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MotoGP News: Pedrosa Wins at Le Mans

May 19, 2013

This article is now published on Motorcycle.com.

Dani Pedrosa Wins Shocker in the Rain 

At the start of the 2013 French Grand Prix, the Alien with the faintest prospects had to be Repsol Honda minuteman Dani Pedrosa.  Since joining the premier class in 2006, he had never finished higher than third here.  Though his free practice sessions were good, he crashed in qualifying, putting him back in the 6 hole for the start.  He was eighth in the wet morning warm up practice.  But when the red lights went out, it was Pedrosa who dropped the hammer on his rivals, won the race, and put himself in the lead for the 2013 world championship.  Bravo, Dani! 

80,000 soaked French spectators received more shocks today than a nun in a cucumber patch:

  • Andrea Dovizioso led more laps on his factory Ducati than Valentino Rossi did in the last two years, before fading to fourth place.
  • Cal “It’s Only a Flesh Wound” Crutchlow drove his Monster Tech 3 Yamaha to an exhilarating second place finish, providing his French team with its best result in years, with a cracked shinbone and too many contusions to count, courtesy of yet another hard fall on Saturday.
  • Rookie sensation Marc Marquez finished third—not a surprise—after driving his Repsol Honda all over the park, skirting the gravel more than once, and spending a good part of the day in eighth place.  Marquez is very good.  He also seems to be very lucky, a powerful combination.
  • Valentino Rossi, who struggled all weekend, started eighth on his factory M-1 and was looking strong, running third on Lap 14 when pressure from a streaking Crutchlow forced him into a lowside and an eventual 12th place finish.  Rossi can ill afford more disappointment at Mugello.  In the words of Satchel Paige, he’d best not look backwards, ‘cause something may be gaining on him.
  • Even Nicky Hayden had a good day, moving up from the 10 hole at the start to finish fifth, putting more Ducatis than Yamahas in the Top Five.
  • Yamaha #1 Jorge Lorenzo will, at some point, tell us what the heck happened to his race today.  As our deadline looms, we’re left to wonder.  See below.

For the second year in a row, the race was run in the rain.  Last year, Lorenzo ran away from the field to win for the third time in four tries in France.  The Mallorcan started well today, dogging race leader Andrea Dovizioso and his red Ducati for two laps before dropping like a stone for a dozen laps to as far back as ninth place on Lap 17.  He would ultimately finish seventh behind Fun & Go Honda slacker Alvaro Bautista, for God’s sake.  Was it water vapor inside his visor?  A slow leak in his rear tire?  The heartbreak of psoriasis?  Whatever it was, it left him with a nine point day, buried in third place for the year.  Not exactly a momentum booster heading to Mugello in two weeks.

A Quick Word about MotoGP Qualifying

Across the board in motorsports, everyone makes a big deal about how important it is to qualify well.  MotoGP, buying heavily into this theory during the offseason, decided that it needed two qualifying sessions to sort out the finer points of determining who starts where.  Granted, the 15 minute qualifying sessions are a hoot, resembling a Chinese fire drill, especially at the longer circuits, where coming up with a single fast lap can be a challenge.

Today was a good example of the folly of such thinking.  The first three qualifiers were Marquez, Lorenzo and Dovizioso.  By the midpoint of the first lap, your race leaders were Dovizioso, Lorenzo and Pedrosa, who had started sixth, while Marquez was dawdling in 10th.  On the silliness scale, this ranks just behind the National Basketball Association, where teams play 82 regular season games to secure homecourt advantage in the playoffs, then go out and lose the first game in the series.   Just sayin’.

Elsewhere on the Grid

LCR Honda’s Stefan Bradl crashed today for the third time in four outings in his rookie season onboard the Honda RC213V.  After winning the Moto2 title last year and tearing it up during offseason testing, young Stefan and Company must be shaking their heads, trying to get the taste of ashes out of their mouths.  The six points he earned today by finishing 10th are but cold comfort.

Perhaps the best eighth place finish of the year was turned in today by Michele Pirro, subbing for Ben Spies on the Ignite Pramac Ducati.  Pirro, called up two rounds ago when Spies’ physical problems put him on the shelf for Jerez, started in 14th place and moved steadily up on the field all day.  It must be said that Le Mans, especially in the rain, is a Ducati-friendly circuit.

