Late-Braking MotoGP

© Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com

Marquez, Honda Dominate Czech GP

The 2017 Czech Motorcycle Grand Prix, after much pre-race sturm und drang, turned out to be a fascinating six-lap race with a 16-lap warm down. Series leader Marc Marquez, with the best meteorologists of any crew, pitted at the end of Lap 2 and changed from soft rain tires to slicks before the thought occurred to many of his competitors. He summarily seized the lead on Lap 6 and never looked back.

As Sunday afternoon approached, the crews were in a collective lather trying to figure out the weather and pursuant tire combinations. Marquez changed from a hard rear rain tire to the soft while on the track, a minute before the sighting lap. Confusion reigned, the sky an off-putting combination of clear blue sunshine and heavy gray clouds. It was declared a Wet Race.

We have seen this before from the Repsol Honda crew. They out-thunk and out-worked the factory Ducati and Yamaha teams today, who had their #2 bikes set up for rain, while the Repsol team had both #2 bikes, #93 and #26, set up for the dry. Marquez, who has learned the hard way the benefits of pitting punctually on a drying track (see Phillip Island 2013, etc.), was the first to do so, Pedrosa the second, and rookie Johann Zarco the last of the frontrunners to come in.

A number of riders, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi among them, were forced to stay out longer than they wanted because their bikes weren’t ready. Lorenzo, especially, was hindered by his own team today. This must be unusually painful in that he had led the race from jump street for three laps, then was 19th for awhile before ultimately finishing another dismal 15th.

One of the best things about this sport is that the rider makes the decision when to come in for the change, despite the new messages flashing on his screen. Marquez seems to have an extra muscle that allows him to hit the apex, as it were, when it comes to these flag-to-flag events. And a crew that can roll with him.

Qualifying

Q2 was more or less predictable, given the heat. The battle for pole became one of circuit (Yamaha- and Ducati-friendly) vs. conditions (Honda heat), and conditions won out. Marquez unloaded his second consecutive (Sachsenring) pole lap with about a minute left, and nobody mounted a serious challenge after that. Rossi and Pedrosa had already completed the front row, while Dovizioso on the Ducati, LCR’s Crutchlow, nursing a damaged vertebra and Lonesome Jorge Lorenzo made up row two.

The Anointed Maverick Vinales, who had struggled all weekend, managed only the top of row three, along with Petrucci and Bautista, both of whom had passed through Q1 to get that far. Johann Zarco (Tech 3 Yamaha), Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) and Loris Baz (Avintia Ducati) completed the top 12.

Alex Rins (Suzuki) qualified in front of 10 other guys, since most of his fractures have now healed. Just sayin’. Brands that failed to make the grade yesterday included Jonas Folger (Tech 3), the indifferent Andrea Iannone (Suzuki) and Jack Miller (Honda), cooling his heels, anticipating climbing aboard a Ducati GP17 in November.

Down the line in Moto2 veteran Mattia Passini took pole for Kalex, trailed in short order by Miguel Oliveira (KTM) and Franco Morbidelli (Kalex). Oliveira has ridden the KTM factory MotoGP bike and claims to love it, as all good Moto2 riders should. He will find his way to MotoGP in short order. Morbidelli is already gone; Passini has been there, done that, got the T-shirt and got out of town.

Gabriel Rodrigo secured pole in Moto3, ahead of rising stars with names like Romano Fenati (2nd), Joan Mir (4th), Bulega, Bendsneyder and Di Giannantonio. In their customary frantic fashion, 23 riders qualified under 2:10, with six of those under 2:09. Closer than a rush-hour bus in August.

With Sunday barreling down on them, the MotoGP riders went to bed Saturday night not knowing what to expect in the way of weather when they woke up on Sunday. Or tire choices. Or race strategy. Or anything much beyond the fact that Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi had qualified one-two and were sharpening their blades, smiles in place, for Sunday’s soiree.

Aliens Flirt with Disaster

With Marquez disappearing from sight and the 2017 title up for grabs, the other contenders spent an alarming amount of time not contending today before making impressive saves. Dani Pedrosa sat in 8th place for a couple of early laps. Vinales was loitering as low as 13th on Lap 5. Rossi, who led briefly early, returned from his pit in 14th place, 28 seconds behind Marquez. That he made it back to 4th place at the flag is testament to his continued excellence at making lemonade out of lemons. Andrea Dovizioso, who I had expected to fight for the win today, finished Lap 6 in 15th place before rallying to 6th. All had the pace. None had the crew or, for that matter, the rider.

