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MotoGP 2015 Motegi Preview

October 6, 2015

© Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com

Round 15: The Bruise Brothers Square off in Japan

mothra-vs-Godzilla - CopyThe MotoGP website is somewhat predictably promoting this week’s tilt between Movistar Yamaha tough guys Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi as “The Clash of the Titans.” Which, to an on-the-street local racing fan here, would naturally bring to mind Godzilla. If, in fact, the Motul Grand Prix of Japan gives us a replay of Mothra vs Godzilla, I assume the indomitable lizard triumphs, suggesting that Rossi will play the role of Mothra. It is easy to envision Lorenzo on the top step this weekend, surrounded by Honda pilots, Rossi’s margin at the top of the 2015 heap vanishing in the haze.

This is the way racing is supposed to be. It’s a relationship thing, really. Rossi and Lorenzo have known each other as friends and rivals for a decade. Together, they’ve already given their present employer Yamaha the 2015 Manufacturer’s championship. They have a bazillion world championships between them, and Rossi’s current 14 points advantage. Lorenzo’s, um, demeanor when he came up as a rookie in 2008 was such that they built a wall down the middle of the garage and had to be kept separated. Since then, each has mellowed, Lorenzo has matured, and Rossi, somehow, remains humble, irrepressible and fast. Beating one another is one of their great pleasures in life.

It doesn’t get much better than this. If you’re a Honda fan, you can still have a good time. You’ll just have to wait for Rossi & Lorenzonext year to have a rider in contention for a world championship. This is The Year of the Yamaha.

Recent History at Motegi

2012. Heading into the race Yamaha Chico de Oro Jorge Lorenzo led Honda #2 Dani Pedrosa by 33 points, with Stoner in third recovering from the ankle he trashed in Indianapolis. That day, Pedrosa beats Lorenzo and Gresini Honda’s Alvaro Bautista (?) comfortably in as empty a win as you’ll ever see. During the race, Stoner has issues, as does Rossi, plodding on his Ducati. Spies crashes off the factory Yamaha early, Crutchlow off his Tech 3 Yamaha late. Pedrosa, with all the momentum, leaves Japan trailing the rock-hard Mallorcan by 28 points with two rounds left, the fat lady singing in the background.

The 2013 race was summarized elegantly by this publication, as follows:

Sick of all the attention the racing gods were getting in the run-up to this weekend’s Japanese Grand Prix, the weather gods put on a show of their own. They sent Typhoon Lekima barreling toward the island on Thursday, summoned a 7.1 earthquake on Friday night, and topped it all off with Typhoon Francisco on Saturday, making a shambles of the weekend practice schedule. Undeterred by the weather, defending world champion Jorge Lorenzo ran a perfect race on Sunday, winning against all odds, and setting up a meaningful season finale against Marquez in Valenciana. Take THAT, weather gods!

Last year it was All Aliens, All the Time as Lorenzo led a pack of highly-paid pursuers to the finish line, with Marquez, Rossi and Pedrosa all following on their factory machines, the time between 1st and 4th a mere 3.1 seconds. Though Diviozioso took the pole, the four Aliens were grouped from the 2 to 5 holes. Marquez, leading the series, conceded first place to Lorenzo and clinched the title. The race featured contact between Lorenzo and Marquez on Lap 5 which arguably cost the Catalan the race. The Samurai ceremony afterwards was cool if somewhat ironic, in that a number of fans might have been offended while most western observers were clearly stoked.Samurai celebration

Comings and Goings

The team lineups are beginning to shape up for 2016, the year of the “spec” ECU and Michelins. The four top factory teams will remain the same. A supposedly revived Gresini Aprilia team will feature MotoGP underachievers Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl. Brit Sam Lowes reportedly has a contract with Aprilia for 2017-18, meaning one of the two vets will have to go. My take on this is that Fausto has barely tolerated Bautista all these years since Simoncelli, and that Bradl hadn’t had enough time to get under his skin yet but surely will. Big changes underway for the Gresini team this offseason.

The Monster Tech 3 team is to stand pat with Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith as expectations there continue to rise. Pramac Ducati gives Yonny Hernandez’s seat to Scott Redding, who needs all the grunt the Desmosedici can muster, to team with the ascendant Danilo Petrucci. (I’m not sold on Redding in the premier class yet, but am totally sold on Gigi Dall’Igna.) LCR Honda continues with the disappointing Cal Crutchlow, and Marc VDS signs Tito Rabat to a factory Honda, coming up from Moto2, to take Redding’s seat. The Most Blessed Jack Miller, the Anointed One, has a full ride with factory Honda and will land either on LCR or VDS.

Team Aspar, seriously negotiating a change from Honda to Ducati equipment for 2016, has signed Hernandez. Their second seat appears up for grabs, with incumbent Eugene Laverty enjoying no advantage going in. Deposed incumbent Nicky Hayden appears surely to be headed to World Super Bike, where he can expect to contend for titles again.

Avintia Racing stays with Ducati, Hector Barbera and the recently-signed Loris Baz aboard. The French Baz appears to have a surprisingly bright future at 6’3”, making the jet setters look like teenagers while whipping his cobbled-up Yamaha toward the top of the heap for open class riders.

Farther down the food chain, two of the remaining three teams looks to be out of business next season. Most likely to continue with Alex de Angelis is brave little Ioda Racing, hoping to field a two man satellite Aprilia team, rider #2 as yet un-named. Forward Racing seems doomed, and Karel Abraham’s future with his dad’s Cardion AB team is in doubt as he seems to have permanent damage from a foot injury he suffered last season. Dude needs to retire.

All of which suggests that KTM, upon their entry to the grid in 2017, may bump a team out of the chase, in addition to skimming a couple of up-and-coming riders, perhaps on their way up from Moto2. The chase is intended to be more competitive due to the standard ECU, which writers elsewhere have described as something of a target-rich environment for tampering behaviors similar to those admitted to recently by Volkswagen. Regardless, MotoGP continues, at its core, to be rather biblical, as you will always have the poor with you, the “privateer” teams that struggle every season but can’t pull themselves away easily. Those of you who have stood or rode on the tarmac understand the juice that drives these behaviors. I should be nicer to these guys.

The Thing is…

Everybody tells me the tires are everything. Whomever adjusts to the new Michelins most quickly will take the lead in the championship next year. It is probably going to be the worst year in MotoGP history to bet on the outcome. Though it could easily last only for a season, or even part of a season, there could easily be a shakeup in the Aliens lineup come 2016, the older riders becoming most vulnerable. Suppose Rossi decides to go out on top. Suppose Yamaha begins flirting with Marquez.

It promises, at the least, to be interesting.

Your Weekend Forecast…

…couldn’t be worse for most teams. Sunny on Friday and Saturday with a 90% chance of rain on Sunday. I was going to suggest people “plan to listen to the Spanish national anthem after the race, not the Italian.” But if it is a wet race, all bets are off on the outcome, with Rossi clearly holding the upper hand. Once again the weather gods appear poised to influence the standings.

Mothra may be feeling pretty good about the rematch.

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Posted in Dani Pedrosa, Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing, marc marquez, Motegi, MotoGP, MotoGP Motegi, Motorcycle Racing, Racing News, Valentino Rossi | Leave a Comment »

MotoGP 2015 Aragon Results

September 27, 2015

© Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com.

Lorenzo seizes the day, cuts into Rossi’s lead

Factory Yamaha pilot Jorge Lorenzo, in a race he absolutely needed to win, did so convincingly, leading wire to wire on the dusty plains of Aragon. Thanks to Repsol Honda #2 Dani Pedrosa, he reduced his deficit to teammate Valentino Rossi from 23 points to 14, as Pedrosa held off repeated assaults from Rossi over the last five laps. Fans around the world expected Rossi, who hasn’t won a race on Spanish soil since 2009, to take Pedrosa’s lunch money late in the day. But the diminutive Spaniard willfully held on, denying Rossi four points he badly wanted, and tying his best result of a winless year.

Lorenzo in the rain at Le MansAs expected, the practice sessions on Friday and Saturday featured Lorenzo and defending world champion Marc Marquez, looking fast and dangerous on the #1 Repsol Honda. Marquez shredded the track record in qualifying on Saturday, earning yet another pole. His start today earned a C from the judges as he exited Turn 1 in third place behind Lorenzo and Andrea “Ironman” Iannone, racing again with a recently dislocated shoulder.

