© Bruce Allen April 1, 2021 (lol)
Keeping it in the family room until it starts leaking oil, then will move it to the garage. Badass.
Archive for the ‘Yamaha’ Category
Check Out My New Yamaha CLP-745
March 31, 2021Dominoes Falling Like Mad in MotoGP
June 6, 2020© Bruce Allen
Sudden and/or impending rider contracts with rival teams and builders for 2021-22 have begun a sort of sequencing process that will be fun to watch. It was always going to happen going into a contract year. I had thought teams would wait until the remnant of the 2020 season was underway before beginning the actual poaching process.
In early June, and not having run a race in anger since last summer, the factory teams have decided that the theme heading into 2021 is Getting Better and Younger. This started with Yamaha orchestrating a trade between the factory and satellite teams in which The New Kid in Town, young Fabio Quartararo, the Spanish rider with the French name, takes the factory seat of the legendary Valentino Rossi alongside Maverick Vinales without so much as a fare thee well, and Rossi, graciously swimming in visions of an entire new line of gear branded with SRT for his swan song in 2021, accedes, a Yamaha team player first and foremost, his VR46 academy protege Franco Morbidelli gently under his wing. An investment banker on the side. These ranches aren’t cheap.
Vale apparently has several objectives in mind. He wants to appear on Barron’s list of the 500 wealthiest people in the world. He wants to own a MotoGP team, a Yamaha-supported satellite team, and to beat Honda Racing Corporation into the dirt with it. He’ll sell a lot of VR46 gear and assemble a great team behind the bike. Yamaha has fixed the issues that suddenly began plaguing it in 2017 and can run with Honda and Ducati on most of the world’s tracks.
So the factory Yamaha team gets younger with Fabio and Vinales.
Fabio in his Moto2 days.
The factory Honda team signed Marc Marquez to a contract which runs through 2024. (!) HRC shocked the world again this week, leaking the fact that Pol Espargaro, the younger of the Espargaro brothers, would take Alex Marquez’ seat on the #2 Repsol Honda for 2021-22 before poor Alex had ever turned a lap. This didn’t make the factory Honda team younger, but it certainly made it stronger. Pol Espargaro has been wrestling point-and-shoot bikes at KTM since 2016 and should find the RC213V relatively easy to ride. The difference is the Honda is very fast and the KTM RC16 is not. KTM has now taken shot below the water line, losing its only experienced rider to a hated rival who is beating it like a rented mule.
Espargaro won Moto2 in 2013 and was a consistent top tenner in his first three years with Yamaha, his future brighter than big brother Aleix. But he got in bed with the good people at KTM in 2017 and became a top twenty rider, although a top data provider. He has been a big help in developing the bike even though it is still not yet competitive. Losing him is a blow to the KTM program, one that could be filled by an experienced leader such as Andrea Dovizioso.
So now it is assumed Alex Marquez will toddle on over to LCR Honda to team with Takaa Nakagami, owned and operated by HRC on behalf of Japan, and the LCR team gets younger. Poor Cal Crutchlow will then have to choose between an Aprilia, for God’s sake, or calling it a career.
Pramac Ducati loses Jack Miller to the factory team, but picks up new Moto2 KTM grad and fast mover Jorge Martin to ride alongside Pecco Bagnaia, and the Pramac team gets younger. Danilo Petrucci, booted from the factory team, is left to go out and find honest work again, possibly with Aprilia, possibly over at WSBK.
Suppose Andrea Dovizioso, never the object of much respect, his few career chances at a world championship turned to mud by the genius of Marc Marquez, goes for the money and jumps to KTM, the new career wrecker of MotoGP. When he joined Ducati it was, at the time, the career wrecker. He and Gigi D’Alligna have created a bike that is difficult to turn but has incomparable top end speed. A good question is who would take Dovizioso’s hypothetical seat, leaving Miller the #1 factory rider. Would the rumors of a Jorge Lorenzo return come to pass? The factory Ducati team would get a little younger, too, with Miller and Lorenzo aboard. KTM, losing Espargaro and Martin, is listing seriously. The Austrians need to work harder to get the bike up to snuff, lest it continue to wreck careers. It certainly didn’t do Pol Espargaro any good. If they can’t get Dovizioso they’ll have to make a run at Cal Crutchlow.