Both Pedrosa and Marquez gained ground on the Aliens today. Cal Crutchlow’s gritty performance, nursing a very sore back and taking 5th place, gave Honda three of the top five finishers at a track not particularly well-suited to the bikes strengths, which are few. The Tech 3 Yamaha rookies Zarco and Folger, either of which I had predicted could win today’s race, made a hash of things, with Folger crossing the line in 10th and Zarco limping home 12th. Zarco spent a few early laps in podiumland and too many laps before pitting. If you look up the noun “rookie mistake” in the dictionary, you’ll see his devilishly handsome face with his name in parentheses below it.

Elsewhere on the Grid

My boy Alex Rins finished in the points in 11th place. Depending on how the season ends, it is not out of the question that he could challenge Zarco and Folger for ROY consideration. Danilo Petrucci, running as high as 3rd in the early going, got passed by five riders, easy as you please, on his way to 7th place. Aleix Espargaro, who had been very high on the leader board early, got tangled up with Andrea Iannone in pit lane, was penalized three positions (for an error by his crew, releasing him at the wrong time) and still managed 8th place, miles ahead of teammate Sam Lowes and, more importantly, directly in front of little brother Pol on the KTM, who had to be happy for a top ten finish regardless.

The Big Picture

Yesterday, Marc Marquez had three Aliens sitting within 10 points of him, all slavering away at the idea of unseating him today at Brno. And while Dani Pedrosa lost ground to him (-26 to -31), the Repsol Honda duo gained ground on everyone else, including Dovizioso and the Yamahas. The order of the top five riders hasn’t changed, but Marquez now leads Vinales by 14, Dovizioso and Rossi by 20-something, and Pedrosa by over 30. For the triple world champion, who trailed Vinales by 37 points after Round 2, it’s getting easier to breathe. He looks and sounds like 2015 was a fluke and that he is, in fact, King of the Universe. Maverick Vinales may have to wait his turn.

Moto2 and Moto3 Results

The Moto3 championship became a, ahem, Mir formality as the brilliant young Spanish series leader held off hotheaded Italian Romano Fenati in a bit of a damp clinic on how to punk your rival. Fenati is officially the second-best rider in Moto3, as he has now finished second in four races in a row and five for the year. Oh, and Nicola Bulega plays up his resemblance to Steven Tyler of Aerosmith and has the best hair in Moto3. That’s it.

Today’s Moto2 race was red-flagged due to rain and re-started as a six-lap sprint. Mattia Pasini and Franco Morbidelli had the first race by the throat, but both got splattered in the sprint, Pasini crashing out and Morbidelli getting swamped all the way down to eighth. Veteran Thomas Luthi took advantage of series leader Morbidelli’s travails, winning easily and cutting his deficit to the Italian in half.

On to Austria

Testing at Brno tomorrow for some of the teams, then back at it again on Friday at The Red Bull Ring, the Bonneville Salt Flats of MotoGP, in scenic Spielberg, Austria. Last year Iannone and Dovizioso made it a Dueling Andreas sweep for Ducati. With Iannone busy working himself out of a job at Suzuki, and Jorge Lorenzo stumbling around the Ducati garage with his fly down, it is up to Dovizioso and Petrucci to carry the flag next week. The factory Yamahas of Vinales and Rossi will be feeling the pressure of dealing with Marc Marquez who, at this point, should mainly be interested in trying to beat Vinales every time out.

Marquez, on the other hand, will be feeling little pressure heading to Schnitzeland. A podium there would be nice but not necessary. Keeping the shiny side up and finishing the race are important, while keeping a close eye on Vinales is just good business.

We will have a fresh new set of tranches ready for you by mid-week as we gear up for Round 11 in Austria.

Let Valencia Decide.

Brno’s Luscious Curves Portend a Great Race

MotoGP has been cleared for landing at historic Brno, nestled in the rolling Moravian region of the Czech Republic and host to the most widely-attended GP on the calendar. Five riders have formed the first group, tight as ticks, but the next two races favor the Yamahas and Ducatis. If Marc Marquez can hold serve this week and next, his chances of a title in 2017 will take a great leap forward. Chápeš? ¿Entiendes?