Marquez went through on the Italian later in Lap 1 and set his sights on Lorenzo. Unaccountably, as he was closing on the Mallorcan on Lap 2, he lost the front in Turn 12, backdropped by the massive stacked stone wall that always makes me think of The Inquisition. For the fifth time this season, young Marquez ended up in the gravel, the result of an unforced error caused, one would think, by youthful exuberance, overconfidence, a feeling of invulnerability or, most likely, a combination of the three, the magic of 2014 clearly gone. Until he learns to manage his emotions more effectively (the same problem Lorenzo had in 2008) he will not win another world championship.marquez_crash

As strange as it sounds, the lessons of 2015 may end up serving Marquez well. If he learns he doesn’t need to use every ounce of the considerable speed he possesses during every single moment of every single race, he will keep the shiny side up and compete for the next 10 or 12 world titles. Again and again we’ve seen the veteran Rossi keeping his powder dry and his tires intact, looking for the ideal opportunity to pass a rival and earn points. Winning a race by 12 seconds counts no more than winning by 12/1000ths; points is points, a fact often overlooked by youthful combatants.

67,000 Fans Held Their Breath

With Rossi glued to Pedrosa’s tailpipes all day, the mostly Spanish crowd waited for the inevitable takedown, when Rossi would go through and begin thinking about Lorenzo. Pedrosa passed the wounded Iannone on Lap 3, Rossi on Lap 4. (Iannone’s expected late day fade, due to pain in his shoulder, never materialized, as he finished a very gutsy fourth today, some 16 seconds clear of teammate Andrea Dovizioso.) Round and round they went, Rossi never trailing by more than 4/10ths nor less than two, until Lap 19.

Dani-dani-pedrosa-9702356-435-380Over the last five laps, Rossi attacked the Spaniard no less than four times, going through briefly only to get re-passed in the next turn. He would try twice in Turn 1 and twice more in Turn 4, Pedrosa never conceding a thing. As the crowd began to turn blue from oxygen deprivation, Lorenzo took the checkered flag, with Pedrosa gasping his way to second and Rossi taking an exhausting third.

During the post-race press conference, Pedrosa acted surprised when asked how he was able to withstand Rossi’s repeated attacks, a measure of the confidence with which he still approaches his trade. As his tenure with the factory Honda team approaches its end, he will be an asset to one of the newer teams—Aprilia or Suzuki or KTM—anxious to retain his services once HRC bids him farewell. Despite never having won a premier class title, he has forgotten more about this stuff than guys like Alvaro Bautista and Hector Barbera have ever known. Even if you’re a big Nicky Hayden fan with a long memory, Dani Pedrosa deserves your respect.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Five riders spent the shank of the day fighting over fifth place. Borrowing from the book of Genesis, “in the beginning” it looked like Tech 3 Yamaha little brother Pol Espargaro enjoyed the inside track, until he went walkabout on Lap 4, falling from fifth to tenth place, ultimately finishing ninth. This sounds worse than it actually was, as he finished only two seconds behind Dovizioso in fifth, separated by big brother Aleix on the Suzuki Ecstar, LCR Honda hooligan Cal Crutchlow, and teammate Bradley Smith. Smith, notably, had a forgettable weekend, qualifying 10th and finishing 8th, though still managing to hold onto fifth place for the season. Lame duck Pramac Ducati rider Yonny Hernandez completed the top ten, pipping Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales at the flag, despite a slew of pre-race flyovers from the Spanish Air Force, one of the two F-16’s emblazoned with Vinales’ #25.

Non-finishers today, besides Marquez, included the hapless Alex de Angelis, crashing out on Lap 6, Pramac Ducati overachiever Danilo Petrucci, who lowsided on Lap 10 for his first time outside the points all season, and a visibly pained Karel Abraham, who retired his open class Honda on Lap 12, apparently having re-injured his troublesome left foot. Karel, buddy, do the industry a favor and give it up. You’ve got a law degree and a rich father. Go put on an expensive suit and take clients to lunch, and let this MotoGP thing go. 38 points in three seasons–dude, it’s just not happening.

The Big Picture

In two weeks, the ass-dragging, sweat-soaked Pacific flyaway commences in Japan, with three races in three weeks. 14 points now separate Rossi and Lorenzo, two of the most talented riders on the face of the earth, on the same equipment, sharing the same garage. Old and crafty versus young and fast; the fable of the tortoise and the hare on two wheels. We all know how that ended. Whether the same holds true in MotoGP remains to be seen. Personally, I have my doubts.

Marquez now leads Iannone by a meagre 12 points in the battle for third place and looks vulnerable. If Iannone manages to capture third place for the year, I will be conferring Alien status upon him, certain that Gigi Dall’Igna will provide him a further-improved ride for 2016. Bradley Smith enjoys a four point advantage over Dovizioso for fifth place; it would be great to see the wide-eyed Brit finish the season in the top five. Whether Dovizioso will allow this to happen, if indeed he can do anything to prevent it, is yet another unknown. Pedrosa, now trailing Dovizioso by only ten points, could easily jump up to fifth place for the year based upon what he showed today, after having endured a wretched start to the 2015 season.

Ducati, Yamaha and Honda all have a dog in the fight for eighth place, as Petrucci, Crutchlow and Espargaro the Youngermotogp-suzuki-espargaro-vinales are separated by only five points. At the tail end of my attention span, the two Suzuki teammates are separated by a mere two points in the contest for 11th place. Certain Rookie of the Year Vinales, it would seem, has more on the line, in that ending the season as the #1 rider on the team would bolster his chances of securing a ride with one of the more established factory teams commencing in 2017.

As October approaches, we find one of the factory Yamaha Bruise Brothers lighting candles for sunny skies and the other praying for rain. Is it even possible that the 2015 MotoGP championship hinges on the weather? The mind reels.

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MotoGP 2015 Aragon Preview

September 22, 2015

© Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com
For Jorge Lorenzo, winning—right now—would be fine

After the debacle at Misano, factory Yamaha stud Jorge Lorenzo observed that capturing the 2015 MotoGP title requires only that he win the remaining five races. His Plan A, which to many seems unlikely, could give way this weekend to Plan B, which would have teammate Valentino Rossi crashing out of a race or two. But Rossi, on average, crashes maybe once a season, most recently at Aragon a year ago. Lorenzo, who loves racing on the dusty Spanish plain, needs to make some hay on Sunday; beating his teammate has never been so important.

Rossi & LorenzoSince Lorenzo’s four round winning streak ended at Assen, Rossi has outpointed the Spaniard by 22 points, half of which came last week with his somewhat disappointing fifth place run in the rain of San Marino. Rossi’s reliability is one reason he’s fighting for a championship at age 36. Since the beginning of the 2012 season, he has started and finished all but three races to Lorenzo’s five. Both are consistent, but Rossi has the edge.

The main thing Lorenzo has going for him this weekend is the venue; Rossi simply hasn’t been very good in five outings at Motorland Aragon. Granted, during two of those years he was wrestling a pre-Dall’igna Ducati, which explains some of it. But while Lorenzo has gone 4th, 3rd, 2nd, 2nd and 1st, Rossi has finished 6th, 10th, 8th, 3rd and not at all last year. For Lorenzo, that’s the good news. The bad news is that anything other than a solid win this weekend will put him in the trick locker, a nice working definition of the term “pressure.”

I have failed to mention double defending world champion and factory Honda wonderboy Marc Marquez, who won last Marquez in Sepang 2013time out and is likely to be a major fly in the ointment for Lorenzo on Sunday. The young Catalan figures to be in the middle of things this weekend, complicating life more for Lorenzo than Rossi. Let’s just call a spade a spade and suggest that Lorenzo needs to beat both Rossi and Marquez at Aragon. Almost any other order of finish works in Rossi’s favor, and the grueling Pacific swing beckons.

Recent History at Aragon

In 2012, Round 14 was Dani’s Revenge, as Pedrosa, whose season went up in smoke following his last-row-start-first-lap-crash at Misano two weeks previous, won comfortably. Lorenzo finished a conservative, relatively risk-free second that day, while Monster Tech 3 scrapper Andrea Dovizioso pushed his satellite Yamaha to the limit on his way to a gratifying third place finish (joyfully pimping teammate Cal Crutchlow at the flag) and subsequent “promotion” to the factory Ducati team in 2013. Over the last half of the 2012 season, Pedrosa epitomized the “win or bin” metaphor so often spoken of in racing (generally by Brits) by winning six of his last eight races and crashing out of the other two. Despite piling up his highest career point total in 2012, Pedrosa would end the year 18 points behind Lorenzo, a short, swarthy bridesmaid once again.

