing at least 25 seconds and some as much as 40 in the process.  As these issues were getting sorted out, the crashing began:

  • Ducati’s Nicky Hayden, lap 3.
  • Avintia Blusens’ Ivan Silva, lap 3.
  • CRT back bencher Roberto Rolfo, lap 7.
  • Stefan Bradl, lap 10, making it six Valencia GPs in a row that he has failed to finish.
  • Lorenzo on lap 14
  • Pramac Ducati’s Hectic Hector Barbera, lap 17.
  • Claudio Corti, slated for a full time ride in 2013 for NGM Forward Racing, lap 18; and, finally,
  • Crutchlow, who crashed out of second place, lap 23.  Seems like Cal is most likely to crash out of races when he’s in the top three spots; guy needs to learn how to handle success a little better.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Nakasuga, visibly overwhelmed at the podium celebration and post-race press conference, had qualified in 16th place, about as expected, but followed teammate Lorenzo’s example at the start by choosing slicks.  Despite instructions from the brass not to trash the bike, he found himself somehow running in the top three, and keeping up nicely, by lap five.  Once Lorenzo and Crutchlow had left the building, he had second place pretty much to himself, providing the feel-good moment of the year.

Stoner, who fell to 16th place changing bikes, got his rhythm and began overtaking the field, eventually going through on Bautista’s San Carlo Honda on lap 29 for a fitting podium finish in his last outing.  Being Stoner, he had been quoted earlier in the weekend as “not being happy with the new tarmac.”  We will all miss his racing; I, for one, will not miss his incessant whining and complaining.  At the end of the race, we saw his pit board, which read “GONE FISHING.”  If the fish aren’t biting, I fully expect to see Casey quoted in the New South Wales paper complaining about his tackle and bait.

Michele Pirro, on his way to being evicted from the #2 seat at San Carlo Gresini, enjoyed a bit of paying forward by finishing sixth today, the best ever finish for a CRT bike.  Take THAT, Fausto.  Andrea Dovizioso, on his Tech 3 Yamaha for the last time, and Karel Abraham, likewise on his satellite Ducati for the last time, were the only other riders to finish on the lead lap.

Valentino Rossi, riding as the #1 factory Ducati rider for the last time, described the Circuit Ricardo Tormo this week as a “Mickey Mouse circuit.”  After qualifying in 11th place and finishing today’s race tenth, more than a lap down, I would have to describe his as a Minnie Mouse effort.  It’s hard to conclude that Rossi didn’t quit on his team today, and it appears he has also helped Filippo Preziosi lose his job as technical director at Ducati.

And So It Goes

MotoGP underwent a great deal of change this year, with more in store going forward, in the way of rules, riders, teams, and circuits.  The Next Great Rider, teenager Marc Marquez, moves up to take Casey Stoner’s seat on the Repsol Honda team starting Tuesday.  Marquez has millions of fans and almost as many critics of his aggressive riding style.  He won today’s Moto2 race after starting from the back of the grid, thanks to a close encounter with Simone Corsi on Friday.

Marquez will inject new life into the premier class, and appears ready to challenge for Alien status sooner rather than later.  To his critics, and to bring our coverage of MotoGP to a close for another year, we offer up a bit of Rudyard Kipling, from his poem entitled “If”:

“If you can keep your head when all about you

Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;

…Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,

And – which is more – you’ll be a Man my son!”

                             — Rudyard Kipling

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MotoGP 2012 Phillip Island Results

October 28, 2012

An edited, slightly less entertaining version of this article appears on Motorcycle.com.

Stoner wins!  Pedrosa crashes!  Lorenzo clinches! 

In the 41 minutes it took to run the 2012 Australian Grand Prix, a number of pressing questions were resolved.  Would Repsol Honda top gun Casey Stoner be able to make it six wins in a row at his home crib?  Could teammate Dani Pedrosa make it four in a row for 2012?  Would factory Yamaha mullah Jorge Lorenzo pick up the three points on Pedrosa he needed to clinch the 2012 championship?  And, finally, would one of the local wallabies hop through the infield prior to the race as a reminder we were on the other side of the planet?  In order, the answers were:  Yes.  No.  Yes, and Yes. 

In front of 53,000 delirious fans, Casey Stoner, as is his wont, ran away from the field for his sixth consecutive premier class win in Australia.  Being the fastest rider on the fastest bike at the fastest track on the tour, there was little question that Stoner would go out in grand style in front of his homeys.  He was at the top of every single timesheet all weekend and never seriously threatened during the race itself.  Although he didn’t enjoy a great start, he oozed past Lorenzo on a decisive second lap into the lead and ended up winning by some nine seconds.

Want a good definition of the word “dominant”?  Over the last six years at Phillip Island, Casey Stoner led 160 of 162 laps.  Does that constitute perhaps the greatest home field advantage in the history of sports?  Tough question.  But the only good news about Stoner’s impending retirement—I read he’s moving on to automobile racing starting next year—is that someone else will have a chance to stand at the top of the podium next year at Phillip Island.

Pedrosa Finally Cracks

Dani Pedrosa came into the race today needing to make up 23 championship points in two races, an almost impossible task unless Lorenzo were to make some kind of uncharacteristic gaffe.  Despite having won five of the last six races, Pedrosa was unable to gain much ground on his consistent countryman.  As Pedrosa kept winning, and the deficit to Lorenzo shrank ever so slowly, pressure continued to build on the diminutive Spaniard.  Today, it found its release.

Starting from the front row, the three Aliens had good starts, with Stoner settling into third position while his tires warmed up.  Pedrosa put the pedal to the metal (?) and went through on Lorenzo into the lead midway through the first lap.  On lap two, Stoner went through on Lorenzo, and was dogging his teammate when Dani lost the front in a slow, arcing lowside that looked eerily like Simoncelli’s crash last year at Sepang.  Although he was able to re-mount his damaged bike, he entered pit lane moments later, his day, and year, suddenly over.

On the back nine of his MotoGP career at age 27, the brooding, introspective Pedrosa appears to be on his way to becoming one of those eternal runners-up.  Entering today’s race, he, Stoner and Lorenzo each had 44 career wins, a statistical anomaly of the first order.  But Stoner and Lorenzo have now each won two world championships, while Pedrosa has a fourth, three seconds, two thirds and about a pound of titanium plates and screws to show for his efforts since 2006.  I’m reminded of Fran Tarkington and Jim Kelly, both stellar NFL quarterbacks with 0-4 records in Super Bowls.  I’m thinking of Karl Malone, who played second fiddle to Michael Jordan all those years; in terms of championship rings, it ended up Jordan 6, Malone 0.  The difference between being a great athlete and a world champion often comes down to timing, luck, and karma, none of which Pedrosa seems to enjoy to any great degree.

From the Department of Idle Speculation, we believe next season may be his last to capture a world championship.  He will have Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi to deal with on the factory Yamahas—ugh—as  well as his new teammate, Alien-in-waiting Marc Marquez, who himself clinched the Moto2 title today.  Pedrosa should be able to contain Marquez during his rookie season, but the New Kid in Town looks ready to start winning premier class titles sooner rather than later.  And Lorenzo, hard as nails and regular as a piston, is two years younger than Pedrosa, who will turn 30 during the 2014 season.

Winning a title is not going to get any easier for Dani Pedrosa.

Image2012 MotoGP World Champion Jorge Lorenzo

Jorge Lorenzo—First Spanish Double World Champion

As dominant as the Spanish riders in all three classes are these days, it’s surprising to me that Lorenzo is the first to win two premier class titles.  The secrets to his success are, in my opinion, consistency and a crystal clear understanding of what he is capable and incapable of doing on a Yamaha M1.  He has matured greatly since joining the premier class in 2008, and in mid-career is at the top of his game.  Assuming he podiums in Valencia, he will set a new MotoGP record by recording 17 podium finishes in one season.  That, folks, is consistency.

