From my limited perspective–the kitchen table at my home in Indiana–it was an enjoyable last weekend in September/first weekend in October as MotoGP arrived in The Land of the Rising Sun. Something for every taste and budget, as it were. In the premier class, young Jorge Martin continued his assault on the 2023 title, elbowing his way to pole, another Sprint win, and being declared the winner of the red-flagged main event on Sunday. Somkiat Chantra led an Idimetsu Honda Team Asia 1-2 in an increasingly familiar Moto2 parade. My boy Jaume Masia won again in a tightly contested Moto3 tilt with the lightweight title chase tighter than bark on a tree.
The MotoGP race itself was a portrait of disorder at the start. The clouds and humidity which featured all weekend finally gave way to rain five minutes before the start, with all riders on slicks. Well, not ALL riders, as Luca Marini and Alex Marquez were absent, nursing injuries received in the Buddh steam bath last week. Anyway, when the red lights went out, the grid departed their starting spots as if they were skating on black ice, and the wet race white flags came out on Lap 1. All the serious riders immediately entered the pits, leaving Fabio Quartararo, Michele Pirro, Stefan Bradl, Franco Morbidelli and Cal Crutchlow circulating on their way to complete irrelevance on slicks, gambling with nothing to lose that the rain might suddenly, unexpectedly quit. Check the standings at the end of Lap 1–you’ll never see those numbers at the top again.
Martin occupied P4 at the end of Lap 2. By Lap 6, in the driving rain, he had sliced through the top of the order into P1 where he stayed through the end of Lap 12, at which point the race was red-flagged. Although a restart was possible, the conditions failed to improve sufficiently to allow it, probably to the relief of the riders. And so Pecco Bagnaia’s lead in the 2023 title chase was cut from 13 points on Friday to three points on Sunday evening. Marco Bezzecchi trails Martin by 48 with Brad Binder, who crashed today and gutted my fantasy team, another 13 points back, but still in it by my reckoning, with the nasty, life-threatening part of the schedule starting in less than two weeks.
Still no announcement as to Marc Marquez’ plans for 2024, despite assurances that they would be revealed by this weekend. Ditto for Pedro Acosta, as there is now some doubt that he will get his ticket punched for MotoGP next season. A bunch of riders will be getting promoted from Moto3 to Moto2 next year, as per usual. We took issue with the provisional 2024 calendar elsewhere this weekend, even before we become fully immersed in the brutal piece of the 2023 schedule starting next time out in Indonesia, where afternoon temps are reliably in the 90’s and the humidity is like a wet towel. As one of our faithful readers commented concerning the riders and their attitudes toward the killer schedule, beatings will continue until morale improves.
We have been banging on for some time about how quickly a solid lead in the 2023 championship can/could change, based upon a cramped calendar and venues with the climate of blast furnaces. Today, we may have seen what I’ve been talking about. This is about the untimely injury Pecco Bagnaia received in Turn 2 of Lap 1 of the Catalan Grand Prix, when he high-sided out of the lead in front of a harried group of riders with full fuel tanks and gritted teeth.
There was simply no way for Brad Binder to avoid striking the prone Bagnaia, running his KTM across the Italian’s legs. Luckily, this was not the crash that killed Marco Simoncelli at Sepang in 2012, when a bike ran across his neck, nor the fatal injury suffered by Shoya Tomizawa in 2010 when his chest was crushed in a 250cc race in San Marino. At the time this article was posted, doctors were saying nothing more than Bagnaia’s legs suffered injuries necessitating a CT scan to determine the extent of the damage. During the race, pit reporter Simon Crafar casually referred to Bagnaia’s injury as a mere “tib fib,” along the lines of the injury suffered by Alex Rins at Mugello in early June and which has kept him out of action since. HRC is hoping Rins will be fit for next week’s Misano tilt, which would mark three months since he was hurt.
If Pecco has a “tib fib” or two, his season is effectively over. The 66-point lead he enjoyed prior to today’s race will not hold up over the next 13 weeks. Everyone who knows this sport knows all it takes is the blink of an eye…If he somehow avoided a catastrophic injury today, he is likely out for two or three rounds anyway, meaning it is a brand new day in the premier class.
Lost in the sauce of today’s frightening events was the historic Aprilia 1-2, with Aleix Espargaro and your boy Cole Trickle (OKA Maverick Vinales) taking the top two steps of the podium after the restart, joined by Jorge Martin. The announcers spent the entire day rattling on about tire wear, which is getting terribly old. How is it that none of the big manufacturers can design racing tires that will hold up for 25 laps? Wouldn’t the proceedings be more interesting if we could focus our attention on something other than tires? Exhibit A in this conversation is this photo of Vinales’ front tire about halfway through today’s race.