In 2013, rookie Marc Marquez, unaware that Aragon was a Yamaha-friendly layout, calmly went out, took Jorge Lorenzo’s best shot, and beat him by 1.3 seconds. Valentino Rossi, in his first year back on the factory Yamaha after the painful two year exile with Ducati, took a rather hollow third, some 13 seconds behind Marquez. The rookie phenom’s 39 point lead over Lorenzo at the end of the day would prove insurmountable. Notwithstanding the gratuitous DQ he absorbed at Phillip Island three weeks later, Marquez went on to clinch his first premier class title with a smart, strong second place finish at Valencia in the season finale.

Last year’s Gran Premio Movistar de Aragon provided fans with 44+ minutes of two-wheeled slapstick, a memorable flag-to-flag affair that left the day’s results scrambled. Exhibit A: The factory Hondas of Marquez and Pedrosa crossed the finish line in 13th and 14th places, respectively. Factory Yamaha icon Valentino Rossi finished the day in the medical center, having run off the track on Lap 4 into a bog which grabbed his front tire, held it fast, and ejected him into the tire wall, concussed, dazed and confused. While Lorenzo won going away, the big story was Aleix Espargaro, who drove his satellite Forward Yamaha from a tenth place start to a thrilling second place finish over Cal Crutchlow, pipped once again, and his factory Ducati. In retrospect, this may have been the all-time high water mark of the entire Forward Racing project, now in tatters, desperately trying to finish the season, its owner under indictment and Toni Elias now occupying the #2 seat behind poor Loris Baz.

Austria Yes, Indiana No

IMSThe odds finally caught up with the Indianapolis Motor Speedway prior to Misano, when the provisional 2016 calendar was released. Gone was the Red Bull Indianapolis Grand Prix, voted the best round of the season just the previous year. In its place will be The Austrian Grand Prix, to be run at the Red Bull Ring in Spielberg, roughly 100 miles southwest of Vienna. With but nine turns per lap, it seems likely to favor the Yamahas and Ducatis. The Hoosier in me is screaming “not a very interesting layout,” but we shall save that observation for next year.

A second transatlantic crossing, with Laguna Seca having been scratched from the calendar in 2014, has always been expensive, and has seemed a long way to go for not much. The Motor Speedway is cool if you enjoy watching four-wheeled vehicles going fast and turning left, but the infield section, flat as a board, was never great for bikes. Despite drawing 60-70,000 fans, the stands always looked three- quarters empty, due to the fact that they were always three-quarters empty. The real shame in all this is that it undoubtedly means the demise of the MotoAmerica round in Indy as well as curtains for the AMA Indy Mile at the fairgrounds, which Midwestern racing fans will tell you was one of the finest events in all of motorcycle racing.

If Carmelo Ezpeleta has his way, the calendar will grow to 20 rounds later this decade. If the United States were a better market for the manufacturers, promoters in this country would figure out a way to put together a three race American round consisting of Laguna, Austin and Indianapolis early in the season, with the Pacific flyaway bookending it in the fall. Instead, the grid is likely to find itself schlepping to places like Thailand, Finland (???) and even ultra-ambitious Kazakhstan. Yikes.Kazakhstan

Your Weekend Forecast

As of Tuesday evening, the chances for rain in metropolitan Alcañiz this weekend are zero, with temps hovering around 80ºF. With no rain in the forecast, the Aliens are likely to control things, as much as things can be controlled at 200 mph on two wheels. Look for Rossi to lay back a little to watch Marquez and Lorenzo beat each other’s brains in. With Marquez hungry and Lorenzo desperate, Rossi can play tortoise, keeping his eye on the big picture. With autumn coming into view, Jorge Lorenzo enjoys no such luxury.

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MotoGP 2015 Silverstone Preview

August 24, 2015

© Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com.

Lorenzo has the edge on his teammate in Northamptonshire

The Welsh Grand Prix was to have taken place this weekend at the £315m Circuit of Wales, going by the name of Ebbw Vale, where it will, someday, reside in Blænau Gwent, both of which seem to need some extra letters. Unfortunately, the organizers were unable to deliver the stadium on time for this year’s calendar. The 2015 British Grand Prix will continue at Silverstone for the next two years, after a short detour through Donington Park.

Dorna would have been happy to leave Silverstone, despite a spate of expensive investments plowed into the facility. Dorna wanted to notch a new country in its corporate bedpost with a purpose-built facility in Wales that no one can pronounce and which is likely to have worse weather than Silverstone and Donington, if that’s possible. Donington would have been happy to sign on for the year it would take to finish the Welsh facility, but Dorna was not pleased with the condition of the Leicestershire track, pronounced it unfit, and appealed to Silverstone to hold the race one more time this year. Silverstone replied that they would be delighted to host the race for another two years, but that a single year just wasn’t on. Dorna, testes in a sling, agreed, putting the first of many screws to the ownership group in Blænau Gwent who will have to sit on a finished stadium for an entire year, the price of trusting Ezpeleta and his henchmen. Who do they think they are, Formula One? Even though they brought it on themselves, the Welshmen must be scratching their heads.

Recent History at Silverstone

IRossi & Lorenzon 2012, Jorge Lorenzo, on his way to his second premier class title, won fairly easily on one of the dry days here. He was joined on the podium by the Repsol Honda duo of Casey Stoner (+3.3 seconds) and Dani Pedrosa (+3.6). The race of the day, however, involved Nicky Hayden on the factory Ducati and his eventual successor, homeboy Cal Crutchlow, on the satellite Tech 3 Yamaha. Crutchlow had had a mishap in practice that left him with a mangled left ankle. At race time, Crutchlow left his crutches behind, went out and rode the wheels off his Yamaha, going from seven seconds behind Hayden on Lap 13 to a few feet in front of him at the flag. A healthy percentage of the crowd probably went home not exactly certain who had won the race but well aware of who finished sixth.

The 2013 British Grand Prix, another dry race, was one of the best of the year. Marquez, with a 26 point lead over Dani Pedrosa after Brno, dislocated his shoulder in the morning WUP (nearly taking Alvaro Bautista’s RC213V in the teeth as he, too, slid off three seconds later) and then commenced a daylong hot pursuit of Jorge Lorenzo before finally succumbing at the flag by a microscopic 8/100ths of a second. Pedrosa, in the mix all day, crossed the line third, a second and a half behind Lorenzo. The Spanish slugfest up front left Rossi and the other factory bikes sucking wind off in the distance. On a day that appeared ripe for the field to close the gap to the leader, Marquez left Great Britain sore, but leading the championship by more (+30) than when he arrived. Perhaps the best British Grand Prix in the modern era.

Last year’s gorgeous British GP made it three dry races in a row, a strong portent of miserable conditions in store for this year. With a front row of Marquez, Dovi and Lorenzo, the two Spaniards again went off to fight their own private battle, Lorenzo in the early lead. Marquez took a run at him on Lap 14, but couldn’t make it stick. On Lap 18, though, after a little bumping and grinding, the young Catalan wonder went through for good on the way to his 11th win of the season. At the wire, it was Marquez, trailed by Lorenzo (7/10ths ) with the top five made up of Rossi (+8.5), Pedrosa (+8.7) and Dovizioso (+9.2). The win put Marquez 10 for 11 on the year, brimming with confidence and the additional benefit of having Mo Mentum working for him on the road to Misano, where he squandered it all, earning exactly one (1) championship point, finishing 15th after a silly low-speed moment on Lap 10.

It’s All About the Yamaha Now

The 2015 championship has boiled down to a seven round season as Bruise Brothers Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi sit tied atop the racing world after 11, with Lorenzo holding the tiebreaker. Rossi has not won since Assen and will be challenged in qualifying again this week at the longest circuit on the calendar. Though this race traditionally belongs to Lorenzo and Marquez, the fans will be watching Lorenzo and Rossi, who continues to attract fans in greater numbers and tenacity than any other combatant on the grid. The Italian marketing machine is going to have his hands full with his Mallorcan teammate, with two long fast tracks up soon on the calendar, sandwiching Misano. LorenzoLand, like The Diaspora, can be found in many locales around the world, including Silverstone and Aragon.