In several respects, Lorenzo’s Yamaha has some disadvantages compared to the Repsol Honda RC213V, most notably the Honda’s superior acceleration coming out of turns.  This is not to say that the factory Yamaha is a tortoise compared to the Repsol hare.  But it does back up the assertion by many knowledgeable MotoGP people that grand prix racing is 80% rider and 20% bike.

Congratulations to Jorge Lorenzo on a stellar 2012.  I’m pretty sure this will not be his last world championship celebration.

Sidebars

Cal Crutchlow, who had failed to finish four of the last six races, spent a lonely, productive day in third place for his second career premier class podium.  His post-race comments about the inadvisability of going after Lorenzo today were a hoot…Andrea Dovizioso spent his day fighting with satellite Honda pilots Stefan Bradl and Alvaro Bautista, finally going through on both simultaneously late in the last lap for a well-earned fourth place finish…Two of the best battles of the day were intra-team affairs.   Valentino Rossi and Nicky Hayden played grab-ass all day long, with Rossi prevailing for another ho-hum seventh place finish.  And Power Electronics’ Aleix Espargaro essentially clinched the imaginary CRT championship by out-racing teammate Randy de Puniet for an 11-point lead heading back to Spain.  De Puniet would have to finish, like, sixth at Valencia for any chance to outpoint his teammate, and THAT’s not going to happen.

On to Valencia

And so the grid heads back to Europe for the annual Valenciana Anti-Climax, with nothing on the line, as usual.  Rather than running another meaningless season-ending parade, I think Dorna should organize Valencia as a series of three lap match race heats, with the winners facing off for a five lap finale:

  • Stoner vs. Lorenzo vs. Pedrosa
  • Crutchlow vs. Dovizioso
  • Hayden vs. Rossi
  • Bautista vs. Bradl
  • Barbera vs. Abraham
  • Espargaro vs. de Puniet

Let the winners of each heat compete for a big cash prize, and start them on the grid in the reverse order of their finishing times in the heats, handicapping the field so even Abraham or de Puniet might have a chance to win.  Something like this, it seems, would be a more interesting way to spend a Sunday afternoon on the Iberian peninsula than watching 21 guys compete for a title that has already been decided.

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MotoGP 2012 Sepang Results

October 21, 2012

An edited version of this story will post on Motorcycle.com on Sunday or Monday.  Until then, enjoy the raw version.

Pedrosa streak continues; Lorenzo second in rain-shortened GP

Round 16 of the 2012 MotoGP championship might have been drawn up by Bubba Blue, everyone’s favorite character from Forrest Gump.  The Malaysian Grand Prix had every kind of rain imaginable—big old rain, flat rain, upside-down rain, you name it.  It was officially classified a wet race at the start, and was red-flagged after 13 laps at the finish. That’s a wet race.

In between, Repsol Honda bantamweight Dani Pedrosa claimed another empty victory, joined on the podium by Yamaha enforcer Jorge Lorenzo and Repsol’s Casey Stoner, who appeared sufficiently tuned up to compete for his sixth consecutive Australian GP title next weekend at Phillip Island.  Pedrosa shaved another five points off Lorenzo’s championship lead, which now stands at 23 points with two races to go.  The breathless writers at MotoGP.com would have you believe that the race couldn’t get any tighter or more exciting.  The truth is, if Lorenzo beats Pedrosa next week, he will clinch the 2012 title and render Valencia moot.  Other than that, it’s as close as can be.

Today’s race was the story of the 2012 season in miniature:  Lorenzo and Pedrosa, and everyone else.  Despite not having raced here in two years, Pedrosa was fast all weekend in dry practice sessions.  Most of the prototype riders blew off FP2, the only practice session held in the wet.  Lorenzo was sharp, too, as were Stoner and the Tech 3 Yamaha duo of Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow.  But there had been essentially no practice time in wet conditions, conditions on Sunday having become so bad that the warm-up practice was scrubbed altogether.

Kind of a Wet, Fast, Violent Parade

My editors at Motorcycle.com hate it when I refer to some of these events as processions, so I use the word “parade” instead.  Despite having only one rider finish in the same position he started—Hector Barbera in seventh—the race had a kind of parade-like feel to it.  As per last week, Pedrosa and Lorenzo traded spots at the top midway through the race.  Tech 3 Yamaha’s Andrea Dovizioso, who had qualified third, found himself rolling sideways at the start and mired in ninth position after the first turn.  He quickly made his way back to fourth, only to crash on lap 10.  Although he re-entered the race, he finished 13th, not what he had hoped for at the start of the day.

So Stoner, who had qualified fourth, moved up into third and ran by himself most of the day.  He seemed to be gaining quickly on Lorenzo at the end, and might have done his teammate a favor had the race gone its full length.  Crashes removed Yamaha’s Ben Spies and Cal Crutchlow from the proceedings—Spies may have injured his left shoulder in the process—leaving the way clear for those wild and crazy guys from Ducati, Nicky Hayden and Valentino Rossi, to slip into fourth and fifth places, respectively, for their best combined result of the season.

Crutchlow was the first of three riders to exit the race at turn 12 on lap 12, followed by Randy de Puniet and Stefan Bradl moments later.  As mentioned above, Barbera held onto his seventh spot.  Four of the next five finishers were CRT guys, led by Aleix Espargaro, who gained ground on teammate de Puniet for the CRT title.  James Ellison, who likes running in the rain, turned in his best result of the season in 9th place.

The Big Picture

Depending on how you look at it, Jorge Lorenzo’s lead over Dani Pedrosa has either shrunk or ballooned to 23 points with two races left.  The pressure on Pedrosa, despite his stellar recent results, has decreased not one bit.

Looking ahead to Phillip Island, assume, for the halibut, that Stoner wins.  Next, assume that Pedrosa and Lorenzo settle in to battle for the two remaining podium spots.  You had better record next week’s race, because the title could very well be decided in Australia, regardless of what Stoner manages to accomplish in his home swan song.  Stoner, for his part, with 16 points today and Dovizioso’s poor result essentially clinched third place for the season.  Dovi probably ought to get used to the bitter taste in his mouth, as he’ll likely be getting a steady diet of it for the next two seasons.

The second division of the top ten is fronted by Alvaro Bautista, who managed a low-maintenance sixth place finish today after qualifying down in 10th.  Rossi trails Bautista by six points and is hoping for rain from now until Christmas.  Cal Crutchlow, who once stood even with Dovizioso, sits huddled in seventh place, a mere 10 points in front of rookie Stefan Bradl, who has found the recent going somewhat more difficult than earlier in the year.  Americans Hayden and Spies round out the top ten.  Hayden, for what it’s worth, had one of his better outings today, finishing fourth after starting ninth.  He has finished in fourth place at Sepang an incredible six times.  That he would do so again today, in that light, is not so surprising.

Pedrosa’s Second Half

The second half of the 2012 season, starting actually at the Sachsenring at Round 8 has been, for Repsol Honda speedster Dani Pedrosa, a half season to remember.  In Germany, he qualified third and finished first, 15 seconds in front of Lorenzo.  At Mugello, he qualified on the pole but finished second to Lorenzo by five seconds on a very Yamaha-friendly track.  At Laguna Seca, he qualified and finished third, one of his worst results of the season, one which most of the riders on the grid would tell their grandchildren about.

Pedrosa won convincingly from the pole in Indianapolis.  At Brno, he qualified third, and edged Lorenzo by a fraction of a second for the win.  The decisive moment of his season, of course, occurred at Misano, with the jammed tire warmer, the last-row start, and ultimate take-down by Hector Barbera.  Undeterred by this chain of events, he led his team to Aragon, where he qualified second and again handily defeated Lorenzo for the win.  The last two weeks—two methodical wins over Lorenzo at Motegi and Sepang.  The first three-consecutive-wins streak in his career.