Anyway, today’s race was most exciting for me owing to the changes I made to my fantasy team roster prior to the weekend, substituting Espargaro and Vinales for Bezzecchi and Binder:
Midway through today’s Moto3 race, there was a 25 bike lead group separated by around three seconds. Just let that sink in for a moment. It was riveting until the very end, especially since two contenders, series leader Daniel Holgado and up-and-coming teenager David Munoz, got bumped out of the race on the last lap. Race results:
2023 standings after 11 rounds:
Moto2 was fun to watch, as Pedro Acosta, Heir Apparent, moved from ninth place on the grid to take the lead midway, only to have his tires melt down, forcing him to a P6 finish. Always fun to watch Aron Canet and his tattoos finish in second place.
Moto2 standings after 11 rounds:
Finally, in MotoGP
Premier class year-to-date:
Next weekend on the Adriatic coast at San Marino. Our best wishes go out to Pecco Bagnaia for a speedy, complete recovery. You gave us a big scare today, dude.
It always feels good when Aleix Espargaro does well
Aleix and his muscular Aprilia were fastest in the sunshine on Friday, slowest in the wet Q2 on Saturday morning, so-so on a damp track in the Saturday Sprint and good enough to win on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. At a track like Silverstone, wide and free-flowing, the Aprilia is at its best, and one can come from P12 on the grid to the top step of the podium. (The Noale factory also put three of its four bikes in the Top 5 today, as Miguel Oliveira and Maverick Vinales both had excellent outings.) Pecco Bagnaia took the lead from Jack Miller in the main race on Lap 2 and held it until the final couple of turns on Lap 20, settling for 20 points and extending his lead over Jorge Martin in P2 and Marco Bezzecchi, who crashed out of contention on Lap 6 and fell to P3 for the season. Bez also trashed my fantasy team, as I had used a Boost on him which worked out on Saturday but bit me in the ass today.
Marc Marquez has now failed to score any championship points in a grand prix since Sepang last year. His season of unabated misery continues, well, unabated.
The Moto3 race was, as usual, outstanding, with virtually everyone in the lead group during the first half of the race. At the checkered flag, it was rookie David Alonso (the first Colombian ever to win a GP), bridesmaid Ayuma Sasaki in P2 as is his wont, and series leader Dani Holgado in P3. My boy Jaume Masia crashed out of podium contention early in the race and will probably keep my season predictions from going three for three.
The Moto2 race later in the day saw Fermín Aldeguer win his first Moto2 race ahead of Aron Canet and wunderkind Pedro Acosta who, courtesy of Tony Arbolino’s curious P10 finish, took over the 2023 season lead on his way to MotoGP next season. He did not appear to break a sweat in what little I saw of the race today.
Alex Marquez won the Saturday Sprint and was looking strong in the main event before an apparent gearbox problem forced his retirement. The serious bumping and grinding which took place in the GP left a number of riders missing pieces and parts, lots of aero wings and Fabio Quartararo’s front fairing littering the track. Summer in Britain feels like fall in the US, setting the riders up for massive cases of cognitive dissonance as we get into October and November in the Asian blast furnaces. Repsol Honda didn’t even bother providing Marquez with a brolly girl, which is an editorial statement as much as a meteorological one. And was I hallucinating, or does it appear #93 is starting to grow a mustache? Hoping no one recognizes him during his last few months with Honda?
I’ve got stuff to do today, people to see, places to go, cats to kill. A leggy blonde waiting for me to take her to Menard’s and back to her place for dinner. Yeah, I know. The stature that comes with being a world authority on MotoGP gets you the pretty girls who like to spend an afternoon at Menard’s and Home Depot. There are different ways to get paid in this world.
Two weeks to the Red Bull Ring. Those of you attending the race should make sure to spend some time in the mountains before all the permafrost melts and they come crashing to the ground, filling the valleys, and making the rest of the world look like Indiana.
Untouchable on Friday. Pole early on Saturday. Sprint winner on Saturday afternoon.
Marc Marquez had another train wreck of a weekend. Qualified in P17 after colliding with Enea Bastiannini in the morning warm up. Finished the Sprint right where he started. Looking utterly demoralized, hovering on the edge of the existential abyss, looking down. Says he is committed to the Honda project, but making it sound like an involuntary commitment, you know, like with a rehab facility or nuthouse. More of a sentence than a commitment.
Brad Binder had the pickiest long lap penalty ever very late in the Sprint, costing him a podium and elevating Fabio Quartararo–remember him?–to the bronze medal. Pecco had a nice race, taking the hole shot, giving up the lead to Bezz on Lap 2 but still collecting nine points on Saturday.