From here, it looks likely that Lorenzo will want to jump out in front on Saturday, as per usual, leaving Marquez to tangle 2014 MotoGP World Championwith Rossi. Rossi really must qualify on the front row to have a chance of “pulling an Assen” here; a third row start and this one is over. Chalk Silverstone up as another race that will be won on Saturday. Rossi found a way to win last year at San Marino, a track much better suited to his riding style. But it won’t suffice for Rossi to simply win at the tracks where he’s expected to win, as Lorenzo can count at least four remainders as definitely Yamaha-friendly; Rossi is going to need a couple of upsets. Starting at Silverstone, as the old joke goes, couldn’t hoit. Adding a wildcard as fast and unpredictable as Marquez will make no one’s life easier, likely affecting Rossi more than Lorenzo. If Marquez can manage to win a few of these last rounds, he will reduce Lorenzo and Rossi to fighting for second and third, a single point at stake. Could get interesting on Sundays.

Your Weekend Forecast

Old Reliable is calling for clouds, with temps in the high 60’s – low 70’s, along with plenty of trouble available for riders on out laps on a cold track with cold tires. Virtually guaranteed that at least one MotoGP rider will eat it on an out lap, in addition to numerous others in Moto2 and Moto3. Forward Racing either will be there or they won’t. Silly season rumors are heating up—Redding to Ducati, Sam Lowes and Danny Kent moving up to give the British a bigger, if not necessarily better, group of challengers to the Spaniards currently dominating the class. Bradley Smith will sign his Tech 3 contract this weekend. Cal Crutchlow will probably have to stay with LCR. Tito Rabat is being linked with the Marc VDS team on its way to being abandoned by Redding. Yonny Hernandez appears to be out of work in MotoGP next year. Joann Zarco is going to need a place to land in the premier class, although sticking in Moto2 wouldn’t be the end of the world for him. Lots of stuff to discuss on Sunday afternoon.

The big bikes go off at 8:00 EDT. We’ll have results and analysis on Sunday evening.

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MotoGP 2015 Brno Results

August 16, 2015

© Bruce Allen.  Excluive to Motorcycle.com

Lorenzo shreds the field, seizes championship lead

The 2015 bwin Grand Prix České republiky gave the amped-up crowd of 138,000 a somewhat disappointing high-speed parade, with six of the top 8 starters crossing the line in the same position they started. One of these was polesitter Jorge Lorenzo, who drove his Yamaha YZR-M1 to the fastest lap ever recorded on two wheels in qualifying on Saturday. Leading unassailed from wire to wire, Lorenzo pulled into a tie with teammate Valentino Rossi for the 2015 world championship and, holding the tiebreaker, punched Rossi out of the lead for the first time this year.

Lorenzo in the rain at Le MansRossi pulled a rabbit out of his hat in the final minute of qualifying on Saturday afternoon, putting himself on the front row (third position) for only the 16th time in his last 100 outings. Resurgent world champion Marc Marquez, coming off two consecutive wins, qualified second, giving the world what the announcers referred to, over and over again, as a Dream Front Row. With Lorenzo and Marquez escaping at the start, and Rossi getting swamped back into 5th place, the dream ended in the first turn.

Lorenzo simply had another of those piston-like days where he appeared to coast to the win, never challenged, cool as a cucumber, while those behind him were sweating their asymmetric rears off trying to keep up. Marquez spent the day in second place, looking like he might be biding his time as he did in Indianapolis, until around Lap 8, when his tires dropped. Trailing by only 4/10ths at the end of Lap 6, he would end the day 4.5 seconds down, with Rossi six seconds farther back. A thorough, convincing beatdown at a track perfectly suited to Jorge Lorenzo. I’m surprised he doesn’t win here every year and that they don’t rename the track LorenzoLand.

True Grit

Dani-dani-pedrosa-9702356-435-380As we’ve observed here before, Repsol Honda #2 Dani Pedrosa has the hardest luck and a pair of the biggest cojones on the grid. His chances for a first premier class title in 2015 were ruined in March when he had to undergo a complicated surgery to deal with his chronic arm pump issue, causing him to sit out rounds 2 through 4. He returned to action at Le Mans, barely, and was making steady progress back into contention when a mechanical issue in FP2 on Friday sent him flying over the handlebars and re-injured a left ankle that already contained a good deal of titanium from previous misadventures. Despite a visible limp, he managed to qualify ninth, getting pushed back to 10th at the end of Lap 1.

Once he settled in, Pedrosa wove his way through the field until the middle of the race when, sitting in sixth place, he found himself running behind a pair of factory Ducatis, Iannone and Dovizioso intransigent in their refusal to get out of his way. With his adrenaline spike having subsided, along with the painkillers in his ankle, Pedrosa gritted his teeth and took on Dovizioso in a battle for fifth place that lasted from roughly Lap 13 until the final turn of Lap 22, at which point Pedrosa emerged in front of Dovizioso in the run to the wire. And though the result was a rather meaningless fifth place in a lost season, it provided another glimpse of the man within the man who is Dani Pedrosa, the Rodney Dangerfield of MotoGP, who doesn’t get nearly the respect he deserves from folks like me.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Tech 3 Brit Bradley Smith, still without a contract for next year, put his satellite Yamaha in the middle of row two in bradley_smithqualifying and managed another respectable seventh place finish today. With the factory Ducatis having received upgraded engines, they had an easier time at Brno than they have of late, probably costing Smith a spot or two in the final standings. Smith’s Tech 3 teammate Pol Espargaro, 2016 contract in hand, qualified and finished eighth, and now trails the Brit by 25 points heading to the 2/3 mark of the season.

It was a case of trading places today on the factory Suzuki Ecstar team. ROY Maverick Vinales qualified seventh and was on the way to his 11th consecutive finish in the points when he crashed out on Lap 17. Teammate Aleix Espargaro, who has found the going very rough over the past several rounds, completed his worst qualifying session of the year on Saturday in 15th place, but managed to pull things together sufficiently during the race to finish ninth, despite trailing his brother by 20 seconds, enough time for Pol to enjoy a cream cheese kolache in pit lane waiting for big brother to show up.

Pramac Ducati stalwart Danilo Petrucci, who, like Avintia Racing’s Mike di Meglio has to shave, like, three times a day, was unable to recreate his qualifying magic in Indianapolis, where he started fifth, beginning the day’s action down in 13th position. He kept things together sufficiently to finish tenth, as Vinales and Crutchlow crashed out in front of him and Hector Barbera fell to 16th place.

Perhaps the saddest statement of the day came from announcer Nick Harris, who was so busy applauding the efforts of Loris Baz cutting into Barbera’s lead for the open class championship that he forgot that Baz’s season is probably over, due to the criminal issues surrounding the Forward Racing team’s owner. Baz is probably the latest victim of the old adage that it’s difficult to soar with eagles when you work with turkeys.

Finally, lest I be accused of un-American activities, Nicky Hayden started 21st and finished 17th, a minute and two seconds behind Lorenzo. Were he a mechanic instead of a rider, his work today would be referred to as “turning wrenches.” And while the ever-upbeat Hayden claims to still enjoy his job, the numbers argue otherwise. How much fun can it be for a former world champion to finish behind the likes of Alvaro Bautista and Hector Barbera?

The Big Picture

While the Movistar Yamaha teammates are ostensibly tied in the standings, Lorenzo holds the tiebreaker as well as the advantage heading into Round 12 at Silverstone. Rossi has not been a factor in the British Grand Prix for a decade, since it was run at Donington Park. Lorenzo has three wins and a second in Britain over the last five years. Rossi was quoted this week as saying that if he expects to win the title this year he needs to start winning races again, his last win having come at Assen back in June.

Marquez told a little bit of a white lie today after the race, stating that his goal for the weekend was to cut into Rossi’s advantage over him. (I suspect his real goal was to watch both factory Yamahas go pinwheeling into the tire barriers while he ran away from the field for an easy third consecutive win.) True, he is now only 52 points out of the lead for the year, whereas he was 56 points out yesterday. Marquez had absolutely no impact on today’s race, other than putting a smidge of pressure on Lorenzo during the first six laps. One can only say that as regards equipment, riders and race management, Team Yamaha is superior to Team Honda in 2015. A few more performances like we saw from Jorge Lorenzo today will earn him his third premier class title and cement his place in racing history.