The two young guys at Suzuki, Joan Mir and Alex Rins, are signed for 2021-22. It would be nice to see Suzuki acquire a satellite team; their bike is competitive, needing only a few more horsepower to accompany its sweet-handling properties. Mir will be an Alien; Rins probably as well. For Suzuki. That is a good thing. See what 40 years in the desert will get you.
So, for a season which has, so far, been rendered an epic fail by Covid-19, there is suddenly a lot of activity, a silly season earlier than in a normal year when guys are actually racing. Barring a second peak in transmissions–the viral type–there is supposed to be some kind of MotoGP season commencing the end of July and running into the early winter. Mostly in EU countries. Asian, US and Argentinian rounds are still on it but looking sketchy, virus-wise. The heat of southern Europe in the summer should make the virus less active and less likely to spread as rapidly. For awhile, anyway. We here at my kitchen table look forward to bringing it to you.
Here’s What We Learned at Jerez MotoGP Test
December 2, 2018© Bruce Allen
- Taka Nakagami finished at the top of the sheet on day two, proving there was a range of objectives riders brought with them to Jerez. Let’s not hyperventilate, pretending that Taka, riding Crutchlow’s bike from last year, is the fastest guy out there.
- Marc Marquez is as cool as a cucumber. Everything is chill on the #93 side of the Repsol Honda garage.
- Maverick Vinales is now top dog at Movistar Yamaha and they’re building the bike for him. Time for the wall.
- Jorge Lorenzo put his shiny new Repsol Honda up into P4 on day two, showing remarkable progress both in his adaptation to the Honda and the recovery of his wrist. 2019 could feature a number of double-Honda podiums. This one may work out for old Jorge.
- Danilo Petrucci knows this is his chance. A one year contract, 28 years old, needs to lose more weight, but he has a chance to flirt with Tranche 1. He appears to be the next Andrea Dovizioso.
- Franco Morbidelli is looking solid on the Petronas Yamaha. I see him battling Pecco Bagnaia for a good part of next season. Both fast movers, both accustomed to success, both on credible machines.
- Jack Miller, now the lead dog on the Pramac Ducati team with Bagnaia, needs to spend more time with the rubber down and the paint up. His inability to finish races is hard on him and his team. We get it that he’s fearless, but he needs to be a little smarter.
- Andrea Dovizioso will again chase Marquez all year long, collect a couple of wins and some podiums, perhaps a pole or two. Maid of Honor and head bridesmaid in 2019.
- Pecco Bagnaia on the #2 Pramac Ducati should figure in the Rookie of the Year competition along with Joan Mir. The second coming of Jorge Lorenzo will put it on rails now and again.
- Alex Rins is my guess to be the fifth Alien, along with Marquez, Dovizioso, Vinales and Lorenzo. I
will stick my neck out again and predict a potential P3 for Rins in 2019 on an improved GSX-RR. - Valentino Rossi seems to be getting sick of the whole thing. 2019 is likely to be his last year. He doesn’t have the input he is used to having, the 2019 bike doesn’t work for him, and it’s looking like a long two years. In all likelihood he won his last race at Assen in 2017.
- Fabio Quartararo, the 19 year old French wonder, needs a year or two to get himself settled in at 1000cc. He appears to be a baller-in-waiting at the Petronas Yamaha team, upon which will be lavished plenty of corporate largesse. Lots of people seem to want him to succeed.
- Tito Rabat will return for Reale Avintia Ducati. Not sure why, other than the money and the women and the free medical care.
- Joan Mir, who dominated Moto3 in 2017, has arrived at Suzuki after the obligatory year in Moto2 with much fanfare, giving the Ecstar team a potentially powerful one-two punch in the rider department. Let’s just go ahead and say that Mir will be an Alien in short order. 2021, 2022…
- Pol Espargaro, the fastest of the KTM contingent, winner thereby of the Taller Than Mickey Rooney Award. KTM looking weak, top to bottom. There’s grumbling in the cheap seats.
- Karel Abraham, #2 on the Reale Avintia Ducati team, races bikes to enhance his law practice, his sex life, and his standing with dad. Finishing, for Karel, is not that different from finishing in the points.
- Andrea Iannone, consigned for sins committed early in his tenure with Suzuki to #2 rider on the struggling Aprilia team. Underfunded, underpowered, the effort promises to be one of consistent frustration again in 2019. Iannone will DNF pretty often in the first half of the season, asking more from the bike than it has to give. For Suzuki, Mir is the right choice.