Who is the best rider on the grid in October of 2012?  Easy.  Who is going to win the 2012 MotoGP world championship title?  Not so easy.  In an interview this week Pedrosa acknowledged that he had been rather conservative early in the season, trying to avoid mishap and injury.  And while that strategy worked, it left him too far behind Lorenzo, after Misano, to mount an aggressive back nine charge reminiscent of Arnold Palmer in his day.

Still, I expect people will be talking about Dani Pedrosa’s second half in 2012 for a long time.

On to Phillip Island

Round 17 at Phillip Island this coming week, with the usual wind, cold temps and expected domination of Casey Stoner in what is expected to be his last MotoGP appearance at his home crib.  This track is friendly to the Ducatis and Yamahas, so the pressure on Pedrosa, rather than diminishing, will be sky high.  We’ll have the race preview for you on Thursday.

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MotoGP 2012 Sepang Preview

October 18, 2012

An edited version of this story will appear on Motorcycle.com at some point, complete with high rez photos.  In the meantime, enjoy it here.

The Hurrier Dani Pedrosa Goes, the Behinder he Gets

Even with Repsol Honda’s dogged Dani Pedrosa driving the RC213V like a world champion, trailing series leader Jorge Lorenzo by 28 points with three rounds to go, the 2012 championship race is not as close as it seems.  A crash out of the points by either will decide the title in an instant or put it completely up for grabs. But if no one crashes, Lorenzo wins.

Those of us rooting for a gripping Game 7 in Valenciana in November will continue to send bad karma toward Lorenzo.  Those in the “Let the Best Man Win” school are hoping to see the two of them pull into the Ricardo Tormo Circuit within a half dozen points of each other, qualify on the front row, and let it rip all day, teeth bared, wheels touching, taking it down to the last turn of the last lap.

If Lorenzo can manage to appear on the podium each round for the rest of the season, he has clinched.  The worst he could do each week, assuming Pedrosa wins, is to give up nine points by finishing third.  Do that three times and you win the title by a one.

The point here, if there is one, is that Pedrosa can actually run the table and still lose the title.

I measure the margin in terms of “points per round” that Pedrosa has to make up.  Two rounds ago, he trailed by 38 points with five rounds left, a deficit of 7.6 points per round.  Two wins later, he trails by 28 points with three races left, a deficit of 9.3 points per round.  This is why the sub-headline at the top of the page is actually quite good:  Trail by 7.  Win twice.  Trail by 9.

Recent History at Sepang

For Jorge Lorenzo, the 2009 Malaysian Grand Prix was just one of those days.  The Yamaha up-and-comer qualified second, missed his wake-up call, arrived at the track late, had to start from 18th place on the grid, and eventually finished fourth. All in a soaking rain.  Meanwhile, Casey Stoner took his Ducati for a stroll in the park, hammering Dani Pedrosa by some 14 seconds, with Rossi third.  Rossi’s podium finish clinched the 2009 title for the Italian.

In 2010, it was Rossi, on the Yamaha, fighting his way back from injuries earlier in the year, edging compatriot Andrea Dovizioso on his Repsol Honda for the win.  Lorenzo closed out the podium, with Tech 3 Yamaha rookie Ben Spies finishing 4th.  For the second consecutive year, the third place finisher at Sepang clinched the world championship.  Last year Rossi.  This year Lorenzo.

2011 was, of course, the year the race was cancelled.  Casey Stoner had clinched the title the previous time out at Phillip Island, so there was really nothing to race for.  It is interesting to note that the track was in bad condition all through the weekend, with standing water in a number of corners.  Marc Marquez had difficulty seeing one of those in practice on his Moto2 bike and endured a brutal high side that left him with blurred vision for six months.  Yet Simoncelli’s crash appeared to have nothing at all to do with the conditions.  Just one of those things.

In a perfect world Simoncelli would still be with us.  And the sport, the entire premier class of MotoGP, is worse off for his loss.

The Big Picture

Pretty simple, really.  Lorenzo keeps his bike upright, stays on the podium each round, can’t lose.  Lorenzo crashes, all of a sudden it’s a dogfight between Pedrosa and Lorenzo.  Sepang and Phillip Island are Yamaha-friendly, while Valencia is Honda-friendly.

Stoner and Dovizioso slug it out for third place, the second in a row for Dovi if he can manage it.  Bautista appears safe in fifth place, while Rossi and Crutchlow will battle for sixth.  Rookie Stefan Bradl will outpoint former world champion Nicky Hayden.  Beyond that, no one really cares.

Although there are few interesting mathematical possibilities for the end of the 2012 season, it’s way better than in previous years when the title was a foregone conclusion two-thirds of the way through.  Lorenzo must do more than simply show up for the remaining three races of the year, which he will.  Pedrosa must continue to work like a dog and hope for the best.  God will sort out the rest.

Bautista Gets His Ride

It was finally announced this week that Alvaro Bautista will hold on to his San Carlo Gresini prototype Honda for next season, signing a new one-year deal with Fausto Gresini.  Once Dovizioso, Spies, Crutchlow and Andrea Iannone had committed for next year, there weren’t really many serious options left for Gresini.  The guy and his sponsor still desperately want a dominant Italian rider, but these days they’re not easy to come by.

For Bautista, two podiums in three rounds suggest he is coming to terms with the Honda.  Next year will be pivotal.  Have a great year—a win or two, four or five podiums—and he becomes a contender for Alien status.  Have a so-so year—one or two podiums, no wins—and he will be consigned to the second division of MotoGP for the duration.  The competition at the top next year may be slightly softer than this year, with the incomparable Stoner departing in favor of Rossi, who returns to the Yamaha M-1 after two years away.  It’s probably wiser to assume that Rossi will immediately return to winning form in early testing, in which case Bautista’s challenge won’t get any easier.

A Quick Peek Ahead at 2013

Now that all 12 prototype bikes have been assigned, we thought it was high time someone—us—ranked the 12 in order of their expected standing at the end of 2013, roughly 13 months in advance.

 

RANK TEAM MANUFACTURER RIDER NOTE
1 FACTORY YAMAHA LORENZO Defending champion.
2 FACTORY HONDA PEDROSA Bridesmaid again.
3 FACTORY YAMAHA ROSSI He’s baaaaaack.
4 FACTORY HONDA MARQUEZ Rookie is for real.
5 LCR HONDA BRADL Best of the satellites.
6 TECH 3 YAMAHA CRUTCHLOW Two Brits at Tech 3
7 FACTORY DUCATI DOVIZIOSO Uphill all the way.
8 SAN CARLO HONDA BAUTISTA Must move up!  Must!
9 FACTORY DUCATI HAYDEN Fading into the sunset.
10 TECH 3 YAMAHA SMITH #2 Brit at Tech 3.
11 PRAMAC DUCATI SPIES C’mon Ben, surprise us.
12 PRAMAC DUCATI IANNONE Just hang on, Joe!

The Weekend Forecast for Greater Kuala Lampur

The forecast for the weekend is typical for this part of the world—hot and sticky with a good chance of storms each day.  The air will be heavy with remembrance of the loss of the irrepressible Marco Simoncelli here last year.  This is a track where the Yamahas should do well.  If conditions don’t interfere, I see Pedrosa, Lorenzo and Crutchlow on the podium.  Personally, I would enjoy seeing the controlled pandemonium of a flag-to-flag affair, in contrast to the instantly out-of-control pandemonium that was the 2011 race.  A flag-to-flag race is the only thing likely to throw a spanner into the works of Jorge Lorenzo’s impending second coronation,

Personally, I’d like to see Lorenzo win the 2012 title.  In the last turn of the last lap at Valenciana.  THAT would rule.

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MotoGP 2012 Motegi Preview

October 10, 2012

The pressure on Dani Pedrosa grows at Round 15

It is with divided loyalties that MotoGP blows into The Land of the Rising Sun for the first round of its annual three-round Pacific swing.  Fans excited by the prospect of a meaningful final tilt, a Game 7, in Valencia are virtually forced to project bad karma at factory Yamaha numero uno Jorge Lorenzo.  Unless he suffers some major misfortune, it will be almost impossible for him not to clinch the 2012 championship before returning to Spain in November. 