There is no taking of prisoners in LorenzoLand.

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MotoGP 2015 Sachsenring Preview

July 7, 2015

Marquez reduced to spoiler as season hits halfway mark.  By Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com. 

Round nine of the 2015 MotoGP world championship returns to The Sachsenring, arguably the most Honda-friendly circuit on the tour.  Hondas have taken the checkered flag the last five times out, three wins from Dani Pedrosa followed by two from Marc Marquez.  Although the fortunes of the Repsol Honda team have suffered a downturn in 2015, both riders could easily be in contention for a spot on Sunday’s podium.  It’s that kind of track. 

motogp-suzuki-espargaro-vinalesMidway through the season, it can be said that Honda and Suzuki have opposing problems.  Suzuki’s problem, historical in nature, is a lack of horsepower available to complement the bike’s sweet handling.  Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales have combined to make the Ecstar team immediately competitive, far more so than it was in its previous iteration when sponsored by Rizla.  The bike and the riders are both better.  Espargaro, who was showing steady improvement early in the year, has been dragged down by consecutive DNFs at rounds five through seven, and sits in 12th place for the year.  Vinales, the consensus rookie of the year having finished in the points every round, sits in ninth place for the year, and deserves an Oakley contract to deal with a future so bright…he’s gonna need shades.

The factory Honda’s problem, on the other hand, is a surfeit of power, the result being a bucking bronco of a bike that pedrosa-marquezconsistently wants to get away from Marquez and, to a lesser extent, Pedrosa.  The veteran Pedrosa is dealing with it better than Marquez, the result of having spent 10 seasons on the bike or its previous iterations.  Marquez, whose early season escapades (DNFs in three of the first seven races) cost him a third consecutive world championship, is now engaged in a series of workarounds—2014 frame, harder front tires–in an exhausting effort to stay relevant while the engineers in Japan figure out how to make the RC213V rideable again.  (If he doesn’t mind a little pinging, perhaps the team should consider using regular gasoline rather than the high-test stuff.)

With the factory Yamaha team of Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo hitting on all cylinders this season, and Pedrosa having missed three of the first four rounds of the year to arm pump surgery, Marquez’ role has been reduced to that of a spoiler.  He can still contend for wins and podiums to salve what has had to have been a miserably disappointing year.  But more importantly, he can have a material effect on the competition between Rossi and Lorenzo.  He can be the fly in the ointment, a wild card mixing it up with the Bruise Brothers and generally making a nuisance of himself.

Lorenzo - MarquezAssen is a perfect example; had the drama at the final chicane turned out differently, Lorenzo might have won the race, Rossi might have ended up in the gravel, and the standings at the top would be reversed.  The boys in blue have ten rounds of this stuff to look forward to, not to mention Marquez’s reputation for risky business in the turns.  If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, there will be plenty of Rossi and Lorenzo fans pulling for #93 to assert his influence during the remainder of the season.  On the other guy.

Recent History in Saxony

The 2012 German Grand Prix had all the makings of a Repsol Honda clambake.  The Hondas had been fast in practice, with Pedrosa and Stoner flanking the briefly brilliant Ben Spies and his factory Yamaha on the front row.  When the lights went out, the two Hondas went off to wage war by themselves, leaving Lorenzo by himself in third place, Andrea Dovizioso and Spies battling for fourth, with homeboy Stefan Bradl and Valentino Rossi scrapping over sixth place.  Amazingly, Stoner lowsided out of the race on the “penultimate” lap (I hate that word), awarding the win to Pedrosa.  Lorenzo moved up to second, and Dovizioso punked Spies for third; three Yamahas finished in the top four.  At the end of the day Lorenzo led Pedrosa by 14 points on the way to his second MotoGP title that fall.

2013 was to have finally been Dani Pedrosa’s year.  He had avoided injury early in the season, and led the championship heading into Round 8 in Germany.  Lorenzo was wounded in Assen, Rossi was still getting re-acquainted with the Yamaha after two years at Ducati, and rookie Marquez was, well, a rookie.  Instead, Pedrosa went flying over the handlebars in FP3 on Saturday morning, returning to Spain for yet another surgery on his pulverized collarbone.  Lorenzo, pressing, crashed yet again on Friday, re-injuring his own wing; with the two Spaniards missing, the other riders all jumped up two spots.  Marquez won that day, seizing the championship lead he would not relinquish for the remainder of the season.  Cal Crutchlow, who had qualified brilliantly in the middle of the front row, finished second for his best premier class result ever on the Tech 3 Yamaha ahead of Rossi, chosen over Crutchlow by the suits at Yamaha corporate to ride for them in 2014 and beyond.

Last year’s fiasco started memorably with nine bikes on the grid and 14 in pit lane, the result of rapidly changing weather conditions.  Fan fave Stefan Bradl might have won the race that day, lining up at the start on slicks and enjoying a 12 second advantage over the Alien contingent on the first lap.  Alas, though his crew had thoughtfully mounted slicks on his LCR Honda, they had neglected to change the setting from W(et) to D(ry), causing him to lose two seconds per lap to the big dogs and leading, ultimately, to a demoralizing 16th place finish.  Predictably, the race was won by Marquez, followed closely by Pedrosa, with Lorenzo, Rossi and Andrea Iannone spread out over the next half mile.  What fireworks there were that day were extinguished in the first five minutes.

Arm Pump: An Occupational Hazard of MotoGP

015129-rod-laverBack in the 60’s there was an Australian tennis player, “Rocket” Rod Laver, whose left forearm—he was a southpaw—was roughly twice the diameter of his right.  When he wasn’t playing, just standing around, he looked like one of those photoshopped pictures you see of guys with one arm and one leg extending from their shoulder sockets.  MotoGP riders are going to have to do more than they’re already doing to build up their right arms, as virtually all of them suffer the effects of operating throttle and brake against heavy centrifugal force while wrestling several hundred pounds of steel and rubber.  Perhaps if they were to spend the offseason dipping cones at Baskin Robbins they could build large enough forearms to withstand the rigors of an 18 round season.

Not that arm pump is the only occupational hazard in this sport.  Road rash, crushed digits, cracked skulls and shattered collarbones all contribute to the festival atmosphere at races, followed by jetlag, jock rot and a variety of, ahem, social infections.

This is a man’s sport.  Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

If Marc Marquez is capable of winning again in 2015, it should be at The Sachsenring.  We’ll have results and analysis right here Sunday morning.

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Rossi and Lorenzo lead annual assault on Mugello

May 26, 2015

MotoGP 2015 Mugello Preview, by Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com 

MotoGP brings its act from the bucolic French countryside to the hills of Tuscany as Round 6 of the 2015 season arrives.  Within the top tranche of the premier class food chain, the standings are scrambled, while the rest of the top ten reside pretty much where we expected heading into the year.  Team Yamaha has been hot of late, and this trend could continue in Italy unless Repsol Honda double defending world champion Marc Marquez gets himself together.  Right now would be a good time to do so. 

Rossi & LorenzoValentino Rossi, surprisingly sitting in first place, observes that Marquez would be in the thick of it today were it not for his decision to go for the win in Argentina rather than settling for second place.  The resulting crash cost him 20 points that he would dearly love to have in his treasury, the price of youthful exuberance combined, perhaps, with a sense of entitlement.  Reverse the standings at the top—Marquez, Dovizioso, Lorenzo and Rossi—and you’d have pretty much what I expected back in March.  Of course, it was I who, after Catalunya 2013, wrote Rossi off, suggesting he had already won his last MotoGP race.  When it comes to consuming racing news, you get what you pay for.

Recent History at Mugello

Going back to 2012, Yamaha mullah Jorge Lorenzo has had things pretty much his way here.  Having won rather easily in 2012 and 2013, he got involved in a cage match with Marquez last year that left most people breathless, the young champion eventually “pipping” the not-as-young former champion by 12/100ths at the flag after half a dozen laps of shoulder-to-shoulder combat.

In the 2012 affair, Lorenzo gave us one of the performances he has recently turned in at Jerez and Le Mans, leading from Turn 1, metronomic in his consistency, his pace untouchable.  Dani Pedrosa took second that year, with Andrea Dovizioso providing the home fans with their only sunshine, punking LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl at the line, back when Bradl was relevant.  Rossi, in his second and final year flogging the Ducati GP13, ended up an exhausted fifth, while countryman Dovizioso was celebrating his third consecutive podium that season aboard the Tech 3 Yamaha.