Sunday
The Moto3 championship race tightened considerably, as series leader Daniel Holgado screwed the pooch in qualifying and ended up starting from the back of the grid, from where he crashed out early and finished the day out of the points. Honda pilot Jaume Masia, meanwhile, my pre-season pick for the title, won another barnburner, holding off Sasai, Oncu. and Munoz, cutting Holgado’s lead from 41 to 16 points heading into the break.
Moto2 was refreshing, as Brit Jake Dixon won his first ever grand prix (then spoiled it by crying during Simon’s crappy post-race interview), ahead of the resurrected Ai Ogura and savant Pedro Acosta. During the race, Acosta had to serve a long lap penalty during which he clearly had both wheels in the green. Such an error would cause a mortal to have to repeat the penalty, but for an Alien-in-Waiting the stewards said, “nothing to see here.” Pretty blatant, IMO. Acosta and Toni Arbolino seem to have their tickets punched for MotoGP next year, but it remains to be seen for whom Acosta will be laboring. Gresini Racing has already sent signals it intends to sign Arbolino and jettison FDG.
Prior to the start of the premier class tilt, it was announced that Marc Marquez, for the fifth time in eight rounds, had been declared unfit to race, citing a bruised ego, a broken spirit and shattered confidence. Albert Puig tipped his hand in an interview in which he essentially said that if #93 wants to seek greener pastures next year Honda would not hold him hostage. Perhaps HRC has figured out that paying a rider $30 million a year to ride an unrideable bike doesn’t make much sense. After all, if the rider is going to end up in the gravel, it would be better if he were only working for minimum wage.
The race itself was okay, ignoring the eight riders who failed to finish and allowing Jonas Folger to build his points lead over Marquez. The Killer Bees–Bagnaia, Bezzecchi and Binder–led all day, trailed by Aleix and Jorge Martin. For the second time in 24 hours, apparently for the benefit of those who missed it yesterday, Binder put a tiny bit of his front wheel in the green on the last lap, incurring a track limits violation and dropping him from the podium. Yesterday’s beneficiary was Fabio Quartararo; today’s was Aleix. Bagnaia’s lead in the 2023 chase now stands at 35 points, and he is looking strong enough to take the hardware for the second year “on the trot.” lol. Bezzecchi and Martin are fast young guns and will be in the picture for years to come. Binder is fast off the line and, if the racing gig doesn’t work out, given the murderous KTM pilots on their way to the premier class from Moto2 and Moto3, could find work filming instructional videos on the rules of racing.
Now that interest in MotGP is peaking, after the June triple header, Dorna will let all the air out of the balloon by taking the next month or so off, staying out of the headlines and driving fans back to F1, soccer, MLB and NFL OTAs. I will attempt to assemble a coherent mid-season report for Motorcycle. com which should post in early July. 12 races will take place after the summer break, including two more triples: Indonesia, Australia and Thailand in October, Malaysia, Qatar and Valencia in November. Six races in seven weeks to close out the season. The Bagnaias and Bezzecchis of the world need to watch out for an injury in October which could cause them to record multiple DNSs and impact the title chase.
2023 may prove to be the year when the MotoGP title was decided earlier than ever before. Rather than being the most competitive year in history, as was widely anticipated during the off-season, we may find ourselves twiddling our thumbs by early October.
It is fair to say that after the first of 21 rounds of racing the number of plausible contenders for the championship has been cut from 22 to 11. Let’s discuss.
First, there never were 22 actual contenders, as at least seven riders never had a snowball’s chance in hell of capturing the title:
Augusto Fernandez
Raul Fernandez
Franco Morbidelli
Fabio Quartararo
Alex Rins
Takaa Nakagami
Fabio di Giannantonio
Making this little list involves some combination of a lack of riding talent and lousy machinery. There is also the fact that I’m looking to stir the pot a little by including the 2021 champion herein. So sue me.
Events in Portugal added another four names to this miserable list, as follows:
Pol Espargaro–Dude is going to take a long time to get back to racing. He was a long shot before getting crushed on Friday. We wish him all the best, but he needs to be thinking 2024. Or just walking away from racing while he can still walk.
Enea Bastiannini–Things looked great for EBas during winter testing, having joined Pecco Bagnaia on the factory Ducati team. He was having arm pump issues before getting collected by Luca Marini during the Sprint on Saturday and fracturing his right shoulder blade. His people report he will not need surgery, which is a surprise. Missing the first two rounds of 2023 and rushing back at way less than 100% spells trouble.
Miguel Oliveira–The victim of Marc Marquez’s reckless aggression early this past Sunday, Oliveira will not return to action until Round 3 at COTA. Before getting skittled on Sunday, he looked capable of a top six finish for 2023, but that would have necessitated absolutely everything going right, which it never does in this sport.