In my half-baked Theory of MotoGP, the numbers are working so hard against Repsol Honda hope Dani Pedrosa that he will be forced to press.  In order to have a thought of knocking off Lorenzo in Valencia, Pedrosa must virtually run the table.  Win three rounds and place at Phillip Island ahead of Lorenzo in third.  Meanwhile, let’s say Lorenzo loafs his way to a second and two thirds heading to Valencia.  A fifth place finish there would close out the title.  However, as many of you continue to remind me, a lot can happen on two wheels at 160 mph.

So, not only must Dani Pedrosa approach perfection for the rest of the year, he must hope for bad luck, i.e., mechanical issues, for Lorenzo.  The resulting pressure to perform, so to speak, is so intense that most riders fold.  Unless Dani Pedrosa is simply faster than everyone out there for the remaining races, he is going to have dogfights coming at him from not only Lorenzo, but teammate Casey Stoner, who has only a handful of races left to cement his legacy, the occasional Valentino Rossi, and the Bobsey twins over at Tech 3 Yamaha, Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow.  Think Honda rookie Stefan Bradl wouldn’t like to punk Dani Pedrosa, the legendary Dani Pedrosa, in his award-winning first season?

My half-baked theory closes with the observation that Lorenzo excels at just the type of work he must do for the rest of the year.  Turn consistent, efficient laps, don’t take any extra risks, play the percentages, and take home the 2012 trophy.  Back when he first came up, he was reckless, impatient and headstrong, and spent a lot of time in hospitals.  These days, he has matured and mostly overcome his Latin excitability.  Lorenzo might not have won the title had Casey Stoner remained healthy all year.  But then, as they say, if bullfrogs could fly, they wouldn’t bump their asses so often, either.

Recent History at Motegi

2009 was the year of Fiat Yamaha domination, and it was on display at Motegi that April. Lorenzo edged Rossi by a second ahead of Pedrosa, Stoner and Dovizioso.  The race that year was early in the season, too early to provide any sense of direction as to how it might proceed from there.  How it proceeded was with Rossi easily winning his 9th overall title and 7th in the premier class.

In 2010, Pedrosa crashed hard in practice when his throttle stuck open, fracturing his collarbone and basically handing the 2010 title to Jorge Lorenzo.  Casey Stoner drove his Ducati to the win, followed by Dovizioso, Rossi and Lorenzo.

In 2011, Rossi crashed out early on his Ducati, leaving the way open for Pedrosa to cruise to an easy win.  He was followed to the flag by Lorenzo and Stoner, who completed the podium.  In the best run of the day, Marco Simoncelli piloted his Gresini Honda to fourth place, sneaking past Dovizioso and his factory Honda by 14/100ths of a second at the flag.

Home for Honda

Motegi is without question home to Honda Racing Corporation; the oval ring was built by the Honda car people in order to figure out how to run on Indy Car ovals.  The road layout, a series of hairpin turns connecting a handful of mini-straights, puts a premium on corner exit speed, at which the RC213V excels.  Not a place where you spend a lot of time at top speed, if you ever hit it at all.  In short, a place where Honda should dominate.

But they don’t.  Over the past six years each of the big three manufacturers has won twice here.  Given the standings, I think Pedrosa and Stoner may manage to get away from Lorenzo and the Yamahas on Sunday.  Lorenzo will want to finish on the podium, but not in any particular position.  Just showing up in the top three every week will make Pedrosa’s job virtually impossible. Finally, I can’t wait to hear Casey Stoner complaining about stuff again.  To think I actually missed a month of his rants.  What will next year be like?

Musical Chairs in CRT Land

Rider news at the lower reaches of the MotoGP food chain.  Ivan Silva, rudely dismissed by Avintia Blusens earlier in the year, was warmly welcomed back after the team had watched his replacement, David Salom, pedal around Aragon and Misano, with only a DNF and a 15th to show for his trouble…Aleix Espargaro and Randy de Puniet re-upped with their successful Power Electronics Aspar team for another season, after trouncing their CRT competitors and occasionally putting it to the likes of Karel Abraham and Hector Barbera in 2012.

SpeedTV.com reported former Moto2 rider Roberto Rolfo will replace Mattia Pasini on the Speed Master ART machine…Team Yamaha announced it is bringing back factory test rider and fan fave Katsuyuki Nakasuga for another weekend of racing.  The KatMan has amassed 11 championship points during the past two MotoGP campaigns doing hometown cameos and emergency fill-ins.

News from Deep In the Heart

Circuit of the Americas (COTA) announced recently that they will be filling one of the two April holes on the provisional 2013 calendar with the inaugural…what?  Texas Grand Prix?  Another U.S. Grand Prix, This One in Texas?  Anyway, the event, the first of a ten year deal, kicks off the weekend of April 21.  It will be interesting to see how the art of racetrack design has improved over the last generation.

The other hole in the provisional calendar occurs the preceding weekend, in what is expected to become Round Two.  If you believe what you read, that event will end up being held in Argentina, India or Portugal. Any such an arrangement would produce another hellish week of travel.  If nothing gets worked out, there will be a bit of an early season holiday, after Round One in Qatar.

MotoGP needs fewer press conferences announcing new locations, and more new locations.  Argentina and India would be sensational markets for this sport, which is heavily Euro-centric at a time when European economies are struggling.  A third U.S. round is great, as the U.S. is fertile turf for grand prix racing.  A new country, and a venue that could hold 150,000 fans on Sunday, would be exactly what this sport needs.

Let’s Not Even Bother with the Weather

Am I the only one who misses having the Rizla Suzuki team in the house?

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MotoGP 2012 Brno Results

August 26, 2012

An edited version of this article can be found at Motorcycle.com.

Pedrosa Captures Last Lap Thriller; Race Tightens Again

Last week we suggested that Brno is one of the Yamaha-friendly tracks on the MotoGP circuit, and that factory stud Jorge Lorenzo might well add to his lead in the 2012 championship this weekend.  The top of the practice sheets during the run-up to the race reminded me of a bad 60’s rock-and-roll band—Dani and the Yamahas.  In the end, Repsol Honda mighty mite Pedrosa held off Lorenzo in a stirring last lap to venture within 13 points of the lead for the 2012 title.

With teammate Casey Stoner missing in action due to the ankle injury he suffered at Indianapolis, Pedrosa carried the hopes and expectations of the entire Honda nation into the Czech Republic.  In FP1, he recorded the fastest time, with the next four going to Yamahas.  In FP2, it was pretty much the same story, with Ben Spies falling to eighth.  FP3 virtually duplicated FP1.  During qualifying, Pedrosa crashed early, and had to resort to his #2 bike to finish the session.  Although he struggled somewhat, he eventually captured the last spot on the front row, wedged in between Yamaha stalwarts Lorenzo, Cal Crutchlow, Spies, and Andrea Dovizioso.

In 2010 and 2011 we watched week after week as Jorge Lorenzo would get double-teamed by Hondas—Pedrosa, Stoner, Dovizioso and Marco Simoncelli all taking turns making life difficult for the Mallorcan.  Though Lorenzo prevailed in 2010, the numbers last year were too much to overcome, as Stoner rode his RC213V to the title.  As today’s race began, I was thinking it wasn’t going to be Pedrosa’s day, going one-on-four with Yamaha M1s well-suited to the flowing layout of Brno.

Brno 2012:  One for the Pedrosa Family Scrapbook

The race started predictably enough, with Pedrosa sandwiched in between Lorenzo and Cal Crutchlow’s Tech 3 Yamaha.  Once everyone’s tires were warm, Lorenzo and Pedrosa went off alone to do their business, with Crutchlow and his teammate Dovizioso falling back to 3rd and 4th.  Valentino Rossi, who had started from the six hole, his best start of a miserable year, materialized in fifth place, although his GP12 was smoking like a ’62 Rambler.  Satellite Honda dudes Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl trailed Rossi, but not by much and not for long.