Recent History at Brno

Brno was where Marquez’ amazing 2014 win streak came to a curious halt at 10 by way of a fourth place finish that was utterly mystifying. #93 led most of the practice sessions and qualified on pole. Again. Having watched the race pretty carefully, it appeared to me that he just wasn’t that into it, that he let himself be beaten rather than trying to extend a streak that tested belief. It was Pedrosa’s first win in 10 months, his last having come at Sepang in 2013, edging Lorenzo by a few tenths and Rossi by five seconds. Those were the days when Marquez routinely rode out of control, and we saw none of that at Brno.

The 2015 race gave the crowd of 138,000 a rather disappointing high-speed parade; six of the top 8 starters crossed the line in the same position they started. One of these was polesitter Jorge Lorenzo, who flogged his Yamaha YZR-M1 to the fastest lap ever recorded at Brno on two wheels in qualifying on Saturday. Leading, as if on rails, from wire to wire, Lorenzo pulled into a tie with teammate Valentino Rossi for the 2015 world championship and, holding the tiebreaker, pushed Rossi out of the lead for the first time that year. Marquez and Rossi joined Lorenzo on the podium that day.

Last year: With three wet/dry races in the previous four rounds, MotoGP fans had been getting accustomed to strange results. Aussie Jack Miller came out of nowhere to win at Assen on his satellite Honda. Marc Marquez held serve at The Sachsenring joined on the podium by Cal Crutchlow and Ducati pilot Andrea Dovizioso. At Brno, the abrasive #CalCulator won his first ever premier class race ahead of Yamaha icon Valentino Rossi and Marquez. Cosmic justice prevailed—the biggest day in modern British racing history had virtually no impact on the 2016 season series. It did allow Crutchlow’s inclusion in the following chart.

RIDER PERFORMANCE: 1ST HALF VS. 2ND HALF
RIDER/YEAR     2013        2014          2015        2016       2017****
MARQUEZ     163/171*  225/137*  114/128  170/128*    129
ROSSI             117/120    141/154    179/146   111/138     119
LORENZO      137/193      97/166    166/164* 122/111       65
PEDROSA       147/153      148/98      67/139     96/59       103
DOVIZIOSO       81/59        99/88         87/55    59/112      123
CRUTCHLOW  116/72       28/46         66/59     40/101       64
VINALES          158/165** 120/154*** 57/40   83/119     124
*World Champion
**Moto3
***Moto2
****After 9 rounds
Better second half than first half. It should be noted that Marquez had the sandbox to himself in 2014 and 2016 and had no need to push during the second half of those seasons.

If Dovi finishes ahead of Rossi this year it will be a passing of the torch. Not necessarily to Dovi, but surely from Rossi. Vale, I fear, will be enticed to keep racing a year or two past his sell date. Perhaps schooling some Italian Moto2 grad on his own Sky VR46 team (a Suzuki satellite team?) without having to get out of the saddle. Until the student starts schooling the teacher. Paging Pecco Bagnaia. (BTW, Dovi’s second half has been worse than the first in three of the last four years. Rossi will probably beat him. Just sayin’.)

Pedrosa’s best days, too, are behind him. Iannone needs a different bike. Rins too early to say. Lorenzo looking lost. Talk of Petrucci replacing Lorenzo in 2018 is rampant. #09 is a hot ticket these days.

Silly Season in Motion

Alex Marquez and Joan Mir will team up together next season in Moto2 with Estrella Galicia Marc VDS. Should be formidable from jump street. Morbidelli takes over for Rabat at Marc VDS MotoGP, Rabat said to be negotiating a contract with Avintia or Aspar Ducati, whatever. Same with Miller, now signed with Pramac, moving Redding along. Appears Baz is toast, as Zarco is the new and improved token Frenchman. Taka Nakagami, moving up from Moto2, may be a done deal as the number two Honda rider for LCR alongside Crutchlow. Nakagami’s results have been so-so, but his nationality is perfect.

Herve Poncharal stands pat at Tech 3 Yamaha—who wouldn’t–as does Lin Jarvis at the factory Yamaha team and Livio Suppo at Repsol Honda. LCR keeps Crutchlow and adds Nakagami. Marc VDS drops Rabat, Honda shows Miller the door, and the team adds Morbidelli plus one more. Most every other team either has an opening for next season or appears willing to create one if the right rider comes along. This includes the factory Ducati team which, it is said, covets Petrucci in the worst way. Possibly enough to pay JLo to go away. Ahem… Enough to buy JLo out of his current contract. That’s better.