Marc Marquez–Dude is his own worst enemy, which is saying something, as he is roundly loathed by a number of other riders and millions of MotoGP fans. His bike is terrible. He recorded a DNF in Portugal and will record a DNS in Argentina. When he returns at COTA (his second-favorite track on the calendar next to The Sachsenring) he will be wounded and saddled with a double long lap penalty, putting him squarely behind the eight-ball before the season is fully underway. His slim prospects heading into the season have been reduced to none.
It may be fun to keep track of the hashtag #MotoGPContenders this year if I can ever figure out how to format the hashtag. Heading into Round 2 it stands at 11. It is likely to decline steadily as we move through the calendar. There will be occasions when the current favorites–Bagnaia, Vinales, Aleix, maybe Jack Miller–crash, which might see the number go up. But if events unfold as expected here, that number will fall to “1” before October, at which point we can all get together and whistle “Dixie.” Practice in Argentina starts in a few minutes. I’ll be back with some stuff on Saturday. Ride on.
Fabio’s downfall continues; Bagnaia seizes series lead
MotoGP fans around the world enjoyed a feast of two-wheeled drama in Australia today as the 2022 championships–Moto3, Moto2 and MotoGP–approach the last dance in Valencia next month.
Moto3 crowned its latest Spanish racing savant as 18-year-old Izan Guevara sealed his first grand prix championship in fine style, battling Garcia, Sasaki and Dennis Oncu the entire way. Guevara showed the world what he’s made of by riding his ass off for the win when he didn’t need the win to seal the championship.
In doing so, Guevara was able to avoid the awkward podium scene we saw back in 20?? involving your boy Jorge Lorenzo and one Marc Marquez. In the race, won by Lorenzo, Marquez had clinched the championship. During the podium celebration, Lorenzo was blowing celebratory gaskets, flexing and yelling about his nice win. Marquez, on step two, stood by, quietly watching The Lorenzo Show. After the anthem, Marquez and his team celebrated their most recent world championship. This was not a scene young Izan wanted to see repeated.
The reborn Alonso Lopez won Sunday’s Moto2 tilt by laying down a vapor trail around Turn 6 of Lap 1 and was never challenged, despite having to serve an Australian long lap penalty–similar to just going wide at a number of tracks–on Lap 3. The real action, involving the last two riders standing in 2022–Augusto Fernandez and Ai Ogura–showcased the volatility inherent in motorsports. Late in the day, Fernandez was cruising in P2, looking to put Ogura away while the Japanese rider was stuck in the mud in Single Digit Point Land. Suddenly, without warning or need, Fernandez lost the front and slid out of nirvana, while Ogura, limping home in P11, took over the series lead. For Fernandez, what should have been a 16+ point lead heading to Sepang is a four point deficit. Let Valencia decide.
MotoGP
The main event at Phillip Island in 2022 was exhausting, exhilarating, enervating and enduring and will likely be mentioned in conversations about the best races ever for years to come. My notes look like a process map for a Rube Goldberg device, arrows pointing up, down, and right, square boxes around crashers, deltas where standings were changing. When the smoke cleared and the cheering died down, Fabio Quartararo had surrendered his series lead to the increasingly inevitable Pecco Bagnaia (P3), who kept his composure while those around him were losing theirs. Let’s discuss. PS–Suzuki, with Alex Rins riding like a banshee, won the race today. One more turn of the screw piercing our sense of right and wrong, that such an ascendant program as Suzuki’s would be unable to continue their participation.
While the riders waited for the red lights to go out, Fabio led Bagnaia by two points; the Frenchman possibly distressed over the memory of leading Pecco by 66 points after Catalunya. The second half of the season has seen a steady erosion of El Diablo’s dominance; he has failed to score points in half of the last eight races. We are happy to speak of, and unhappy to observe, young Fabio’s descent into mortality, as we (and others) have seen it coming all year, #20 trying to milk all he can from an under-powered Yamaha M-1. He has been over-riding all year, holding on for dear life, trying to manufacture a winning recipe of his riding style with the bike’s strengths, but it has appeared to be a losing battle since mid-season. One fears that during the next two seasons, Fabio Quartararo will learn the lessons learned by all those who married for money.
Once again, for the third round in succession, Marc Marquez appeared ready and able but unwilling to challenge seriously for the win. In Motegi it was a mostly relaxed P5. In Buriram it was a rather leisurely P4. Today, he was firmly ensconced in the lead group all day, yet it appeared he was hovering or hesitating, resisting opportunities to go through on opponents he would have gleefully seized three years ago. Today, with a credible P2 he achieved his 100th grand prix podium. He tells us the new aero package in development for the RC213V is the way to salvation, intimating he will be back in full fighting trim next season. I, for one, would be glad to see it.