For the first half of the race, the only real action was the battle for 5th, as rookie Bradl, looking exceptionally Aryan, went through Bautista on Lap 5 and Rossi on Lap 9.  Pedrosa, who had spent 12 laps admiring his reflection in Lorenzo’s chrome, passed him cleanly on Lap 13 but was unable to get away, the hunter having become the hunted.  Things would remain this way until the last lap of the race.

On Lap 22, Lorenzo, who had been hoping to pressure Pedrosa into a mistake for nine laps, took matters into his own hands and went through on Pedrosa with half a lap left in the race.  Pedrosa, who in past years might have surrendered at this point, stiffened and, in an impressive display of mental strength, bike and balls, seized the lead back from Lorenzo in the last few turns to win by 2/10ths of a second, leaving the fans and the announcers gasping for air.

When Dani Pedrosa’s racing career is over, he will undoubtedly look back at this race as one of his finest hours.  Severely outnumbered, on a track favoring his opponents, and with no room to fall farther back from the championship lead, he held his ground, ran an exceptionally smart race, and snatched victory from the proverbial jaws of defeat.  He has now won three of the last five races after going oh-for-7 at the beginning of the season.  And if he ends up winning the 2012 title, a prospect I find dubious, history may decide that he took the first, or perhaps second, step at Brno.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Cal Crutchlow, newly re-signed on a one year deal with Herve Poncharal’s Tech 3 Yamaha team, spent the day by himself in 3rd place, capturing the first podium for a British rider since one Jeremy McWilliams at Donington in 2000.  Crutchlow’s teammate Andrea Dovizioso, who, during the week, finally signed his two year contract with Ducati, celebrated by finishing off the podium for only the second time in the last six rounds.  Riding for Ducati for the next two years, there’s no point in getting too used to the champagne celebrations, I guess.

Rookie of the Year Stefan Bradl finished the day in 5th place, another superb result for the young German, trailed by underachiever Alvaro Bautista on the San Carlo Gresini Honda.  There is a lot of chatter these days regarding the prototype seat on Fausto Gresini’s team for next season, with Ben Spies among those riders rumored to be taking Bautista’s job.  Were it not for Marc Marquez, Bradl might have been a contender to join Pedrosa on the Repsol factory team next season.  As it is, he will have to wait another two years, at least.

Spots seven through ten were captured, in order, by Rossi, Randy de Puniet, Karel Abraham and Aleix Espargaro.  Teammates RDP and Espargaro would, in a perfect world, be candidates for prototype bikes next year, as they are clearly the cream of the CRT crop.  Alas, the Yamahas and Hondas are all pretty well allocated for 2013, with the possible exception of the San Carlo Honda.  If given the choice between staying with their current team or saddling up a satellite Ducati next season, I’m not sure how they would go.  Their ART bikes seem to give them an equal chance of finishing in the top ten, with far less chance of getting launched into a low Earth orbit by the demonic Desmosedici.

Three Final Thoughts

Without wishing to take anything away from Dani Pedrosa’s glittering 2012 season, we should not lose sight of the fact that, were it not for Alvaro Bautista’s boneheaded move at Assen, which removed Jorge Lorenzo from the proceedings, Pedrosa could easily trail Lorenzo by 33 points today, rather than 13.  Yeah, I know, luck figures heavily in this sport, you gotta take the good with the bad, etc., etc.  But Pedrosa has been pretty fortunate this year, perhaps a cosmic payback for some of the bad luck he’s had during his career, in the form of brake failures, Marco Simoncelli and more.

The six engine rule may play a part in the final third of the season.  Lorenzo was racing his fifth engine today, while Pedrosa was still working his fourth.  With a third of the season yet to come, and Lorenzo having blown one in the collision with Bautista in Holland, things could get a little tight for Lorenzo at the end of the season.  It’s hard to imagine the governing body of any major motorsport agreeing to a completely arbitrary rule that could have a material outcome on one of their championships.  Yet that’s exactly what we might have in store for in 2012.

Finally, the super slo-mo cameras that MotoGP is using this year, at 2500 frames per second, give a completely different view of this sport than that seen by fans at the track.  Through these cameras, you can watch the frames of the bikes flexing, and see the rear tires turning faster than the front, constantly spinning.  You also get the clear impression that the rider and the machine are bonded into a single unit, a completely different aspect from any form of auto racing.  It’s a shame that motorcycle racing in the United States is a fringe sport, while auto racing is a big deal.  At 2500 frames per second, there is no comparison.

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MotoGP 2012 Brno Preview

August 22, 2012

Round 12 Lifts Off at a “Yamaha” Track

One of the themes of the 2012 MotoGP season has been the bifurcation (great word) of the calendar into Honda- and Yamaha-friendly circuits.  (No circuits are very Ducati-friendly these days.)  The Repsol Honda team of Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa has recently made hay at the American circuits, both of which are inarguably Honda tracks.  Such is not the case with Brno, in the Czech Republic, hosting Round 12 this weekend.

Prior to Casey Stoner’s win here last year, the most recent Honda victory at Brno occurred in 2004, when Sete Gibernau drove his 990cc Honda RC211V to the top of the podium.  Ducati had two years in a row—2006 and 2007—when first Loris Capirossi, then Casey Stoner won here.  Otherwise, since 2000, it’s been Yamahas 24/7/365.  Max Biaggi, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo have all stood atop the rostrum at Brno.  With its flowing, fast turns, it may be Jorge Lorenzo’s time this week, for the first time since Mugello, another Yamaha track.

Our crack research department has been busily analyzing the remaining venues and their characteristics to determine, with seven rounds left, which of the Aliens has the advantage where.  Of the seven, Yamaha dominates at three—Brno, Misano and Sepang.  Honda has been awarded but one—Valencia.  Two tracks—Aragon and Phillip Island—have been awarded exclusively to Casey Stoner, whose recent record at both has been unblemished, regardless of what he’s been riding.  And Motegi, though it should belong to Honda, is a toss-up, with Honda, Yamaha and Ducati having enjoyed fairly even success there over the past decade.

Recent History at Brno

In August of 2009, Valentino Rossi was on his way to his last (thus far) world championship when the Czech Grand Prix rolled around.  With an assist from Dani Pedrosa, Rossi outdueled teammate Jorge Lorenzo to win comfortably that day.  Lorenzo was still in the reckless stage of his premier class career, crashing out or failing to finish eight races in 2008-09.  That would change the following year.

The 2010 race was a parade led in orderly fashion by Lorenzo, Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner.  Ben Spies had a nice day, finishing fourth, and Andrea Dovizioso survived untouched a crash in which he ended up standing on the track with bikes coming at him, playing a uniquely Italian form of Dodge-‘em.  At the end of the day Lorenzo led Pedrosa by almost 80 points and the season was over except for the shouting.

Last year, Casey Stoner essentially clinched the 2011 title at Brno as teammate Dani Pedrosa crashed out of the lead on Lap 4, handing the race to the Australian.  Lorenzo, who chose the wrong tires that day, finished fourth behind Stoner, Dovizioso and Marco Simoncelli.  With three Hondas on the podium, you’re perhaps wondering how I can call Brno a Yamaha track.  I’ll just say that Honda’s dominance in the last year of the 800cc bikes was complete, and that 2012 is a different story.

The Big Picture

As the season begins its home stretch, Lorenzo leads Pedrosa by 18 points and Stoner by 39, with two friendly tracks coming up at Brno and Misano.  Of the two Repsol Honda teammates, I figured Stoner to be more dangerous than Pedrosa until his crash at Indianapolis, the first real injury to an Alien this year.  Over the next two rounds Jorge Lorenzo could and should put Casey Stoner out of title contention.