The answer, in my opinion, is for Lorenzo and Petrucci to switch teams for 2018, both keeping their current contracts and crews. Petrucci is able to give much better data than Lorenzo, and Ducati would have its competitive all-Italian team of Dovi and Petrux in place, finally. Lorenzo will come around or he won’t before leaving for greener pastures in 2019.

Bautista looking credible at mid-season, will stay with Aspar in 2018. The Excitable Romano Fenati moves up to Moto2 looking super-fast, highly volatile, and very special. Redding in the wind, feelings bruised. Rabat lining up a new deal. Barbera, Baz, hoping. Aprilia looks to stay put, as will KTM. Iannone must be gone at Suzuki, to be replaced by someone from Moto2; Rins stays. Lorenzo spends another year with Ducati in purgatory as Dovi fights for titles. The candidate to succeed Pedrosa on the Repsol Honda team will soon emerge; it is no longer Miller. It could conceivably be Mir or little brother #73 Alex Marquez, who is finally getting Moto2 figured out. One of the wildcards for 2018 is Rins, who could be nothing or could be, on a faster bike, a top ten threat.

Your Weekend Forecast

I can’t fully believe I’m saying this, but this could be the week Tech 3 gets their first MotoGP win. This is a good track for them, and Folger came pretty close to winning in Germany. No meteorological weirdness to juggle the outcome.

This part of the world is in the midst of a prolonged hot, dry spell, and the long range weather forecast is for those conditions to continue, to the delight of the Honda contingent. The top four—Marquez, Vinales, Dovizioso and Rossi—should be rated more-or-less evenly heading into the race. They’ve all won, they’ve all crashed, they’ve all led the 2017 season, and they all REALLY need to avoid a bad start to the back nine. Plenty of pressure to go around. Dani Pedrosa and Cal Crutchlow like it hot on their Hondas.

Bring it on. The race goes off early AM on the US east coast, and we’ll have results here as soon as the fog clears.

© Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com

Here we compare the championship standings at the midpoint of the season to our pre-season projections, team by team. Those projections, posted back in February, were surprisingly good. A few riders were overrated, a few underrated, but overall things have proceeded in a fairly orderly manner. Those of you who disagree should post your own first half predictions, keeping in mind that hindsight is almost always 20/20.

Aprilia Racing Team Gresini

Expectations for Fausto Gresini’s 2017 MotoGP team were pretty low coming into the season; the advice “bring a book” comes to mind. I expected Aleix Espargaro to be the #1 rider and Sad Sam Lowes a distant #2. Few surprises here. Espargaro has gotten more from the RS-GP than has Lowes, who may become unemployed on November 13. The Aprilia continues to have pneumatic valve issues which have hampered Espargaro’s results.

Espargaro has enjoyed his best outings at Qatar, Catalunya and The Sachsenring, three different layouts, suggesting he can produce in all kinds of conditions. He could be a top ten threat next year on an improved bike. For now, he’s just making me look good.

Ducati Factory Team

One of the good news/bad news teams this year. Andrea Dovizioso, the underpaid #1 rider, has assumed Alien status and is toiling at the heart of the championship race, with Brno and Red Bull Ring, two friendly tracks, in his immediate future. Jorge Lorenzo, on the other hand, has found the transition from the Yamaha more than a little difficult. He has a Wicked Witch of the West-sized hole in his game—when it rains, he melts to the bottom of the grid. He currently occupies ninth position for the year in a dog-eat-dog fight for eighth. Ho hum. Management, I hear, expected something more for their mega-euros when they hired the triple world champion.

The Lorenzo-Ducati marriage, it seems, was not made in heaven. Presuming he runs away at the end of 2018, it’s anybody’s guess where he may end up thereafter; retirement is not beyond reason. As for our preview, the salient observation was “…the odds favor (Dovi) to finish ahead of Lorenzo this season.”

LCR Honda

Cal Crutchlow, my whipping boy, who upped his game in 2016, apparently out of spite, won twice last year (Brno, Phillip Island) and finished the season in seventh position, despite bookending his efforts with two DNFs to start the year and two more to finish it. Sitting tenth this season, with two front row starts and no wins, he has been punked by the precocious Yamaha Tech 3 rookie duo of Folger and Zarco. I expected more production from Cal this season (although in 2016 his second half was way better than the first) despite having observed, “With Vinales added to the mix at the top, I don’t expect Cal to win two races again” in 2017. I still don’t.