Alex Rins had one of those days riders dream about, in which he had the best bike on a fast track with the sun shining and the wind blowing and it all just worked out and he fought his way from mid-pack at the start into the lead group and finally into the lead and the win with a remarkable performance. It was one of those days riders might think of as easy, as if anything is really easy on two wheels at 200 mph. My friend Don tells me that 60 mph equates to 90 feet per second. Ergo 180 mph equates to 270 fps. So the guys can travel the length of a football field in a second, give or take. For me, simply breathing at 180 mph would be a serious challenge. We are glad to see Rins enjoying himself during a year in which his house came down around his ears.
Elsewhere in the top five, Bastianini struggled all day before finishing an uninspiring P5, still alive mathematically but dead in every other respect. His future, however, remains so bright he’ll need shades. Frightening to consider how good the factory Ducati team could be next year… Aleix’s late season fade continues, his seven points today not feeding the beast… Jack Miller got hammered by Alex Marquez on Lap 9, putting an end to his faint championship hopes, but allowing him an opportunity to jump the fence and party with his friends at the brand new Jack Miller Corner…Valentino Rossi’s two young guns, Marco Bezzecchi and Luca Marini, continue to impress during the second half of the season. Bezzecchi claimed P4 and Marini P6 today. This was Bezzecchi’s first visit to Phillip Island on a MotoGP bike and he was mostly sensational during the last half of the race, wearing his big boy pants, grinning at the veterans as he went by.
A lot of other stuff went on and you can read about it almost anywhere. Here at Late-Braking MotoGP we are looking for meaning, trying to find our place in the universe, seeing things through our little out-of-round lens. For us, Fabio is a one-man passion play, a champion and an underdog at the same time whose obvious virtue and competitive spirit are not enough to overcome the voracious appetites of the suits at Ducati Corse. Pecco is handicapped by his inability to recognize life-threatening situations, the result being that he either wins or gets helped to his feet by the marshals. When he retires, he should go into advertising. Aleix should be sprawled on the floor in a corner of his garage with a guitar, singing, “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me.” After years of struggle, he once again allowed his heart to get the better of him, believing in mid-season that he had a legit look at the championship. ‘Tis better to have loved, and lost…
So, we’re down to it now. One championship decided, two to go. Moto2 is anyone’s guess, but I’m staying with my mid-season pick of Fernandez to finish on top. I was jocking Aleix during the summer break, just as my own sentimental favorite. Today, you have to believe Bagnaia will be the 2022 champion. He is likely to eat Sepang for lunch (while Quartararo struggles) and render Valencia meaningless once again.
We look forward to your comments and constructive criticisms. lol
Jack Miller dominates; Quartararo extends series lead
The 2022 Japanese Grand Prix, after getting skipped by The Powers That Be for the last two years, gave the fans an odd little race. The kind of race it was today: Series leader Fabio Quartararo, stuck in the mid-pack mud all day, finished in P8 and extended his series lead. Everyone’s favorite underdog, Aleix Espargaro, got undone on the sighting lap, something terminal with the electronics on his Aprilia, forcing him to pit, drop his bike, jump on his #2 bike, and start from pit lane in a distant P25. Aleix rode his ass off all day only to finish in P16, pointless.
Factory Ducati pilot Pecco Bagnaia, he of the gi-normous expectations heading into the season, found himself slugging it out in the aforementioned mud with his rival, series leader Quartararo, on the final lap. Young Pecco choked on the lowside, trudging through the gravel, clapping his hands in mock appreciation for what he later implied was an error by someone on his crew. Oh, and factory Ducati #2 pilot Jack Miller owned the place all weekend, seized the lead in today’s race on Lap 3 when he went through on Pramac brother-in-arms Jorge Martin and proceeded to lay down a Marquez-esque vapor trail on his way to his fourth win in the premier class.
Ducati did well, as expected, today. Placed five machines in the top ten and two on the podium. Gigi–gotta love this guy–sitting in the garage during the race, looking relaxed, wondering whether he should order more tiramasu. There was a point in the race when Matt Birt stopped to observe that he had just seen a Ducati turn inside a Yamaha for the first time ever. Having seen the results before watching the tape, on Lap 23 I wrote, “KITTENS COMING,” in anticipation of the meltdown Matt and Louis would suffer watching Pecco coming unglued on the last lap. Sure enough, right on cue, here they came. I could only be thankful that Steve Day is no longer in the booth, as he was always the one having kittens.