2013 proved an eventful weekend at Mugello.  That was the year rookie Marquez, during practice, calmly stepped off his marquez_crashRC213V at roughly 150 mph seconds before plowing it into a concrete wall, setting a record for getting unseated at the fastest speed ever and living to tell about it.  At the start of the race, the excitable Alvaro Bautista, starting ninth on the GO&FUN Gresini Honda, went into Turn 2 on the gas while all around him were braking, sending himself and Rossi into the hay bales. Bautista was able to avoid an off-track beatdown only by virtue of the fact that the concussed Rossi was seeing double and couldn’t figure out which Spanish dumbass to whip.

Later in the race, Marquez crashed out of the lead unassisted, handing the win to Lorenzo, second place to Pedrosa, and third to Tech 3 ruffian Cal Crutchlow, who crashed so many times in practice his medical report ran to seven or eight pages.  The crowd went home disappointed, having only the pleasure of seeing Marquez with road rash on his leathers as consolation.

Last year, Lorenzo, despite having led for 21 of 23 laps, was unable to fend off Marquez at the flag, with Rossi third, less than three seconds behind.  The win made Marquez six-for-six in 2014, looking invincible, while Team Yamaha, doing everything possible under massive pressure, was unable to take the desperately-needed win at Rossi’s home crib.  Marquez left Italy with a 53 point margin over Rossi, a lead which was to prove insurmountable despite a great second half of the season from The Bruise Brothers.

Honda Suddenly Lousy?  No.

Take one bad decision and a broken finger by Marc Marquez, add discernible improvement from both the Yamaha and Ducati camps, and suddenly everyone wants us to believe the RC213V is an un-rideable piece of crap.  Let’s not forget that Casey Stoner swung his right leg over it in 2011 and won a world championship, and that Marquez did the same thing in 2013 and 2014.  The naysayers overlook Stoner’s relative struggles on the Ducati between 2008 and 2010, and claim it is only Marquez’s shimmering brilliance that has made the orange, red and white bucket of bolts competitive over the last two years.

Bologna.

Cal Crutchlow and Scott Redding have added fuel to this fire by asserting that the Honda is much harder to ride than they had anticipated.  This sounds like Redding making excuses for a slow transition to new equipment.  And, as readers of this column know by now, we have heard little other than complaints and excuses from Crutchlow ever since he arrived in MotoGP from World Superbike in 2011.  Anyone wishing to cite Stefan Bradl’s lack of improvement in three years on the Honda need only look at what he’s managed to accomplish on the Yamaha this year to dispel that thought.

It’s hard to argue with the assertion that Honda was a more advanced bike than the Yamaha, and a world ahead of the Ducati, for a number of years heading into 2014.  Advances by both factories have closed the gap significantly.  With all the Honda pilots (except Pedrosa) complaining about a lack of rear grip, it may be that some modifications are necessary; it does not mean HRC needs to go back to the drawing board.  Take away the crash in Argentina and the busted finger; Marquez would be battling Rossi for the 2015 title and we wouldn’t even be having this conversation.

All of this may reflect a decision from HRC that, with the standard ECU going into effect next season, there is less incentive to improve the bike than has existed up until now; add in the Michelin factor, which will change everything, and it may be that what we’re seeing is Honda engineers marshalling their efforts in the calm before the storm.  If you had asked any of the riders graduating to MotoGP in the last five years what their first choice of bike would have been, almost all of them would have chosen the Honda.

Two Quick Hitters and the Weather Forecast

Espargaro brothersOK, we get it—the Espargaro brothers are as close as, well, brothers.  This past week’s news, that each had surgery after Le Mans, suggests they may be taking this whole filial thing a little too far.  With only four points separating them for the season, the Espargaros make me regret having been an only child.

I’m constantly irritated by how race announcers Nick Harris and Matthew Birt bang on and on about former world champion this and 250cc world champion that every weekend.  Not wishing to sound negative, but it’s difficult to ignore the hard times a number of former world champions are currently having in MotoGP, especially compared to the standings of the collection of “mutts” who haven’t won anything:

Nicky Hayden (MotoGP 2006)  16th      Andrea Iannone (0)  5thH

Hiro Aoyama  (250cc 2009)      19th     Bradley Smith (0)   7th

Alvaro Bautista (125cc 2006)   20th    Aleix Espargaro (0)  9th

Stefan Bradl   (Moto2 2011)      22nd    Danilo Petrucci (0)  11th

I won’t even mention Yonny Hernandez and Scott Redding.  Just sayin’.

With sensational weather forecast for the greater Mugello environs this weekend, the riders should be able to dial in LOS ANGELES, CA - DECEMBER 01: Host LL Cool J poses in the press room during the GRAMMY Nominations Concert Live at Club Nokia on December 1, 2010 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Jason Merritt/Getty Images)perfect race day settings.  One would think that Rossi, racing in front of his homeys, and Lorenzo, on a hot streak, at a very Yamaha-friendly circuit, will dominate the proceedings.  Personally, my imaginary money’s on Marquez.  And, in the words of LL Cool J, don’t call it a comeback.  The 2015 season has a long way to go.

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Lorenzo leads Yamaha rout in France

May 17, 2015

MotoGP 2015 Le Mans Results, by Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com 

On a picture-perfect afternoon in the French countryside, Movistar Yamaha bruise brothers Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi delivered a clear message to the grid, notably Repsol Honda upstart Marc Marquez:  anyone even hallucinating about a world championship in 2015 will need to go through us.  Lorenzo, in a replay of his win in Jerez last time out, took the early lead and was never challenged on the way to his 35th career win in MotoGP.  Rossi had to slice his way through several Ducati GP15s to secure his ninth podium in a row and 13th out of 14 dating back to last year.  Meanwhile, it was another forgettable Sunday for Repsol Honda. 

Rossi & LorenzoLorenzo had been fast during the three dry practice sessions, got himself a mani-pedi during a wet FP4 (led by the Great French Hope Loris Baz), and qualified on the front row despite electronics issues.  Marquez, appearing rather unsettled all weekend, rallied during QP2 for a blistering pole lap, half a second clear of factory Ducati #1 Andrea Dovizioso, in what would be his high point of Round 5.  Rossi, once again unable to get anything going in qualifying, started from the front of Row 3, as if it matters where he starts.  With 200 201 podia under his belt, The Doctor knows it’s where you finish that counts.

A typically hectic start to the race saw The Rider Formerly Known as Crazy Joe, recently Maniac Joe, and now Ironman Joe (racing despite a dislocated shoulder suffered on Monday) Andrea Iannone immediately trade paint with Marquez, the Spaniard getting the worst of it.  Once the dust settled, it was Lorenzo, Dovizioso, Iannone, Marquez and Rossi forming up the first group.  Repsol #2 Dani Pedrosa, in his first race back from arm surgery, started eighth and was running seventh on Lap 2 when he lost the front in Turn 4.  He re-entered the race in 24th place, and spent the day testing his arm, finishing 16th.  His condition heading to Mugello in two weeks is anyone’s guess.

The race announcers speculated it was braking problems that were causing Marquez to climb from fourth place early to sixth place by Lap 5, as he ran wide several times, seeming, with a full fuel load, more out of control than usual.  Rossi, once again looking young and dangerous, pushed Marquez out of the way on Lap 3, bolted past Iannone on Lap 11 and stole Dovizioso’s lunch money on Lap 13, appearing eager to set up a battle with Lorenzo for the win.  And though that joust did not materialize, an epic battle behind Dovizioso for fourth place did, the combatants being Marquez, the wounded Iannone, and Last Brit Standing Bradley Smith on the Tech 3 Yamaha (countrymen Cal Crutchlow and Scott Redding having by this time ended up in the gravel).