Marc VDS Racing Team

This team has performed about as expected. Terribly. Tito Rabat, #2 to Jack Miller on the satellite Hondas, was at some point deemed a bust. Finally. As for Miller, the Australian Unguided Missile has worn out his welcome with Honda, and will join Danilo Petrucci on the #2 Pramac Ducati next year, sending Scott Redding packing. Having met Miller, he has a Trojan spirit, he adores the sport and the trappings that go with it; he lives life at high RPMs. Despite five top ten finishes, his two DNFs and assorted maladies put him solidly in 12th place at the turn, the exact midpoint where he deserves to stand. A fluky win at Assen in 2016 was, in the end, all that stood between him and ritual hari-kiri at headquarters. His signing by the #2 Ducati team portends plenty more casts and titanium plates for the young Aussie.

My prediction for the team’s 2017 campaign, which has been distinguished only by its utter lack of distinction, suggested Miller is over-rated and that the MotoGP team might go out of business sooner than had been hoped. Mostly wrong, but the piece ended well:

This team could be out of existence in a year or two, providing an opportunity for the moon, the sun and the stars to align in such a way that, as Dani Pedrosa’s contract on the factory Honda team expires, young Miller is standing at the door, kindly showing him the way out. A national day of celebration will follow in Australia, one in which Livio Suppo, team boss at Repsol Honda, having been out-voted by marketing folks seeking an Australian Alien, may not be participating.

The team is going into 2018 with Franco Morbidelli, coming up rock solid from Moto2, assured, and a second rider to be named later. Meanwhile, the Estella Galicia Moto2 team will feature Alex Marquez and Joan Mir, currently leading the Moto3 series, in 2018, which will be great fun, too.

Where was I?

Monster Yamaha Tech 3

By far, the best and biggest surprise of the season. Expectations were minimal—two Moto2 grads on satellite Yamahas—despite positive off-season testing. But Johann Zarco and Jonas Folger are making the affable Herve Poncharal look brilliant, and are already signed for 2018. The team has accumulated front-row starts and podiums, with wins narrowly evading them at their home cribs in France and Germany.

I had Zarco and Alex Rins on the factory Suzuki battling for Rookie of the Year honors. Instead, Rins keeps getting banged up—despite having the reliable Iannone as his wingman—and hasn’t been able to show anything. (I thought Rins was brilliant in Moto2, but so was Toni Elias.) Instead, the Yamaha teammates are going mano-a-mano for Alien consideration in the foreseeable future.

The Tech 3 rookies stand sixth and seventh at the turn. Zarco’s season has had a great start, while Folger, on a steeper learning curve, has become utterly impudent as the season progressed, with a second at Sachsenring to close out his front nine. Despite trailing his teammate by 13 points, he has, as my old friend used to say, Mo Mentum on his side. Many people think the 2016 Yamaha outperforms the 2017 Honda RC213V.

This is just great stuff.

MoviStar Yamaha Factory Team

No big surprises here. Maverick Vinales, The Annointed One, sits second. Valentino Rossi, The Legend Himself, sits fourth in an airtight four-man race. A number of publications conceded the 2017 title to Vinales on the basis of his impressive offseason. I remember when young hotshot Jorge Lorenzo joined the Fiat Yamaha factory team in 2008, seeing him flying over the handlebars in China. Rossi, as per usual, defies most lucid projections and continues to appear on the podium—four times, with a win in Germany allowing him to stay in the hunt at the turn. Spain and France have been unkind to him this season, but he is most definitely in the hunt. Again.

Say you’re leading a race you’re not expected to win, you being you and them being them, and you see a rider coming up hard behind you. Half a lap to go. Would Rossi, Marquez, Vinales or Dovizioso cause you to foul your leathers most quickly? For most of the past decade, it has been Rossi. As we said in February, “He will undoubtedly win some races this year, but may lose the season contest with his teammate, effectively ending their friendship for all time.”

Octo Pramac Yakhnich Ducati

Nailed it.

The #2 Ducati team. Danilo Petrucci, the burly ex-cop, may find himself in the mix once in a while (probably in the rain) this season onboard the GP17 he won fair and square in the intra-team competition with Scott Redding last year. Redding, sadly, will not be in the mix on his GP16, as he seems unable to get over the hump in the premier class after a glittering (?) run in Moto2. With three name sponsors, it seems likely the team will have plenty of frames and fairings to replace for Redding as he goes bumping around the tracks of the world, muttering about how it just isn’t fair.