- Johann Zarco appears doomed to a Tranche 3 or 4 season onboard the KTM. Openly disappointed, he appears to be suffering buyer’s remorse over having spurned the satellite Yamaha team. Bummer.
- Aleix Espargaro, the #1 rider on the factory Aprilia team, a position with a world of prestige and little else. Aleix appears doomed again to spending another year with no podium result. Aprilia’s MotoGP program may not be sustainable if there is a worldwide recession, which would be a bummer for Aleix, Iannone, Brad Smith and MotoGP in general.
- Hafizh Syahrin and Miguel Oliveira–teammates on the Tech 3 KTM team will be fighting one another most of the season–everyone else will be in front of them.
Cal Crutchlow missed both the Valencia and Jerez tests as MotoGP folds up its tents on 2018. He appears to be a top five or six guy in 2019. Overall, the four new guys from Moto2–Bagnaia, Oliveira, Mir and Quartararo–have way more talent than the four–Bautista, Redding, Smith and Luthi–that left. They are younger, faster and well-financed. The championship will be closer in 2019 than 2018–other than Marquez running away with the title–and closer yet in 2020, the second year of most of the contracts. By 2021 some of these guys will be on Marquez’ rear tire on a regular basis, at which point we could have us a horse race again, as in 2013 and 2015. Life goes on in The Marquez Era.
Ciao for now.
MotoGP Motegi Preview
October 16, 2018© Bruce Allen
Marquez stands on cusp of fifth title
And so the 2018 MotoGP season comes down to this, a showdown in The Land of the Rising Sun. Home MotoGP track, basically, for Suzuki, Honda and Yamaha; much face at stake. Two samurai riders, Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso and Honda’s Marc Marquez, expecting to go one-on-one for a title so close Marquez can smell it. Much too early in the season for all this. Elsewhere, Yamaha will be watched closely for continuing progress from their recent knees-up in Thailand, or will it be back to the drawing board again?
- Center court. Match point. The first of four; he’s serving. Down love-40. On your heels.
- Game seven, down three, top of the ninth, 0-2 count, two men on base, star closer on the mound, heart thumping like a piston. 63,000 fans going mental hating you.
- Some soccer thing, leading scorer, limping, down two late in the game, etc. Wet field. Hooligans talking about your mother.
- NBA game seven, 1.6 seconds left, down three, at the line shooting three. You’re a 70% free-throw shooter late in your career. Miss one and it could be all over. All over.
For those of you who, like me, know more about other sports than they do about MotoGP, these are presented to give you a sense of what I think it will feel like on Sunday for Andrea Dovizioso as he is aligned, clutch depressed, taching up, waiting for the red lights to go out. 237 furious horses beneath him and his chances of making it to a second match point appear thin; everything has to go right. The pressure is beyond comprehension, even for the usually-unflappable Italian. And there’s #93 over there, looking fast and relaxed, Bushido celebration ready in the wings.
Recent History at Motegi
2015–Dani Pedrosa chose Motegi to make his annual stand, leading Rossi and Lorenzo to the line in a wet-ish affair. Marquez struggled into fourth place ahead of Dovizioso. Rossi and Lorenzo chewed up Bridgestone rain tires on a drying surface; Pedrosa, winless all season and dawdling in the middle of the pack for a while, came on strong at the end. This was the race in which Lorenzo dominated all weekend on dry track and finished 12 seconds back in the wet. Rossi left Japan leading the series by 18 points with three rounds left, a virtual lock for his 10th world championship—you know, the one that was purportedly unlocked by Marc Marquez on the melting macadam of Sepang and for which most of you have never forgiven him. Scoreboard.
2016–For the third time in four seasons, Marquez claimed the MotoGP world championship. He did it by winning the Japanese Grand Prix while the Bruise Brothers of the factory Yamaha team—Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi—choked on the bile of their rivalry, both riders crashing out of a race in which neither could afford the slightest error. Lorenzo’s forthcoming departure from the team after Valencia appeared to be a sound idea.
Last year, in a replay of their Red Bull Ring duel earlier that season, Ducati #1 Andrea Dovizioso and Marc Marquez gave us another late-race blades-at-close-quarters wheezer, a ten-point spread in the 2017 standings at stake. And for the second time that season, Dovizioso prevailed in what was almost a carbon copy of his earlier win in Austria. In winning the match, Dovi cut his deficit to Marquez from 16 points to 11 with two rounds left. (Marquez would employ the lesson he learned that day to win the same way last time out at Buriram.) Like Rossi in 2015, things would come unglued for Dovizioso at Sepang a week later. 2017, one reckons, might have been the high-water mark of Dovi’s career, likely destined to join Pedrosa as top premier class riders who coulda, woulda, shoulda, had it not been for Rossi/Stoner/Lorenzo/Marquez etc.