Fabio may be The Blessed Rider again this year; if so, it would represent a truly great season-long body of work on a sadly inferior machine. But really, he struggled all day to manage P8 which would have been P9 had Pecco not surrendered to the laws of physics. Aleix had the best qualifying of the four contenders in P6 prior to the debacle at the start. EBas started from P15 before finishing in P9. And Bagnaia hamstrung himself today by slogging to a P12 during Qualifying #2. It appears that most of our fearless leaders are feeling the pressure of having a premier class championship within their reach. The answer, in all likelihood, will lie, as we have been saying all year, in the number of crashes/DNFs the riders accumulate, as follows:
Rider Points DNF
Fabio Quartararo 219 2
Pecco Bagnaia 201 5
Aleix Espargaro 194 1*
Enea Bastianini 170 4
*mechanical failure at the start
Looking at things this way, it’s entirely possible to project Espargaro winning the title. Fabio spending his entire days on the limit is a blueprint for disaster. Bagnaia has people wondering why he doesn’t get it, that if he would only keep the shiny side up a little more often he would be leading the championship. That he doesn’t should great hope to the Espargaro family. Here’s what the season would look like if Quartararo and Bagnaia were to crash out in Thailand, allowing Aleix to win and EBas to place second:
Quartararo 219
Espargaro 219
Bagnaia 201
Bastianini 190
With four rounds left, I’m confident both Fabio and Pecco will slide out of one of them. The question is whether Aleix can keep his nose clean for an entire season. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t enjoy seeing him take the title after so many years of fruitless toil.
Marc Marquez seized pole on Saturday, just to remind folks how extraordinarily successful he has been here in the past. He took the hole shot and held the lead for three or four turns before getting swallowed up by a gaggle of riders not riding with one arm. He sat in P5 pretty much all day before taking Miguel Oliveira’s lunch money on the final lap for P4.
The factory KTM operation had things going their way today, placing Binder on the podium and Oliveira in the top five, too. Another guy I’ve been ignoring, but who is getting harder and harder to ignore, is Luca Marini. The sophomore has scored points in 13 of the 16 rounds to date. He worked his way up front and was tagging along with the lead group by the end of the day. The grid these days seems absolutely packed with fast young Italian riders, another node of The Rossi Effect. Another example–Marco Bezzecchi, late of the VR46 Academy, will be the runaway winner of the 2022 ROY award aboard his Desmosedici. The future is bright for Ducati pilots in the years to come. Ecstar Suzuki, on the other hand, had one rider out injured, a second retired with a mechanical issue, and their test rider/wild card had to make a hasty exit from his GSX-RR which was, at that moment, engulfed in flames. Doing a Zarco is what we call that around here.
So it’s off to Thailand to see how riders under extreme pressure perform in an autoclave. I think such conditions favor the younger riders who are physically more able to withstand the heat. But the veterans have been here before and to Sepang and know how to hold up over race distance. For Fabio, Pecco and Aleix, the season is now. Young Bastianini is going to have to ignore the championship, keep his head down, and score as many points as possiblle each time out. Oh, and remember not to crash.
Fabio crashes, the championship tightens up, and Marc Marquez is getting flamed
Looking back over the season this coming winter, (I know, right?) one may conclude that Round 15 was the decisive race in a terrific season in which, with five rounds to go, there are still four riders with a genuine chance to title. My original thesis this season–that consistency (not crashing) would be the determining factor–is proving true. Almost. Somehow, somewhere, the law of averages is beavering away, tagging each rider with the “likely to crash again” label, others with the “hasn’t crashed enough, is long overdue” tag. Yes, that means that the law of averages is of absolutely no help in predicting the 2022 champion.
The race itself, in a nutshell, went something like this. Aleix, a few of the Ducatis, and rugged KTM pilot Brad Binder got off to quick starts. Marc Marquez, in his latest return to racing, failed to make it out of Q1, starting in P15. When the lights went out, #93 decided to damn the torpedoes and head for the front, carving up the field, elbows out, narcissistically unconcerned about the fortunes of the riders actually competing for the championship. (This is early on Lap 1, friends, with a full tank and cold tires.) In the thick of things (P7) surrounded by contenders, Marquez had a moment which resulted in championship leader Fabio Quartararo piling into the rear of his bike, parting company with his YZR-M1, going boom on the asphalt, down and out.
Poetic justice saw to it that the collision would render the #93 bike unrideable by Lap 2. Marquez discovered an issue involving his rear tire and a crumpled fairing by clattering Takaa Nakagami out of the race later in Lap 1. Having knocked Quartararo off his safe perch in the title chase, with virtually nothing to gain, he retired from the race, changed into regular clothing, and returned to the pits, to the catcalls and jeers of everyone not wearing Repsol black, red and orange.
Anyway. Most of the race had Pecco Bagnaia blazing the trail, with EBas, Aleix and the gritty Binder in hot pursuit. Mostly processional until the last two laps, when the prospect of the two fastest riders in the game on the fastest machine in the game becoming teammates next year came into sight, the 2023 team championship having become a foregone conclusion. With both riders able to summon fast laps late in the race, both able to conserve rubber at full race distance, MotoGP 2023 is looking a lot like F1 back in the day when Schumacher and Barrichello owned the world. Italian engineering on full display.