Petrucci currently sits eighth, exuding an aura that radiates his belief he could rank even higher but for some atrocious luck. Redding, as expected, is toast, his seat being taken by Jack Miller for 2018.

Pull & Bear Aspar Team Ducati

The Team has recently re-signed Alvaro Bautista for 2018 and has noticeably not yet done the same with Loris “Too Tall” Baz. Baz has had a disappointing front nine, while Bautista, on the GP16, has performed, at times, better-than-expected in his inimitable win-or-bin style. Four DNFs and four top tens. As we said in February, “Bautista has, over the years, shown moments of great skill and moments of sheer stupidity. This year…he has a chance to peek at a podium or two after two grinding years with Aprilia. This may also be the best bike HE has ever ridden, although the Honda back in 2012-2013 was badass.”

Bautista in 11th and Baz in 15th should surprise no one. Expect more of the same in the second half.

Reale Avintia Racing

Two ordinary peas in a pod, back-markers both. Hector Barbera had an encouraging off-season, while Karel Abraham, on a Ducati GP-15, despite having somehow found himself qualifying on the front row in Argentina (probably suspecting his food had been laced) didn’t. Barbera started the season injured and has never seemed to recover. Abraham brings tons of sponsorship money and little else. He is, however, the only rider of which I’m familiar who has completed a MotoGP-to-WSBK-to-MotoGP switch. Marco Melandri? That’s saying something, I’m sure.

Both riders are on one-year deals and are vulnerable. Plenty to contend with in the second half for these two; lots of young Spanish and Italian guys want to ride these beasts.

Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Our pre-season preview ended the review of this team with the words, “Patience, grasshopper.” Which seems to be in vogue this year, as KTM appears determined to invest what it needs to become a force in MotoGP the way it has been in the underclasses. (It may also be true that a diversion of R&D resources to the MotoGP project has contributed to the factory’s dismal performance in Moto2 of late.)

Espargaro has had the better of Smith this season, as expected, although both are wallerin’ at the bottom of the food chain. Which, in this crazy sport, amounts to two seconds per lap, give or take.

Gotta love it.

Repsol Honda Team

Marquez leads the series at the break, perhaps a mild surprise after a slow start. Dani Pedrosa has morphed into late-career Colin Edwards, a reliable fifth place guy, sometimes above on the podium, sometimes below. He copped a surprising win at Jerez, and sits, well, fifth in the standings, trailing Rossi in fourth by 16 points. I hate to say it, but Pedrosa gets hurt almost every year. The prediction of him ending the year in seventh or eighth place is still good. IMO.

I said Marquez would have to beat the contenders on an inferior machine. He is doing so. Vinales is in his first year on the Yamaha, while #93 is in year five. Put them on the same machine in a series of 10-lap match races and Marquez would win six out of ten. A mature Marquez has learned to accept those days where he’s not going to win the race. Heart-stopping saves are his stock in trade. When he spins the ass end of the bike out entering the turns you just know somethin’s up.

Waiting for the chin slider.

Team SUZUKI ECSTAR

Walk-off winner of the Biggest Disappointment of the Year award, the program has seen Moto2 honors grad Alex Rins suffer several crash-related injuries, while transfer Andrea Iannone, the Italian Unguided Missile, has clearly called it a year on the Suzuki. He has been accused of simply going through the motions of racing. He has not protested those accusations forcefully.

I predicted Rins would challenge Zarco for Rookie of the Year. Right. As for Iannone, “Thus far in his premier class career, Iannone has been unable to harness his impossible speed, his temperament and aggressiveness often getting the better of him. It would be loads of fun to see him battle with the front group this season, and it could happen. Unless The Maniac is still, well, a maniac.”

I would guess it is difficult being Andrea Iannone these days. His is a bad bike/rider fit. He would do better on something faster, a satellite Ducati or Honda. As things stand Rins is still healing, while Iannone is imploding. This for a team that carried Vinales to a fourth place finish just last season, whose future was rapidly brightening.

A setback first half for the factory Suzuki project. Rins likely has a free pass for the rest of the year. It’s Iannone who must put up or shut up. He and Lorenzo are having to learn how to hit fastballs and curves from the opposite side of the plate. At 200 miles per hour.

Ain’t no cryin’ in MotoGP.