Marquez has clinched half of his four premier class titles in The Land of the Rising Sun. He is poised to make it three for five on Sunday. Leading by 77 points, the only thing the Catalan riding machine needs is to dispense with Dovizioso and he becomes, once again, MotoGP champion, gripping the world of grand prix motorcycle racing firmly by the sack and inviting it, in Castillian Spanish, to come play. As Elvis used to drawl so eloquently, “Oh man, it’s good to be The King.” Pronounced it “kang.” He was right.
Rins vs. Zarco
Rins, Zarco and Crutchlow. Anyone recognize the venue?
I’m hearing from a number of readers that the tranching of the Suzuki #1 and Tech 3 #1 riders should be reversed based upon, I suppose, 2018 body of work, recent performance, standings. How about performance in the second half of the season?
Rins:
Wins: 0
Podiums: 2
DNFs 4
Points: 102
Position: 10th
Points since Sachsenring: 49
Zarco:
Wins: 0
Podiums: 2
DNFs 1
Points: 123
Position: 8th
Points since Sachsenring: 35
Starting in Brno, both riders have finished every race. Rins had a terrible first half of the season—4 DNFs, including three of the first four rounds. Clean since then. Out-pointing Zarco. Sorry. Sticking with my rating. A certain amount of What Have You Done for Me Lately? gets into this, but not too much. Five second-half rounds seems like a reasonable comparison. It will be interesting to see how each finishes the season, with Zarco packing up to KTM, while Rins looks to stay put and partner with the up-and-coming Joan Mir starting next season. His masters at Suzuki need to get him some more grunt to go along with the sweet-handling GSX-RR.
Were I a gambling man, I’d take a substantial position on the wager that Rins will outpoint Zarco in 2019.
Your Weekend Forecast
Sunday’s forecast, from a week out, looks perfect—sunny, just barely warm, with very low ambient radioactivity readings in both the air and water. No hot weather advantage for the Hondas, no moaning from Cal Crutchlow about overheating his front. This is a stop-and-go circuit, a point-and-shoot place if you will. Hondas and Ducatis will enjoy an advantage here. I’m thinking Marquez, Dovizioso and Lorenzo on the podium, but am unclear as to the order of finish, which matters a lot.
Here’s one thing I don’t want to see. I don’t want to see Jorge Lorenzo impeding his teammate in any way at any time during the race. Time for some team orders from Ducati Corse. Any Ducati rider impeding in any way Mr. Dovizioso’s chase for the win and continued life in the championship shall be drawn and quartered in Parc Fermé immediately following the podium celebration. Two year Honda contract or not.
We’ll be back on Sunday morning with results and analysis. And then again on Tuesday with a look ahead at Phillip Island. Dang.
Marquez Might Not See 298
September 24, 2018© Bruce Allen September 24 2018
The latest results from Aragon haven’t made much difference in our chase of the predicted 297 points or less for Marc Marquez this season in MotoGP. His projected point total has declined since Austria only due to the once-every-four-decades cancellation of the Silverstone round 12. All I want to say in defense of my dubious prediction is that he is trending toward 316 points. Liars figure and figures lie. One might argue that a single careless post-clinch crash could reduce his point total by his average per race, which is 17.6 which rounds to 18.
316 – 18 = 298.
If there’s anything at all interesting about these numbers–and I’m beginning to wonder myself–it is that Marquez led Dovizioso by 72 points on August 12 and will lead him by 72 points on October 6, the day before Buriram. Each has had a first and a second the last two rounds, while Lorenzo has crashed from pole both times. And whereas Lorenzo trailed Marquez by 71 points on August 12, he will trail him by 116 points on October 6. The Spartan, the tragic hero, victim of his own hubris, might have kept himself in the Top Three Riders conversation. Instead, he is now flirting with becoming one of those sideshow guys like the late-stage Randy de Puniet, who could qualify the hell out of a bike only to finish 14th every time out.