Essentially, Bastianini calmly put Bagnaia in his rearview midway through Lap 23 after dogging him all day. Aleix and his Aprilia passed Binder for the final podium spot on Lap 22. Bastianini, it seems, likes the effect he has on other riders when he’s on their rear wheel with two laps left. Pecco is as fast as fast gets, the second coming of Jorge Lorenzo in appearance and riding style. But he doesn’t seem to have the fire in the belly that his new teammate possesses. My money will be on EBas to win the 2023 title.
Here are the before and after shots of the 2022 MotoGP title, post Aragon:
Rider Points after Austria Points after Aragon 2022 DNF/DNS Manufacturer
Quartararo 211 211 2 Yamaha
Bagnaia 181 201 4 Ducati
AEspargaro 178 194 0 Aprilia
Bastianini 138 163 4 Ducati
All season long we have been saying, along with the entire Sioux nation, that Fabio would have to have what amounts to a perfect race every time out in order to repeat as world champion. And he has been riding the wheels off his vastly inferior Yamaha. But he faltered at Assen and got skittled yesterday, events which the Brits currently refer to as “wet lettuce.” Again, as predicted, we are sticking with Pecco Bagnaia as the 2022 world champion. Despite four DNFs, he has the wind at his back, while Fabio has contusions all up and down his torso from yesterday.
Looking at the upcoming tracks (not sure about Thailand) it appears the Ducati phalanx will enjoy Motegi (stop and shoot) as well as Phillip Island and Sepang, both long and wide. Fabio, being the Yamaha phalanx, may have a bit of an advantage at Buriram and Valencia. Unfortunately, I suspect that his performance in Round 20 will have little to do with the title. And then there’s Aleix, still in the hunt, still not having turned his RS-GP over after 15 tries. Overdue? Cautious? Blessed? A great dark horse for a wager if you’re into that sort of thing. If he maintains his season-long consistency, and both Quartararo and Bagnaia have another off between now and November, it could be an Espargaro wearing the crown in 2022. THAT would be fun.
I watched both races on the undercard. My only real interest these days is trying to identify future Aliens amongst the array of teenage prodigies toiling in the “lightweight” classes. In Moto3, I really like Izan Guevara, who is going to win the title this year and just turned 18 in June. Another fast kid is this David Munoz, #44, who just turned 16 in the spring and has begun terrorizing the grizzled veterans.
In Moto2 it was Vote for Pedro day again, as Acosta made a convincing case for returning to the presumptive Alien class in the foreseeable future. Despite breaking his femur at Assen, he has come back and, at least yesterday, looked again like he did in Moto3 last year, when he was tagged as a phenom. He will likely win the Moto2 title next year for KTM and get bounced up to MotoGP in 2024.
The first Asian flyaway rounds are coming up starting this week. Imagine having raced in Aragon and having five days to prepare/pack to travel to Japan and Thailand. Then a week off, then freezing at Phillip Island and, broiling at Sepang, where Pecco will clinch the title, before finishing, as usual, on the Spanish Mediterranean coast.
Damn, this is fun.
This from our mid-season report after Assen: The GasGas duo of Garcia and Guevara is, once again, putting a thorough Teutonic beatdown on the grid, same as Gardner and Fernandez did last year in Moto2. I fully believe Guevara is a future Alien and perhaps the most impressive of the impressive crop of young riders passing through the intermediate classes in the past 3-4 years. Young Izan should continue this trend, as it appears both he and teammate Garcia will graduate into Moto2 for 2023.
One of the joys of writing about MotoGP for nothing is that it frees me from the shackles of editorial restraint which often chafe and prevent me from expressing my true feelings, at least regarding subjects for which I have feelings, which aren’t many.
Let’s use Assen as an example. Instead of doing my sworn duty as a mototrashjournaist, I spent the weekend driving 1400 miles and speaking briefly at the memorial service for my oldest childhood friend, since 2nd grade. Had I been slaving away under the heartless Evans Brasfield things would have gotten complicated, Evans might have been inconvenienced, my wages could have been garnished, John Burns might have elected to flame me on MO. Nothing good, and my boy Bobby B is well beyond caring. But if we blow off these milestones, especially the exits, who are we? If we decide that the details of our lives are more important than the people who comprised them, who are we indeed?
So, here are the facts. Top ten at Assen. Top six year to date.