Just Sayin’

From the Motorcycle.com 2017 season preview summary:

February 22, 2017

There you have it. Due to incessant demand, and for those of you interested in going into debt with your bookies, here’s my prediction for the Top (Five) finishers, in order, for the 2017 season. Bookmark this article so you can rub it in my face in November. Expect a 404 Error Page Not Found at that time, especially if I’m way off:

1. Marc Marquez
2. Maverick Vinales
3. Valentino Rossi
4. Andrea Dovizioso
5. Cal Crutchlow

I had actually predicted the top ten, but the second five are now scrambled eggs I don’t feel like re-posting. Not what I expected. For the record, and completely out of order, the names included Iannone, Rins, Pedrosa, Bautista and, ahem, Lorenzo. Vinales was not picked to win the 2017 title because, somewhere, I predicted he would crash out of four races. Who knew the 2016 Yamaha would be such a beast?

So far so good here at Motorcycle.com in 2017. Looking forward to Brno and a raging second half. MotoGP needs some kind of phrase that people around the world can shout to support the universal hope that Round 18 in Valencia will be for all the marbles, that the 2017 season will all come down to one Sunday. One race. One lap. One turn. I am happy to suggest

Let Valencia Decide

If your favorite rider is in the mix that day, so much the better. No other motorsport offers competition like this. These guys are other-worldly.

For the second half, let’s hope things at the top stay tight. Imagine leaving Sepang in October with the four top riders separated by 10 points.

Let Valencia Decide.  Meanwhile, on to Brno.

© Bruce Allen.  Exclusive to Motorcycle.com

Marquez goes 8 for 8 in Germany, takes season lead

The Sachsenring (or Knockwurstring as it is sometimes referred to, by me) has been Marc Marquez’ personal playground for the past seven seasons. Make that eight, as the young Catalan survived some early challenges, patiently worked his way to the front, went through on Tech 3 Yamaha homeboy Jonas Folger midway through the race, and won going away.

With defending champion Marquez seizing the lead in the 2017 championship and the season standings tighter than wallpaper, MotoGP leaves for its seemingly endless summer vacation on a high note. After nine races, 10 points separate the top four riders. We have our third series leader in three rounds. Unpredictability rules the day, which is great for the fans and agony for the teams. For the riders and crews, every mistake is magnified, every risk taken another opportunity for disaster.

Compare all of this to a few years ago when there were one or two brands capable of winning races, joined by two or three competitive riders, a tiny little grid, and a bunch of field horses making up the numbers. When aging riders on lousy equipment could earn points a lap down on the field. It may be that we will someday look back upon these present years as the Golden Age of MotoGP.

Qualifying and Practice

As predicted, FP1 was dry, FP2 wet, and FP3 dry-ish; FP4 started dry and ended wet. Results varied wildly from session to session. The riders passing directly to Q2 included most of those we have ranked in the top ten at this point of the season. The two exceptions were 1) Aleix Espargaro, flogging the factory Aprilia in all conditions, while Johann Zarco struggled in all three sessions, and 2) Hector Barbera, who took Danilo Petrucci’s usual spot in Q2. Petrucci and Pol Espargaro on the KTM (!) passed through to Q2, the Italian with lots on his mind, the Spaniard thrilled to have escaped the mosh pit that constitutes the back of the grid when the lights go out.

This Petrucci guy, who just signed a new contract with Octo Pramac for next season, has been hanging around the front on Saturdays and Sundays for almost a month. Despite his disappointing outing today, the ex-cop has come of age in MotoGP. Meanwhile, ROY favorite Johann Zarco, reflecting the trouble France has always had with Germany, started 19th, firmly stuck in the mud with the entire Yamaha contingent save teammate and fellow rookie Jonas Folger, at his home crib, who started from the middle of the second row. Jorge Lorenzo, running at a Tranche 2 level in the dry, managed to secure sixth place on Saturday afternoon, dodging raindrops and praying the rosary for dry weather on Sunday.

Q2 itself started damp and ended less so. Petrucci held provisional pole as the session started winding down and riders started getting serious about grid position. And while Marquez, naturally, took the wind out of Petrucci’s sails with a strong finish—his eighth consecutive pole here—some of the other contenders ended the session in very strange places. Witness Valentino Rossi, series leader Andrea Dovizioso, and Maverick Vinales sitting 9th through 11th at the start. At a squinchy, cramped little joint like the Sausagering, that could be a problem for three of the top four riders. Dani Pedrosa, making me look bad yet again, pushed his Honda RC213V to third place for another front row start in Germany, to which he has become quite accustomed. He was clearly able to get sufficient heat in his tires by the end of the session to deem Q2 a success.