Rossi Prevails over Ezpeleta re Mexico
August 27, 2018This, from MotoGP.com:
“No new circuits planned for provisional 2019 calendar
A first glimpse of next season will be revealed at the San Marino GP.
The provisional calendar for 2019 will soon be announced, with the initial release scheduled for the Gran Premio di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini on the 7th to 9th September. The calendar will be based on the current 19 Grands Prix contested in 2018.
That will lay further foundations for next year, with winter test dates already announced and the provisional calendar then getting us in gear for another stunning season.”
Ahem. Readers will recall the announcement several weeks ago that a Mexican round would be added in 2019 as the Finnish track will not be ready. Readers will also recall that Valentino Rossi immediately went on record opposing the addition, referring to it as a crappy track in a very dangerous neighborhood, i.e., Mexico.
We wondered at the time if Vale still had enough swing to override Carmelo Ezpeleta on this subject.
Joan Mir – Alien in Waiting
May 22, 2018© Bruce Allen May 22, 2018
Young Joan Mir, age 20, is about to have his ticket punched. As a Twitter friend says, “Dude’s bank account gonna get laced.”
Joan Mir, winning the Moto3 trophy easily in 2017.
This young Spaniard has been killing it at every level. He won the Moto3 title at age 19 without breaking much of a sweat. Like Marc Marquez, he seems to be playing chess while everyone else is playing checkers. We have been jocking him as a future Alien for a few years now. And after his maiden Moto2 podium last week at Le Mans, he is now an artículo caliente.
We had heard that Honda was interested in signing him to ride alongside Marquez beginning in 2019, forcing Dani Pedrosa to some kind of Plan B. We had also heard of interest from Suzuki, to have Mir join Rins on the factory team, until Lorenzo’s name started popping up in connection with Suzuki. Now we learn that Ducati is interested, too, that there are now three suitors for Mr. Joan’s services.
It is said that it would be hard to be Marc Marquez’s teammate. But HRC, having lost out in the Zarco lottery, cannot afford to pass on this young man. He practices for hours on 1000cc bikes. If he doesn’t get promoted this year, given the standard two year deals available on the top premier class teams, he would have to wait until 2021 to move up. Too long. Too much talent.
So, who will end up with Joan Mir on a factory ride next season? Mir, who is already contracted directly with Honda rather than the Estrella Galicia Moto2 team, is likely to join Repsol Honda. Suzuki will probably have to give a shot to Lorenzo. And Ducati will be better off with Dovi and Petrucci than Dovi and Mir. The Desmo can still be a career-buster; not referring to Jorge Lorenzo here.
Putting Lorenzo on a GP17 last year, after nine years refining his technique on the Yamaha, was like telling your all-star pitcher to start throwing with his glove hand. Just a simply terrible idea. Worse yet, Jorge and Ducati had just seen it only a few years earlier in the failed Valentino Rossi experiment. That Lorenzo would willingly repeat the career-busting change, for filthy lucre and ego, suggests he is now sleeping in a bed he made himself. He is more likely to be successful on the improving Suzuki than he ever will be on the Ducati, which has him thoroughly spooked.
Anyway, Joan Mir. Alien-in-waiting. Will he be wearing red, white, black and orange next season? Teal Blue? Bright red?
A Wingman is a Wingman
September 5, 2017News coming out of the Ducati cabal is that Jorge Lorenzo, he of the three (3) MotoGP world championships, would be willing to accept “team orders” in order to help teammate Andrea Dovizioso secure the world championship for his employer. This is headline-type stuff, if true. Lorenzo, fiercely proud and defiant, would seem metabolically-unsuited to serve as wingman for anyone, including/especially a teammate. Such thinking runs counter to the #1 rule of racing which is to always, no matter what, try to beat your teammate.
Jorge Lorenzo, The Great Usurper, in better days.
Lorenzo, true to form, allegedly says, yes, it is true, but the time, she is not right. If, at some point in the season, it is clear Dovi’s situation is blah blah blah…then I will be happy to help him in any way I can wah wah wah. Which is another way of suggesting Ducati take their team rules and sit on them. Either you’re a wingman or you’re not.
Let’s just say we find Lorenzo hunting Dovizioso on Lap 17 of Sunday’s race. Marquez and Pedrosa are in the mix, but we’re watching the two Ducati riders. Should Lorenzo attack #04 and possibly cause contact, or even worse, collection, how would management react? Part of the money they’re paying Lorenzo is for that overwhelming competitive nature in which his lizard brain takes over and he becomes lost in the moment, at breathtaking speeds, doing what he loves to do, as well, occasionally now, as anyone ever has.