Assen MotoGP Race:
pts
1 25 63 Francesco Bagnaia
2 20 72 Marco Bezzecchi
3 16 12 Maverick Viñales
4 13 41 Aleix Espargaro
5 11 33 Brad Binder
6 10 43 Jack Miller
7 9 89 Jorge Martin
8 8 36 Joan Mir
9 7 88 Miguel Oliveira
10 6 42 Alex Rins
Year to date
20 Fabio Quartararo 172 NC = 1
41 Aleix Espargaro 151 NC = 0
5 Johann Zarco 114 NC = 1
63 Francesco Bagnaia 110 NC = 4
5 23 Enea Bastianini 105 NC = 3
6 33 Brad Binder 93 NC = 1
Moto2 Race:
1 25 37 Augusto Fernandez
2 20 79 Ai Ogura
3 16 96 Jake Dixon
4 13 13 Celestino Vietti
5 11 64 Bo Bendsneyder
6 10 21 Alonso Lopez
7 9 14 Tony Arbolino
8 8 16 Joe Roberts
9 7 18 Manuel Gonzalez
10 6 12 Filip Salac
Year to date:
1 C Vietti 146
2 A Fernandez 146
3 A Ogura 145
4 A Canet 116
5 T Arbolino 104
6 J Roberts 97
Moto3 Race:
1 25 71 Ayumu Sasaki
2 20 28 Izan Guevara
3 16 11 Sergio Garcia
4 13 24 Tatsuki Suzuki
5 11 43 Xavier Artigas
6 10 96 Daniel Holgado
7 9 82 Stefano Nepa
8 8 6 Ryusei Yamanaka
9 7 53 Deniz Öncü
10 6 27 Kaito Toba
Year to date:
1 S Garcia 182
2 I Guevara 179
3 D Foggia 118
4 A Sasaki 113
5 J Masia 107
6 D Oncu 98
One thing I’m sure to comment on, under the paragraph entitled “Parity” is the dead heat among the top three contenders in Moto2. Never seen three riders separated by a single point at the top of any chart. Another thing will be your boy Aleix shattering, on lap 15 of the race, the existing all-time lap record at Assen, NOT JUST THE RACE LAP. Up until the moment the all-time record was broken later in the race, Aleix posted the fastest lap ever recorded at Assen, DURING THE RACE. Pretty amazing.
That’s all for now. Need to get started on the mid-season report coming your way on Motorcycle.com in the near future.
Once again, this article will start out as a place for comments and my notes from practice and qualifying, if any. I will then do my usual Sunday purgative and we can get the comments ball rolling on what has become just a dandy 2022 season.
I should be able to do a respectable job in Germany as my home schedule is bad but not terrible. But for the Assen round I am simply screwed. Driving across country to Delaware on Saturday, attending a wake for my oldest friend and our friends on Sunday. I might stay on in DC on Monday if I can find a reason for doing so. Anyway, driving back across the country on either Monday or Tuesday. So, y’all had better take your shots this week and make them count. Next week you’re pretty much on your own. The good news is that Evans’ Mid-Season Recap will post pretty early in the summer vacation, I hope.
Back in the day when Cole Trickle was playing with his hair and mustache, he always reminded me of this guy.
Moto3 notes: Izan Guevara is the next Next Great Latin Rider. The second coming of Pedro Acosta. Acosta won at Sachsenring last year. Today young Izan eclipsed wonderkid Acosta’s time over 27 laps by 24 seconds, almost a full second per lap. So, we are left with the conclusion that Guevara has more mojo than Acosta. Both will be plying their trade in the premier class in the next few years. Not an exciting race.
Moto2 notes: The pool I organized to predict that lap on which Sam Lowes will crash–the number 14 kept coming up. Whatever. Augusto Fernandez won by 10 seconds, the second lousy race of the day. Celestino Vietti did Moto2 a favor by crashing out, allowing the title chase to tighten up a little.
Race Day notes: Three snoozers in one day. Moto3 was a rarity, a wire-to-wire win from pole by the impressive Izan Guevara. The championship tightened up. Lots of other stuff happened.
Moto2 was another forgettable race, Augusto Fernandez putting on a show with teammate and Alien-in-waiting “Vote for Pedro” Acosta taking forever to move through the field to claim P2 in another glorious day for the KTM outfit. The championship tightened up. Lots of other stuff happened.
In MotoGP, the reigning 2021 winner and 2022 champion-in-waiting, Fabio Quartararo did it to us again, ran off and hid from the rest of the field. Took Zarco with him in a blatant display of nationalism. Jack Miller out-dueled Aleix for P3. The championship did not tighten up, and not much else happened.
Next week’s report may not get done at all. The logistics are simply overwhelming. I will try to put a little something together later in the week. But do not despair! Our Mid-Season Review will post during the summer break. Mentally, I’ve already awarded the 2022 title to Fabulous, but we need something to keep us off the streets at least until the NFL resumes.
Late-Braking MotoGP 