The Race—Plenty of Action, Few Surprises

After the usual high-octane rave party in the first two turns, the lead group emerged, comprised of Marquez and Pedrosa, one Jorge Lorenzo on soft tires, Tech 3 rookie Folger, Danilo Petrucci on the Pramac Ducati and Rossi, first of three Alien starters to emerge from the other side of the qualifying tracks. Once things got into a rhythm, both Repsol Hondas and Jonas Folger rose to the top of the heap, with Folger going through on Pedrosa in Lap 5 and Marquez himself on Lap 6, suddenly leading his home grand prix. WTF. Marquez took back the lead in Turn 1 of Lap 11, withstood 18 laps of consistent annoyance from Folger, and finally broke the rookie on Lap 29.

There was plenty of action a little farther back, involving mostly Yamahas and Ducatis trying to claw their way past one another into podium contention. A macro trend began to emerge, as the Yamahas, fuel loads dropping, started climbing the order, while the Ducatis, tires turning to wax, began falling back. Our crack-crazed research department tells us that at the end of Lap 3 there were two Ducs and one Yamaha in the top five. By the end of the day there were three Yamahas and no Ducs therein, with Alvaro Bautista, on an exemplary day supporting his high ranking on this site, the top Ducati finisher, in sixth place. Andrea Dovizioso, who started the day leading the championship, struggled to an eighth-place finish, three spots in front of demoralized teammate Jorge Lorenzo.

The Hondas were expected to do well today. They did—a win, and two on the podium—and might have done even better had the weather not cooled prior to the race. Not much was expected of the Yamahas, who delivered a mild surprise with all four bikes in the top ten and two in the top five. The Ducatis proved again, as if we need convincing, that tracks and conditions like these are poison for them.
Today offered the best opportunity to date for an Aleix Espargaro sighting on the podium, but he had trouble stopping his Aprilia all day, struggling nonetheless to a respectable seventh. And we look forward, with relish, to the interview with Cal Crutchlow explaining his tenth-place finish and identifying the corporate entity responsible for such a disgrace.

The Big Picture

The top four riders last week:

Dovi 115

Vinales 111

Rossi 108

Marquez 104

The Top four riders this week:

Marquez 129

Vinales 124

Dovi 123

Rossi 119

No matter who you root for in MotoGP, 2017 offers hope, opportunity and periodic high-quality gratification. Sr. Ezpeleta’s goal of parity, if not yet fully realized, seems to be progressing nicely. The expenses continue to be breathtaking. But the series is healthier than many other sports today because of the relative parity between the haves and the have-nots. Today’s second place finish by a (rookie) satellite rider [see Danilo Petrucci last week in Assen] says a lot; such a thing rarely happened 10 years ago. F1, by comparison, seems to be committing ritual suicide, coming up with new and different ways each year to become less appealing to fans.

One Last Tranche Before Vacation

After Round 8:

Tranche 1 Vinales, Marquez, Dovizioso, Rossi
Tranche 2 Zarco, Petrucci↑, Folger, Bautista, Pedrosa, Crutchlow↑
Tranche 3 Lorenzo↓, Redding, Barbera, Iannone, Miller↑
Tranche 4 Baz, A Espargaro, Abraham, Rabat
Tranche 5 P Espargaro, Smith, Lowes, Rins

After Round 9:

Tranche 1 Vinales, Marquez, Dovizioso, Rossi
Tranche 2 Zarco, Petrucci, Folger, Bautista, Pedrosa, Crutchlow
Tranche 3 Lorenzo, Barbera, Miller, A Espargaro↑
Tranche 4 Redding↓, Baz, Abraham, P Espargaro, Iannone↓
Tranche 5 Rabat↓, Smith, Lowes, Rins

Let’s not get too excited about Sunday’s results as regards the season-long tranchefest. The Sachsenring is an outlier—short and damp—and should be grouped with Losail and Austria as extreme circuits whose results should not be over-examined. Even so, Andrea Iannone should at least try to look interested in what’s going on with his career at Suzuki.

Next race is Brno in early August. We’ll have the race preview and a few words to say about the second half of the 2017 season earlier that week. Happy trails.