As for Pedrosa, he continues to hold up despite being the smallest driver on the grid.  One thinks that this profession probably saps his strength over time and over the course of each season.  Pedrosa can’t afford to give up any ground to Lorenzo at the next three nicely-spaced rounds.  The problem for Pedrosa is the three-rounds-in-three-weeks Pacific swing in October.  In a tight, stressful race, will he have the stamina to hang in those turns trading paint with Lorenzo and Stoner in the heat at Sepang?

Dovi Gets His Deal

Andrea Dovizioso finally becomes the #1 rider on a factory team as his deal with Ducati became public on Wednesday.  Five podiums in 11 rounds on a satellite Yamaha and Italian to boot.  Left out in the cold in all this is poor Cal Crutchlow, who is saying very negative things about the Ducati brass.  Not a good response to adversity in a very small league.  We hope Andrea knows what he’s doing.  For Ducati, it’s a win for now. As to Cal, there is no telling from our vantage point.

For Valentino Rossi, energized at the prospect of being competitive again next year, the rest of the season likely resembles 40 miles of bad road, something one simply would prefer not to have to deal with.  Teammate Nicky Hayden, the eternal optimist, is probably looking forward to the changes to come in 2013, as there’s not much else to do these days.

For the rest of the riders, both prototype and CRT, much remains at stake over the last seven rounds.  Opportunities on satellite teams, CRT, WSB and Moto2 abound.  Riders will be moving up, down and sideways.  In the motorcycle racing food chain, moving up is good, moving sideways can be made to sound good, but moving down is just moving down.  Once upon a time everyone wanted to be Toni Elias.  Now no one wants to be Toni Elias, not even Toni.

Medical Report

Factory Ducati rider Nicky Hayden has been declared “doubtful” for the Czech Grand Prix.  As of Tuesday, it appears Casey Stoner will compete, but at less than 100%.  Ben Spies will tough out his injuries until the usual mechanical issue ruins his day on Sunday.

Scanning the wire, there is a report on RoadRacingWorld.com advising us Elias will be riding the Pramac Ducati again in Brno.  Right next to it is a second story, this one on SuperSport.com, stating that Hector Barbera will be back this week to fight for 12th place at one of his favorite circuits, which he apparently enjoys with or without three broken vertebrae and a barely-healed double break of his leg.  I’ll let the editors sort this out at presstime.

The Weekend Weather Forecast for Lower Slobbovia

The weather forecast for Brno is for hot and dry Friday, cool and wet Saturday and Sunday.  Chance of rain on the weekend currently sits at 70%.  As we’ve seen elsewhere, a dry track favors the Aliens.  A wet one could favor some of the darker horses, especially the Italian ones, Dovizioso and Rossi.

And, finally, apropos of nothing, the Austin Business Journal reports that a third American round, at the Circuit of the Americas, will be announced soon.  With Indianapolis under contract for 2013 and 2014, and Laguna Seca etched in stone, this will provide at least a two year bump in MotoGP Americano.  Looks like an opportunity for a three-race American summer swing similar to the Pacific swing the league takes each fall.  For the teams, the economics seem compelling.  For most of the riders, it would mean another month away from home.  Life in the fast lane.

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MotoGP 2012 Indianapolis Results

August 19, 2012

An edited version of this story, complete with hi-rez photos, will appear on Motorcycle.com on Monday.

You never know when it might rain in Indianapolis.

Pedrosa Wins Again in Indy, Cuts Lorenzo’s Lead

At the start of Sunday’s Indianapolis Grand Prix, smart money was piling up on Repsol Honda mighty mite Dani Pedrosa and factory Yamaha’s struggling stud Ben Spies.  Both had been fast all weekend, Spies having shaken off a big crash in his qualifying run to be fastest in the morning warmup.  Lorenzo found a setting he liked late in qualifying and joined Pedrosa and Tech 3 Yamaha tough guy Andrea Dovizioso on the front row.  By the end of the day, Pedrosa had taken another chunk out of Lorenzo, Spies had another DNF, and Stoner had shown some stones.

Indianapolis has proven itself a formidable place to race motorcycles, with the long fast straight and the slow, twisty infield section, serving different asphalt on different sections of the track to keep it from becoming boring.  The IMS track is slick and abrasive, reminding one of European bathroom tissue.  Bridgestone brings in a bunch of tire choices, asymmetric rears, etc., and everyone has either not enough grip or too much.  No blaming it on the weather, which was perfect this year.

On Friday, Hectic Hector Barbera, not four weeks past a seriously broken leg, climbs on his Pramac Ducati and immediately goes over the top, fracturing three small vertebrae and landing him back in a Spanish hospital.  Enter Toni Elias, who would have a better day than he did in Monterey.   Cal Crutchlow parted company twice with his Tech 3 Yamaha, once in FP1 and somewhat more forcefully in FP3.  At various points during the weekend, Alvaro Bautista looked good, a carefree Ben Spies was flying, and even Nicky Hayden, armed with his new one year deal with Ducati, managed to finish 3rdin FP1.

Motorcycles on Meridian on Saturday night.

Saturday’s QP featured three big high side crashes that affected the outcome of Sunday’s race.  The first to go was Stoner, who was unable to leave the track under his own power and seemed to have issues (chipped bones and torn tendons, as it turned out) with his right ankle.  Practice was briefly red-flagged to remove debris.  Shortly after the re-start Spies went over the top of his Yamaha, one of those crashes that look worse than they actually are.  Ben would return to practice on his #2 bike and put it into the second row for Sunday.

The third QP crash put Kentucky native Nicky Hayden out of the race with some cracked bones in his hand.  Oh, and a concussion, which doesn’t bother him as much as his hand.  The QP is red-flagged for a second time in order to help remove Hayden, who was briefly knocked out by the impact and seemed to have swallowed his Red Man plug, too.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The weather Sunday in Indianapolis was, for late August, pretty much perfect.  Sunny, breezy, scattered clouds, temps in the 70’s.  The bad news was that most of us had no idea whether Casey Stoner would be racing.  Stoner realized that not racing today would essentially hand the 2012 title, or at least any chance he had of repeating, to Lorenzo.  Although failure WAS an option, not starting was not, and Stoner looked remarkably quick during the warmup.  The ugly question was whether he could fight through the pain for 45 minutes.

By lap four, Spies and Pedrosa had put some distance between themselves and a large second group comprised of Lorenzo, Dovizioso, LCR Honda rookie Stefan Bradl, the largely forgotten Alvaro Bautista on the San Carlo Honda, and Stoner, who was showing signs of life.  Those of us who have watched Spies deal with bad luck all year long were unsurprised when, at the start of lap six, he blew his engine.  At the moment it let go, Pedrosa and Lorenzo were able to avoid the thick white smoke.  Not so for the rest of the group, all of whom lost time trying to avoid smoke, oil and each other.  When the smoke cleared (!) Lorenzo was out in front chasing Pedrosa, and everyone else was fighting over the last spot on the podium.  There was, however, no new Pope.

For the fifth time this season, undoubtedly some kind of modern record, Andrea Dovizioso would drive his satellite Yamaha to claim that spot, holding off the wounded, snarling Stoner.  Posterity would also observe that Pedrosa turned the single fastest lap ever here AND became the first two-time winner at Indianapolis, while Stoner would retire having won only three of his last four races on American soil.  That Stoner would attempt the fourth on one leg would not go unnoticed.

Waiting at the start for Casey Stoner.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Bautista drove his RC213V to a positive fifth place finish, his second-best result of the year after a fourth at Silverstone.  This, along with Hayden’s DNS allowed the two to trade positions for the year, with Bautista, now seventh, leading  eighth-place Rossi and Hayden in ninth.  Stefan Bradl continued to perform well on the LCR Honda in sixth place, 27 seconds ahead of Rossi, whose name wasn’t called once all day.  That Karel Abraham was able to capture eighth, in front of Yonny Hernandez and Aleix Espargaro on today’s two top CRT bikes, was due more to attrition than skill; only 16 bikes finished the race, one of which was the erstwhile Elias in 11th.