With the race three-quarters over, whatever had been bugging Marquez early on appeared solved as he stalked Smith, Marquez in Sepang 2013who was himself preparing to go through on Iannone into 4th place. Over the last seven laps of the race, Marquez and Iannone conducted a cage match reminiscent of their days fighting in Moto2.  Smith, who on Lap 21 was lining up Iannone for fourth, found himself, instead, in sixth place on Lap 23, sucking air, while Marquez and Iannone went at each other with bayonets, changing places at least a dozen times.  Some of the best racing of the year was going on here, with Smith waiting for the seemingly inevitable crash of one or both riders that never came.  Marquez crossed the line on Lap 24 in fourth position, where he finished, while Iannone held Smith off long enough to claim fifth in as gutty a performance as one is likely to see, his left shoulder held in place by adhesive tape and popsicle sticks.  One might argue that Smith deserved a better result today, but in the end the factory bikes prevailed over his satellite entry.  Hard cheese for sure; no apology needed.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Aleix Espargaro and his factory Suzuki called it a day with mechanical issues early, the rider nursing a world of hurt suffered in a brutal high side in FP4.  Brother Pol on the other Tech 3 Yamaha finished quietly in seventh, with an overachieving Yonny Hernandez driving his Pramac Ducati to a gratifying eighth.  Maverick Vinales, who seems to be getting the hang of things on his own Suzuki Ecstar, punked Pramac’s Danilo Petrucci at the flag for a very decent ninth place finish, with Petrucci, promoted up from the hapless Ioda Racing team after last season, showing us why, ending the day in the top ten.  Nicky Hayden took top open class honors on his Aspar Honda in 11th place, followed by Baz, Avintia Ducati plodder Hector Barbera 13th, Eugene Laverty 14th (for his first premier class points) and Alvaro Baustista closing out the points on his Gresini Aprilia.

The Big Picture

After five rounds, Movistar Yamaha owns the top two spots in the standings, Rossi clear of Lorenzo by 15 points, both looking ready to rumble into Mugello.  Dovizioso, sits four points behind Lorenzo in third, while Marquez, in a completely unexpected turn of events, saw his 2015 season deteriorate even farther, trailing Rossi by 33, his swagger and apparent invincibility of the past two years missing in action. Iannone, who with Dovizioso figures to do well in Mugello, sits eight points behind Marquez, with Crutchlow and Smith waging The Second Battle of Britain in seventh and eighth places, separated by a single point.

RossiA word about Valentino Rossi—podium #201 was his today, leading me to project when he will reach #300 (2022), #400 (2030) and #500 (2039), just in time for his 60th birthday.  I hope that whomever is writing this column at that time remembers to give him props.

Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.  At age 36 he shows no signs of slowing down, dominating a young man’s game like no other before him.  Had he not gotten his nose out of joint and accepted the millions offered him by Ducati for two years of perdition, he would already have a leg up on podium #300.  Much like Michael Jordan after his two season train wreck/experiment with baseball, Rossi has been welcomed back by the Yamaha team he should never have left, picking up right where he left off at the end of 2010.  Better, in fact, than he was at the end of 2010.  His next venture after MotoGP should be the marketing of The Valentino Rossi Diet, one which guarantees to take five years off your appearance every ten years. The diet, one imagines, will preclude alcohol, tobacco and chasing women.  And while strict adherents to the plan will not live forever, it will certainly seem that way.

Old jokes are good jokes.

On to Mugello

As if the Repsol Honda team didn’t have enough to worry about already, the next stop on the schedule rests in the picturesque Tuscan hills overlooking the fabled city of Bologna, Italy, home of Mugello, a Yamaha track if ever there was one.  These days, it must also be considered a Ducati track.  Today’s result at Le Mans—a top ten comprised of four Yamahas, four Ducatis, a Honda and a Suzuki—came at a neutral site.  Mugello, as most of you know, is anything but neutral.

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The Doctor puts on a Clinic in the Desert

March 29, 2015

MotoGP 2015 Losail Results, by Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com

Rossi at ValenciaThere is a reason 36 year-old Valentino Rossi is still the most revered motorcycle racer on the planet. In his 313th grand prix start, Rossi, on the factory Yamaha, delivered a dazzling performance in the 2015 season opener, going hammer and tongs with factory Ducati #1 Andrea “DesmoDovi” Dovizioso all night before punking his compatriot by 17/100ths of a second to take the lead in the title chase for the first time since 2010.

Two-time defending world champion Marc Marquez, the immediate future of the sport, saw his chances for a season-opening win end in the first turn of Lap 1, when he was pushed WAY wide into the runoff area. How far off the racing surface was young Marc pushed, you ask? Far enough, it’s rumored, that a concession vendor offered him an ice-cold Coke. Re-entering the race dead last, he spent the evening slicing his way through the field, grinding his molars to dust, eventually finishing a respectable fifth, securing 11 points, and setting his sights on Austin, Texas. Guys like Marquez have short memories, and it’s a long season; no reason to think young Marc won’t win his third consecutive premier class title this year. Yet anyway.

Aside from Rossi’s heroics and Marquez’ travails, the story of Round 1 is the Dall'Igna, French MotoGP 2014unbelievable turnaround being engineered before our very eyes in the Ducati garages by Gigi Dall’Igna, the Great White-Haired Hope of Italian racing fans everywhere. Having parted company with longtime employer Aprilia late in 2013, Dall’Igna has given a miraculous and immediate boost to the fortunes of the Ducati racing program. Keep in mind that Dovizioso and “the other Andrea”, Crazy Joe Iannone, first threw a leg over the radical new Desmosedici GP15 35 days ago. At Losail, they qualified 1st and 4th, ran in the front group all day, eventually blew away Yamaha icon Jorge Lorenzo, and finished together on the podium, the first time I’ve seen two Ducatis on the podium since, well, for a good long time.

Now, before you start getting all whooped up about some kind of paradigm shift in MotoGP, let me remind you of several facts. One, this was the first round of the season, run in the middle of the night in the Middle East on the only circuit dustier than Aragon. Two, Marc Marquez is not going to suffer this kind of race very often; I fully expect him to dominate rounds 2 and 3 in Texas and Argentina. And three, the day is approaching when Valentino Rossi will no longer be able to perform at his unique level. Losail, recall, is a Yamaha-friendly track, one of the friendliest, in fact, and the Repsol Honda contingent (which claimed 5th and 6th places today) will enjoy significant advantages over both the Yamahas and the Ducatis at a number of circuits on the tour. Relatively speaking, Losail is the MotoGP equivalent of Bonneville, while Austin, Rio Hondo and Motegi are more similar to downtown Washington, DC at rush hour.

How About Shutting Up and Telling Us About the Race?

Okay. After a clean start, the early leaders were Dovizioso, Lorenzo (who had jumped up from the six hole), Iannone, Yonny Hernandez on a Pramac Ducati, Bradley Smith on the Tech 3 Yamaha and his teammate Pol Espargaro; Pedrosa was stuck in the mud farther back, and Marquez was cruising the hinterlands. For a good part of the day, Lorenzo led The Two Andreas on a merry chase, while Rossi was working his way back into contention, having fallen as far back as 10th early.

Dovizioso went through on Lorenzo for the first time on Lap 9; the two would ultimately trade positions perhaps a dozen times, MotoGP at its finest. Iannone was keeping his powder dry in third place; Rossi showed up on his rear wheel on Lap 11. The four played Trading Places until Lap 19, when Dovizioso went through on Lorenzo again. Rossi immediately did the same, and then began his series of lead exchanges with Dovizioso, who was showing no signs of fatigue or tire wear. One had the sense that Dovizioso, younger, with more grunt, his years of handling and tire degradation problems apparently solved, would prevail in the run to the line. But it was not to be. Today, the Doctor schooled his students, all of them.

At the end of the day (Lord I hate that expression), we saw three Italians on the podium, which is to say the Spanish riders got blanked. Weird. We were left wondering whether Jorge Lorenzo, who showed up for practice 5 kilos lighter than he weighed at the end of last season, ran out of energy late in the day. Personally, I got the impression that Rossi treats practice the way established NBA stars treat the regular season—they only get amped up for the playoffs. Rossi, whose four practice sessions had him running 9th, 7th, 9th and 5th, and who qualified 8th, suddenly is the fastest guy in the joint when the red lights go out. If I’m Lin Jarvis, his boss, I’m okay with that.