So big money Jorge Lorenzo, goes the headline, is willing to accept team orders to protect Andrea Dovizioso, his putative understudy at the beginning of the season. Right. Lorenzo, after years of working for the Japanese, says yes but means no. Put Lorenzo up there in the mix at the end of the race and he’s going to go for greatness. It’s in his genes. He needs a win in the worst possible way. He’s got the grunt, now, for corner exit and long straights. He’s on a bike that has proven itself competitive at pretty much every track on the schedule, some, such as Austria, ridiculously so.
Lorenzo: Team orders. Good one. I’ve got your team orders right here.
Rossi, Vinales: Crossing the Line
April 19, 2017© Bruce Allen
As teammates, the relationship between Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi cannot end well.
Back in college, we econ majors spent most of our time constructing simplistic models and graphs. Within the current composition of the Movistar Yamaha team, we are watching an accelerated version of what some of us feared might be in store for Rossi. His line, over time, having been very high for years, beginning to acquire a slightly negative slope after a strong upswing following the Ducati debacle. Vinales’ line has a short, sharply positive slope. That he will soon eclipse Rossi on a consistent basis is clear; the two lines may have already crossed.
Since last November, Rossi’s relationship with the rookie has been threatened by the Spaniard’s sheer precociousness, the same occasionally-breathtaking response we got in 2013 when Marquez and his Repsol Honda exploded onto the scene. A fulcrum point in modern MotoGP history. An obvious upsetting of the existing Order of Things. The whole mentor/apprentice shtick advertised by Yamaha suits at the approach of winter testing lasted until, well, the very first test.
We are now at the stage where the two are competitors, likely well on their way to becoming rivals, given Rossi’s territoriality in the Yamaha garage. Bit of a replay of Lorenzo’s arrival in 2008 and the advent of the legendary wall in the garage which turned out, after all, to have been at Bridgestone’s request, something having to do with data cross-pollination.
As Lorenzo improved and titled, he and Rossi and learned to despise one another. Rossi, the marketing machine, prevailed at age 37 or whatever.
This time around, it appears inevitable that Rossi will complete the circle, morphing from mentor to competitor to bitch. Vale is only going to get older. Vinales is only going to get better.
This relationship cannot end well.
MotoGP 2017 Qatar Results
March 26, 2017© Bruce Allen. Exclusive to Motorcycle.com
Maverick Viñales Starts his Own Era
Movistar Yamaha’s new kid on the block, Maverick Viñales, did to the field of the 2017 Grand Prix of Qatar what he’s done ever since he first placed his bum on the saddle of the YZR-M1 last November. He ended the day at the top of the timesheets, having outdueled factory Ducati #1 Andrea Dovizioso over the last eight laps of the race. In the process, he took the lead in the 2017 championship and initiated what is likely to become known as The Viñales Years.
Saturday Washout
Weather conditions on Saturday evening in metropolitan Doha area were so foul that FP4, Q1, and Q2 were all scrubbed, leaving the combined results from the three completed practices as a proxy for the starting grid, to the immense dismay of Valentino Rossi, Jorge Lorenzo, Alex Rins and, one expects, Cal Crutchlow. Scott Redding, having led QP3, was overheard wandering the paddock in the wee hours, sniffing about how he COULD have taken the pole and it’s just so unfair.
Whatever. Behind the front row, at least, the starting grid was a random collection of hardware and talent. An unexpected way to start the season. In an unfriendly locale, with Aliens Rossi and Lorenzo pedaling hard on the fourth row. And the impudent Johann Zarco comfortably seated in fourth.
Rain in the Desert
The weather was bad enough on Saturday to scrub everything in all classes, a veritable gullywasher of a day. And here I thought the ONLY good thing about racing here is that at least you don’t have to worry about rain. Sunday came along with much more teasing kinds of conditions–spitting rain, breezy, high humidity, scudding clouds. Just as the Moto2 tilt (won by Franco Morbidelli for his first Moto2 victory) was ending, it started sprinkling.
Dorna and FIM executives began hemming and hawing. Riders started calling their garages for tires, making changes on the track. The bikes left the track, the bikes re-entered the track. The race was shortened from 22 to 21 laps, then to 20 with two warm-up laps, by which time the rain had mostly stopped. Several riders watched the red lights go out with tires they had never, or barely, ridden, traction and wear issues all over the place. Madness was in the air.