The feel-good story of the day, however, was Steve Rapp, collecting a World Championship point by guiding his Attack Performance privateer to 15th place after failing to qualify last time out in Monterey.  The announcers were going on about some obscure record Steve now owns, something about the oldest guy to score his first world championship point yada yada yada.  Steve is feeling pretty good about things right now, as he should, Guinness Book of Records or not.

I spoke briefly today with Geoff Maloney, the owner/operator of the GPTech team whose Aaron Yates finished the race, although out of the points.  I asked Geoff why he would take eight months out of his life for one MotoGP weekend that most of us will forget before November.  “I can’t explain it in terms you would understand,” he said, shaking his head and smiling.  I expect he’s right about that.  I also expect that guys like Fausto Gresini, Herve Poncharal and Paul Byrd would understand perfectly.

Next Week in Brno

It’s back to the Czech Republic next week, where 140,000 crazed fans will come out on Sunday to root for Karel Abraham, and where the circuit really needs to buy a vowel or two.  Lorenzo and Pedrosa are threatening to make 2012 into a two-man race, while Stoner faces some difficult, irrevocable decisions.  And while Rossi has found his home for the next two seasons, the same cannot yet be said for Dovi, Crutchlow, Spies or a number of others.  Rossi’s story came out this week.  I expect Dovizioso will be signed at Ducati in time for Brno.

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MotoGP 2012 Indianapolis Preview

August 14, 2012

An edited version of this article, and some  fab high-rez images, will appear on Motorcycle.com on Wednesday or Thursday.  In the meantime, enjoy this in its original state.

Aliens Take Aim at the IMS Infield Track

At Laguna Seca, Repsol Honda’s receding star, Casey Stoner, laid down a statement:  Those of you who thought the 2012 championship was over should perhaps revisit this idea.  His solid win over factory Yamaha primo Jorge Lorenzo, with teammate Dani Pedrosa finishing third, brought the Australian to within 32 points of Lorenzo, heading into Round 11.  The diminutive Pedrosa, in the midst of an outstanding season, is also in the midst of his two rivals, trailing Lorenzo by 23.  All three need to eat their Wheaties this weekend.

The history of MotoGP at Indianapolis is starting to become etched in my mind, more than other circuits since I get better seats here in my home town.  The 2008 inaugural race was held during Hurricane Ike, and Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi, who became Yamaha’s  prodigal son this past week, tracked down Repsol Honda homeboy Nicky Hayden in a remarkably “wet race” called after 18 laps.  In 2009 Rossi, who could have slammed the door on teammate Lorenzo, instead crashed out as Lorenzo won going away, being joined on the podium by Alex de Angelis (?) and Nicky Hayden, the Kentucky Kid’s sole visit to the rostrum that season.  Back home again in Indiana.

Two years ago, Lorenzo led the series comfortably in the scorching heat at Indy.  Pedrosa unexpectedly dominated the race, and Lorenzo managed a satisfactory third, but the day belonged to Ben Spies. The American, in the middle of his Rookie of the Year season on the Tech 3 Yamaha, took the pole late in the QP, ran with the big dogs all day, and held on to second place, the first podium for a satellite Yamaha since Colin Edwards’ at Sepang in 2008.  Stoner wrestled with his Ducati all weekend, qualifying sixth and crashing out on lap eight.

Last year, Repsol Honda owned the world and the IMS, running away from the factory Yamahas.  Stoner and Pedrosa blew away Spies and Lorenzo, spoiling the young American’s second consecutive podium in his home crib.  It marked Indianapolis’ first look at Valentino Rossi wearing (some) Ducati red, and it wasn’t pretty, as The Doctor qualified 14th and finished 10th, one of the most painful outings Rossi has endured in the premier class.  Ever.

Seeking a trend, we can summarize: Rossi and Hayden, Lorenzo and Hayden, Pedrosa and Spies, Stoner and Pedrosa.  Something for every taste and budget.  No telling who may have the hot hand this year, other than the Ducati boys, who won’t.

The MotoGP World Tips Slightly on its Axis

Whenever there is change on the factory teams, I go into a bit of altered consciousness trying to make the adjustments.  On the Repsol team–Stoner/Pedrosa to Pedrosa/Marquez.  On the Yamaha team–Lorenzo/Spies to Lorenzo/Rossi.

[Valentino Rossi back wearing Yamaha leathers in Alien-land.  The sun will rise in the east; all is again right with the world.  I’m flashing on baseball’s A-Rod, who went off to Texas to “win a championship” (good one, Alex) and ended up with the Yankees.]

At Ducati, Rossi/Hayden to Dovizioso/Hayden.  Audi has apparently been ordered by their new Italian employee to fix the GP12 or, um, well, actually, he’ll race for two years and leave in disgust after promising he won’t.  Perhaps Audi is already experiencing buyer’s remorse about owning the rights to an Andrea Dovizioso who feels free to tell them how to run their business.  Ducati is also said to be pursuing a new development strategy, fielding factory-supported A and B teams, grooming younger riders with big potential and wide shoulders to ride for their satellite squads.  See, Nicky Hayden, on a one year deal, is no spring chicken.  Just sayin’.

Andrea Dovizioso is additional proof that life on the factory teams, even Ducati, must be several orders of magnitude sweeter than life on the satellites.  Dovizioso, on the Tech 3 Yamaha, has been hammering podiums all year, and is intentionally throwing away any chance of continuing to do so for probably two full years, thus completing his personal negative career hat trick.  He got worked at Repsol Honda last year.  He got worked just last week by factory Yamaha.  And now he will turn himself inside out trying to race the Ducati, the Career Killer, for money.

Speaking of screwed, we’re witnessing the dizzying rise and fall of Cal Crutchlow, who took such an aggressive I’ll-Be-Doing-You-A-Bloody-Favor stance with the Bologna factory that they encouraged him to pound sand, as it were.  Crutchlow’s options, apart from remaining on the Tech 3 Yamaha, are few.  Cal needs new advisors less inclined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.  Next year, he won’t be the only Englishman on the grid, either.  There’ll be a new Brit in town, most likely Scott Redding.

Toni and the Wildcards

This, unfortunately, is not one of the bands you’ll hear in the infield this weekend.  With Hector Barbera questionable, dragging his three week old broken leg around, Toni Elias again brings his high-priced vagabond routine to the Pramac Ducati, which he was able to remain aboard at Laguna Seca for almost two full laps.

Steve Rapp returns with his Attack Performance Kawasaki-powered privateer after failing to qualify in Monterey.  He is joined by Aaron Yates, fronting for Hoosier-based GPTech, sporting another homegrown frame and powered by Suzuki, which is kind of an oxymoron, but they’re new, so we’ll overlook the irony.  Assuming one or both qualify, they’ll be battling with the CRT dregs and definitely trailing the Aprilia-powered ARTs beneath Randy de Puniet and Aleix Espargaro.

Chasing Jorge Lorenzo

One of the things I’ve never spent much MotoGP energy on is arranging interviews with Big Stars.  This year, with a photographer and interpreter in tow, I’ve made a serious run at gaining an exclusive with Jorge Lorenzo Himself, as in Possibly This Year’s Repeat World Champion.  This would be a huge score amongst the gearheads who edit and publish this stuff, and would raise my stature with them immeasurably, given how low the bar currently sits.

Somehow, I located the email address of the Yamaha team flack, Mr. Gavin Matheson.  My proposal to him, in exchange for 10 minutes with his guy, was drinks and dinner at my place for him and Jorge, grilling some fresh salmon and Indiana sweet corn, with local summer tomatoes on the side.  Some down time away from the track, kickin’ it, with a Rolling Stone-style feature spread on the Motorcycle.com website the following day.  A few really penetrating questions, more to do with his private life and interests than bike stuff and the whole internationally-famous-jock-who-can’t-go-anywhere-in-Spain-without-armed-guards thing.