Elsewhere on the Grid

Cal Crutchlow, on the Come What May LCR Honda, enjoyed a relatively successful maiden Honda outing, finishing 7th. He had taken time out of his busy practice schedule to flame Mike di Meglio of Avintia Racing for getting in his way during, like, FP1. Cal has morphed from one of the charming, likeable hard-luck guys on the grid to another mid-level clanging gong, and needs to take a nap. Tech 3 teammates Smith and Espargaro spent much of the day connected at the wrists and ankles, with Smith eventually crossing the line in 8th place, a tenth ahead of Little Brother. Yonny Hernandez completed the top ten in an encouraging outing on his Pramac Ducati, having qualified 5th (?) and running with the big dogs for a couple of early laps. Guy has some skills. In a bit of a disappointment, Big Brother Aleix Espargaro marked the return of a factory Suzuki program to the premier class with an 11th place finish after over-achieving in practice all weekend. The Suzuki is likely to perform better at the Honda tracks than places like Losail where top-end speed is at a premium.

Farther down the food chain, the maiden outing of the Aprilia Racing Team Gresini was a debacle, as expected. Alvaro Bautista got bumped by a charging Marquez early in the race and lost a brake caliper, while sad sack teammate Marco Melandri finished 34 seconds behind Alex de Angelis on his own hopeless Octo IodaRacing Team ART nag. Athinà Forward Racing’s Loris Baz, the record will show, finished his MotoGP debut three laps down, but spent some quality time mid-race in his garage getting his tires changed and spin-balanced and his ashtray emptied. The top rookie finisher today was, unsurprisingly, Maverick Vinales, who copped two points on his own Suzuki Ecstar. And Old Lonesome, Nicky Hayden, pushed his open class Honda to an uninspiring 17th place finish, just behind the once-competitive Stefan Bradl.

On to Austincircuit-of-the-americas

MotoGP returns to the U.S. in two weeks, descending upon the pretentiously-named “Circuit of the Americas” in Texas. (Let’s just call it Austin.) Expect radically different results in Round 2. But if today’s podium somehow repeats in the Lone Star State, MotoGP will have officially been turned on its head. Until then, we will view Losail 2015 as an outlier, while March 29 may be named a national holiday in Italy. Valentino Rossi fans around the world will savor today’s race, one of the best in his 20 years as The Alpha Male of Motorcycles.

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MotoGP Projected 2015 Final Standings

December 1, 2014

MotoGP for Dummies 12/1/2014, by Bruce Allen

It being December 1, MotoGP enters its self-imposed two month hiatus, the only real break in a season which has, as is true in most sports, expanded and filled the calendar.  A competition season schedules 18 races over 31 weeks and includes a few dead spots. Pre-season work (“spring practice”) begins in early January, the same way spring football practice does at The University of Alabama.  It ends, finally, for everyone, at the end of November.  Crewing, owning, managing, and riding are, for all practical purposes, year-round occupations.  Highly intense year-round occupations.

Before I forget, here are the final 2015 standings, in an effort to relieve you of the need to actually watch Marquez win.  The rest, obviously, is totally SWAG-ed.  Top to bottom, the grid appears tighter than in years past, more solid, with more solvent mid-range teams and fewer struggling lower-tier teams.

  1.  Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda2014 MotoGP World Champion
  2. Jorge Lorenzo, Movistar Yamaha
  3. Valentino Rossi, Movistar Yamaha
  4. Andrea Dovisioso, Factory Ducati
  5. Dani Pedrosa, Repsol Honda
  6. Andrea Iannone, Factory Ducati
  7. Pol Espargaro, Tech 3 Yamaha
  8. Scott Redding, Marc VDS
  9. Cal Crutchlow CWM LCR Honda
  10. Bradley Smith, Tech 3 Yamaha
  11. Stefan Bradl, NGM Forward Yamaha
  12. Aleix Espargaro, Factury Suzuki
  13. Nicky Hayden, Drive 7 Aspar Honda
  14. Danilo Petrucci, Pramac Ducati
  15. Jack Miller, CWM LCR Honda
  16. Maverick Vinales, Factory Suzuki
  17. Yonny Hernandez, Pramac Ducati
  18. Alvaro Bautista, Factory Aprilia Gresini
  19. Marco Melandri, Factory Aprilia Gresini
  20. Karel Abraham, Cardion AB Honda
  21. Hector Barbera, Avintia Ducati
  22. Mike di Meglio, Avintia Ducati
  23. Eugene Laverty, Drive 7 Aspar Honda
  24. Loris Baz, NGM Forward Yamaha
  25. Alex de Angelis, Octo Ioda Racing

The odds against this being the actual standings at the end of next year are incalculable.  However, if you, the nit-picking reader, would like, I would have much more confidence in the list if it were broken into tranches:

cropped-jorge-lorenzo-20131.jpgTranche 1:  Marquez↑, Lorenzo↑, Rossi↓, Pedrosa↓, Dovizioso↑

Tranche 2:  Iannone↑, The Espargaros↔, Redding↑, Crutchlow↑, Smith↔, Bradl↓Andrea Iannone

Tranche 3:  Hayden↑, Petrucci↑, Miller↔, Vinales↔, Hernandez↔, Bautista↓, Melandri↔

Tranche 4:  Abraham↓, Barbera↓, Di Meglio↔, Laverty↔, Baz↔ and De Angelis↓

In years past, when I’ve attempted to tranche the grid–it was a smaller grid back then–I would usually come up with five groups.  Next year it’s only four, suggesting, again, that the grid will be tighter, top to bottom, than in past years.  More financially stable, too.  Tighter competition, regardless of where it takes place during a race, is what gets the fans going. It needs a 25-bike grid that is generally well-financed and capable of generating, capturing, and using the data which seem to drive the sport–a sport that desperately needs a TV deal eliminating commercials during the 45 minutes it takes to run the race.

Anyway, on the day it becomes illegal to test machines, the best we can do is to speculate on next year’s prospects, at the top, middle and bottom of the food chain.  Even writing this, I sense that several of my picks are over- or under-rated, at least within their tranches.  Personally, I think it would be a blast to see either of the two young rookies, Vinales and Miller, do well, by which we mean performing at a high level before predictably crashing in four or five races.  Marquez surprised us in his rookie year by crashing out only once. Maybe one of these guys could do the same.  In his rookie year on the LCR Honda Casey Stoner finished eighth.Jack Miller

Nicky Hayden still has the ability to ride anything, and his Honda this year is going to be more competitive than last year’s model.  Still, he finds himself, turning 34, at the top of the third tranche, happy to be running for a Honda-supported team, prevailing most weeks against the two youngsters as well as a bunch of Ducatis and Aprilias.

Tranche Four has low expectations.  Or perhaps its just me, who has low expectations for them.  The fact is, Karel Abraham should lead this rather sorry group, but one or two of them may end up in tranche three. This is, career-wise, a downward socially mobile group, as their appearance in MotoGP, even at the back of the grid, will, for some, mark the high water mark of a career that will often end up in World Super Bikes or British Super Bikes.  Abraham, again, is the exception, as his dad owns much of the world they inhabit.  He can ride MotoGP until he decides to join the Czech bar and practice law.

So, perhaps the main surprise is my perception that the factory Ducati will improve, under the direction of GigiDall’Igna, to the point that Dovizioso will displace Pedrosa as The Fourth Alien. That Pedrosa may have, once and for all, lost a step, a step that left with his hope of winning a title in over the past four years.  My guess is that Pedrosa’s contract won’t be renewed after the 2016 season .  And that Alex Marquez will take the #2 seat on the Repsol Honda team beginning in 2017.

Talk about Tito Rabat.  Let’s assume Tito Rabat repeats as Moto2 champion in 2015, as expected, and decides that he wants to move up the following year.  It won’t be with the Repsol Honda team, who tried to field a three-bike team back in the day that didn’t work out. It could easily be as the second Marc VDS bike alongside Scott Redding, which might work out just fine, depending on the level of factory support MVDS is getting from Japan.

Rabat could negotiate a one year deal with MVDS, leaving him free to join Lorenzo on the factory Yamaha team if and when Rossi is not renewed after the 2016 season.  Of course, if the Repsol Honda team could figure out a way to have the three amigos–both Marquez brothers and Rabat–racing in the same colors it would be in complete cosmic alignment with the stars and spirits and incapable of defeat.  A karmic troika. Plenty of Spanish national anthems on podium celebrations.

(Don’t get me going on the Spanish national anthem.  My friend says it is an instrumental–people stand around humming–because the lyrics became illegal every few years as succeeding regimes demanded their own.)

So, is there anyone willing to argue that Marquez is not a lock in 2015?

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