A Rookie Leads at the Start
Andrea Iannone won the hole shot, but as the field headed towards Turns 2 and 3 one of the Tech 3 Yamahas materialized at the front, accompanied by the animated shouting of announcer Nick Harris, “Johann Zarco leads the Grand Prix of Qatar!” Madness! Zarco was followed in close order by Marc Marquez, Iannone, Andrea Dovizioso on the Ducati, and Viñales, who was keeping his powder dry within shouting distance of the front.
By Lap 6, Zarco was looking very relaxed, trailed by Dovizioso, Marquez, Iannone, Viñales and, of all people, Valentino Rossi, who had started 10th but worked himself up close to the lead group. The law of averages suddenly made its presence felt, as Zarco crashed out of the lead on Lap 7. Then there were five. Having picked my boy Cal Crutchlow to finish on the podium today, he took revenge on me for past insults, real and imagined, by crashing out on Lap 4. Crashlow got back up and immediately crashed again on his Lap 5 for good measure.
Viñales Prevails
With Dovizioso leading by mid-race, Iannone and Marquez traded a little paint here and there, just like the old days, while the two factory Yamahas lurked in fourth and fifth places. Almost on cue, on Lap 10 Iannone had an unforced lowside in Turn 7 and crashed out of podium contention.
The last eight laps were outstanding. While Marquez faded to fourth, never appearing totally comfortable with his tires, Dovi and Viñales began enjoying a number of close encounters, Rossi hanging back, appearing to wait for something to happen in front of him. Viñales would take the lead around Turn 6 and keep it through Turn 16, after which Dovizioso would blow by him on the main straight and take the lead heading into Turn 1. This continued until the two riders entered Turn 1 on the last lap with Viñales in the lead. He held it all the way, in and through Turn 16, and took the win by half a second. A legend, as the expression goes, is born.
Elsewhere on the Grid
Dani Pedrosa has had worse days than today. With little expected from him, he qualified seventh, spent the early part of the race in mid-pack, then bided his time as guys started falling off in front of him, ultimately finishing fifth. Shades of Colin Edwards late in his career. Aleix Espargaro, in perhaps the best ride of the day, flogged his factory Aprilia from 15th position at the start to sixth at the finish, the best result for the team since they re-entered MotoGP last year. Scott Redding scored a heartening seventh on his Ducati GP16, Jack Miller (we are officially amazed) was eighth on the Marc VDS Honda, and my boy Alex Rins held onto his Suzuki well enough all day for ninth place, becoming the leading rookie for the season.
For other riders, the 2017 opener was forgettable. Crashers include Crutchlow (2), Iannone, Zarco and Bautista, while Danilo Petucci had to retire his GP17 with mechanical issues. The KTM team of Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith was saved from the indignity of finishing last and next-to-last only by the futility of Sam Lowes, who delivered his own Aprilia to the finish line some 40 seconds behind teammate Aleix, and was the last rider to cross the line. Out of the points and, hopefully, dissuaded from any illusion that he might score more than 20 points all year.
We would be derelict in our reportorial duties were we to fail to mention that triple world champion Jorge Lorenzo, in his debut with his new Italian employer, started 12th, had four guys in front of him crash out or retire, and finished 11th, 20 seconds behind teammate Dovizioso. We know rain gives Jorge the yips. Now, it appears that high humidity does the same thing. And, lest readers assume this is just a Qatarian anomaly, it is true that Lorenzo won here last year from pole. Just sayin’.
The Big Picture
Having been burned in the past, we must be careful to draw too many conclusions from what occurred tonight. We learned, or confirmed our suspicions about, several things:
- Maverick Viñales is a baller.
- Valentino Rossi at age 38 is about as good as anyone out there.
- The Suzuki can compete for wins.
- Andrea Dovizioso is the #1 rider on the factory Ducati team.
- We have been underestimating Johann Zarco since November.
In two weeks the grid heads off to Argentina for its annual Bungle in the Jungle. Rio Hondo is a Honda-friendly circuit, as is Austin two weeks later. Marc Marquez should win the next two races. If, instead, Maverick Viñales should win either, MotoGP is likely to have a new champion this year. And if it does, you can tell your grandkids you watched Maverick win the very first race of The Viñales Years.
Late-Braking MotoGP 