It’s not happening.

Gavin on Monday assured me that despite his almost overwhelming personal desire to see Jorge’s smiling face on the Motorcycle.com site, Jorge’s interview schedule is already jam-packed, which allows him time for video interviews, but not much else.  Here at Motorcycle.com we don’t take that kind of thing personally.  We are still young, and there will be plenty of other grands prix at which Lorenzo, perhaps even Rossi, will become putty in our hands, revealing things in This Publication that you can’t get anywhere else.

Just not this weekend.

Your Hurrying Hoosier Forecast

Indiana has been broiling all summer; last week I cut my lawn for the first time since, like, May.  But the weather forecast for race weekend is dry with temps in the 70’s.  The IMS has been promoting the race hard this year, and attendance is expected to be up, way in excess of what they drew at the “U.S.” Grand Prix in frigging California.  The Gen Con Convention is in town this weekend, billing itself as “the original, longest running, best attended, gaming convention in the world.” And Indy Fringe brings its “offbeat theatrical (freak) show” to Mass Ave. for 11 days starting on the 17th.

Let’s review.  On Friday and Saturday nights we’ll have thousands of motorheads, gamers, and thespians sharing the same space downtown. The opportunities for some epic flash mobs are virtually endless.  I’m taking the family down for a good old Hoosier family funfest on Saturday night, with pictures to follow.  Check back here on Sunday night or Monday for the race story.

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MotoGP 2012 Laguna Seca Results

July 29, 2012

An edited version of this article will appear on Motorcycle.com on Monday, complete with hi-rez photos.  Until then, please enjoy this summary of the MotoGP 2012 U.S. Grand Prix.

Stoner Outduels Lorenzo in Replay of 2011 Classic

Defending world champion Casey drove his Repsol Honda RC213V past Yamaha mullah Jorge Lorenzo into the lead on Lap 22 of today’s U.S. Grand Prix for a convincing and refreshing win, his third at Laguna Seca.  This turn of events provided observers with a startling déjà vu of last year’s race.  Stoner’s Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa finished third both years, adding the same eerie similarity to the podium celebration and post-race press conference.

I knew something weird was happening in Monterey when I glanced at the results of the first two practice sessions and noticed that the top five spots in each were identical.  FP3 was mostly fogged out, and the Repsol Honda team blew it off in the garage playing euchre rather than tackling The Corkscrew blindfolded.  Lorenzo snatched the pole from Stoner on the last lap of the QP, and then Stoner topped Lorenzo in the warm-up practice on Sunday morning by a full 1/1000th of a second, after waiting an hour for the fog to clear.  Although the podium duplicated last year’s rostrum, the lead-up to the weekend was vastly different.

Recall last year.  Heading to California, Stoner was enjoying a string of seven straight podium finishes, and led defending champion Lorenzo by 15 points.  Lorenzo had been having a great season until he crashed out at Silverstone and finished a lowly sixth at Assen.  Curiously, on Saturday Stoner had given himself virtually no chance of winning, all but conceding the round to his Alien rivals, a master class in sandbagging.

Despite having amassed a total of eight (8) points in the last two rounds and trailing Lorenzo by 37, Stoner started this weekend quick and got better each day.  Curiously, he was the only one of the top six riders to choose the softer option rear tire on a day when the sun was quickly heating the racing surface.  My thought was he would try to jump out to the lead and hope his tire held up long enough to fend off his challengers late in the race.  And though he was able to go through on Pedrosa on lap 3, it took him 22 laps to pass Lorenzo.  At that point I, for one, expected the Spaniard to win the race, thinking that his rear tire would outlast Stoner’s.

Wrong.  The Australian did a masterful job managing his rubber, and still looked strong at the end of the day.  Lorenzo, visibly exhausted after the race, didn’t have enough left in his tank to mount a serious rally at the end.  Pedrosa observed after the race that the soft tire was too soft and the hard tire had no grip, and seemed pleased to have finished third.

When the tire dust cleared, the standings at the top of the 2012 chart had tightened slightly.  Stoner became the first three-time winner at Laguna, where Hondas have won four of the eight races since 2005; it is inarguably a Honda-friendly layout.  Lorenzo, with four consecutive poles but only one win, enjoys a larger lead leaving California than when he arrived.  Pedrosa is, as yet, uninjured in 2012.  Heading into the summer break, everyone has something they can feel good about.

Well, Not Exactly Everyone

Laguna Seca lived up to its reputation as a thorny place to ride motorcycles at high speeds.  By lap 2, both CRT pilot Michele Pirro and Pramac Racing designated victim Toni Elias had crashed out.  Two CRT pilots retired with mechanical problems or, more likely, Corkscrew-induced psychological issues, and James Ellison crashed on lap 20.  None of these mishaps had anything to do with anything.

That would change on lap 22, when the luckless Ben Spies endured an ugly crash out of fourth place, ruining yet another weekend for the wayward American.  No one on the grid tries harder, or has less to show for his efforts.  As the old blues standard laments, “If it wasn’t for bad luck, I wouldn’t have no luck at all.”  Having injured his heel in a QP crash, Spies may have added to his medical woes ending his day with an Olympic-caliber double back flip in the tuck position, with a degree of difficulty of 4.3 out of 5.

The last and most surprising fall of the day occurred on lap 29, when Valentino Rossi, who never crashes, lost it at the top of the corkscrew for his first DNF of the season.  We knew Rossi had a lot on his mind before the race, with the speculation about his future with Ducati and rumors of a return to the factory Yamaha team swirling.  His Italian employers sent one of their Bigga Bosses to California to make The Doctor a final offer for next year, somewhere in the neighborhood of €17 million ($21 million) to waste another of the last few years of a great career wrestling the demonic Desmosedici.  Vale didn’t appear to have much on his mind at all after the crash, wandering around in the gravel looking like he’d had his bell rung, waiting for his own personal fog to clear.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Tech 3 Yamaha teammates Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow spent another lovely Sunday afternoon bashing each others’ brains in, finishing 4-5 for the fourth time this season.  Nicky Hayden, glowing after having signed another one year contract with the Italian factory, went through on rookie Stefan Bradl late in the day to claim 6th place, relegating the German to a still respectable 7th in his first visit to Laguna.

San Carlo Honda’s Alvaro Bautista started 7th and finished 8th, another nondescript day at the office for the young Spaniard.  Aleix Espargaro, clearly the cream of the CRT crop, finished ninth, with” Kareless” Abraham rounding out the top ten in his first return to action since Barcelona.

Bits and Pieces

The Hayden-Ducati marriage appears to work better for Nicky than for Ducati, as his best days are well behind him.  Over the past three seasons he’s managed a single third place finish each year, and the last of his three (3) premier class wins came back in 2006, when he somehow won the world championship with a thin 252 points.  (In 2008, Pedrosa would finish third with 249 points.)  Other than name recognition, the Kentucky Kid doesn’t bring much to the party any more.

Rumor has it that Fausto Gresini, the volatile manager of the San Carlo team, is courting Andrea Dovizioso to return to the Honda family that so unceremoniously dumped him last year.  Fausto has clearly lost whatever confidence he ever had in Bautista.  Whether he can convince Dovizioso to wear Honda colors again is problematic.  Personally, I think Dovizioso has earned the second factory Yamaha seat, and that Rossi could again be competitive on the factory-spec San Carlo Honda.

An interesting bit of trivia concerns the Constructors Trophy awarded each year to the manufacturer whose riders earn the most points.  Not surprisingly, Honda and Yamaha sit tied at the top of the pile.  But third place Ducati is much closer points-wise to the Aprilia ART bikes than to the two Japanese manufacturers.  We’ve come up with a term to describe the increasing irrelevance of the Ducati MotoGP program:  Suzukification.

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