Today’s race put the vast difference between the prototypes and the CRT bikes in clear perspective.  All 12 of the prototypes finished today, occupying the top 12 spots at the flag.  Five of the 12 CRT bikes failed to finish, including homeboy Randy de Puniet, whose Lap 17 crash left him with six (6) points for the season, as compared to teammate Aleix Espargaro’s 20.  De Puniet confirmed this weekend that he will be in Japan this coming week testing the 2014 Suzuki prototype, causing me to wonder who’s in charge of the racing program at the Hamamatsu factory, and what’s in his medicine cabinet.

The Big Picture

Today’s race shuffled the Top Ten standings for the year, elevating Crutchlow and Dovizioso at the expense of Bautista and Rossi, respectively.  The Repsol Honda team must smell blood with Mugello, historically a very Yamaha-friendly circuit, next up.  Everyone expects Yamaha to do well in Italy, with its wide, sweeping curves, thousands of Rossi supporters, and eight wins (plus two seconds) in the past 10 years.  But if Pedrosa and Marquez end up on the podium in suburban Florence, the 2013 constructor’s trophy is likely to go to Honda for the third year in a row.

2013 Champ Standings after 4 Rounds Top Ten

Next Up:  Mugello

MotoGP makes its annual pilgrimage to Tuscany in two weeks, to the legendary Mugello circuit outside Florence.  Ground Zero for the Renaissance is always one of the favorite stops on the MotoGP calendar.  This year, the pressure on Lorenzo and Rossi is enormous, as the season is starting to get away from them.

In our Le Mans preview last week, we compared the premier class battle between the factory Honda and Yamaha teams to the fable of the Tortoise and the Hare, and found ourselves leaning toward the tortoise.  Perhaps we’ve been misled by this story for generations.  Perhaps, indeed, young and fast beats consistent and experienced.  We’ll find out in two weeks.

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MotoGP Le Mans 2013 Preview

May 14, 2013

An edited version of this article, complete with hi-rez photos, is now available at Motorcycle.com.

Team Yamaha Ready to Rumble in the Rain 

As the fastest sport on two wheels heads into France for Round Four, one thing is certain—the stakes for the 2013 championship are higher than they’ve been in years.  The Repsol Honda team of Dani Pedrosa and rookie sensation Marc Marquez has youth and speed going for it.  The factory Yamaha duo of defending champion Jorge Lorenzo and prodigal veteran Valentino Rossi has consistency and experience in its corner.  And while it’s not quite the fabled Tortoise and the Hare, the analogy works. 

Sure, rookie Marquez has been setting the world on fire thus far.  And sure, Dani Pedrosa came through in Jerez when he really needed a win, aided by an assist from his young wingman.  Lorenzo, though, is a double world champion, and Rossi, who is still getting used to the factory M-1 on which he dominated the game for years, has another seven premier class trophies lying around his man cave back in Italy.  It’s just too early in the season to suggest that this is Marquez’s year, or Pedrosa’s year, or even Honda’s year.

In 2013, He Who Remains Upright will win the title.

Take a look back at the last four champions.  Rossi won in 2009 despite a comical wet/dry 16th place finish in France and crashing out in Indianapolis.  In 2010, Lorenzo didn’t crash all year, but won the trophy by 140 points and could have easily absorbed a few lowsides without damaging his championship prospects.  Casey Stoner in 2011 crashed out early in the season at Jerez and won the title convincingly.  And last year, Lorenzo repeated despite getting de-biked by Alvaro Bautista at Assen and falling unassisted in Valencia.

Let’s pile on a little.  Here is the spread in points between first and third place, by year since 2009, after three rounds:

Year            Leader/points     Third place/points       Spread 

2009               Rossi – 65          Lorenzo – 41                 24

2010             Lorenzo – 70        Dovizioso – 42              28

2011             Lorenzo – 65          Stoner – 41                   24

2012              Stoner – 66          Pedrosa – 52                14

2013           Marquez – 61             Lorenzo – 57                 4 

All of which is a rather long way of saying that a DNF this season, by any of the top four riders, will put him squarely behind the eight ball.  If Rossi can find a way onto the podium at Le Mans, surprising no one, it will make things that much tighter at the top of the class.  And, judging from Marquez’s comportment in Jerez, I would say that he is the most likely of the four to get separated from his machine in the first half of the season.  Even at 320 kph, slow and steady wins the race.

Recent History at Le Mans

2009 was the epic flag-to-flag affair that saw Lorenzo run away from the field, joined sometime later on the podium by one Marco Melandri on the Hayate Racing Kawasaki— I know, right?—and third place finisher Dani Pedrosa.  The following excerpt from that day’s coverage remains one of my all-time favorites:

The first rider to pit was Valentino Rossi, who was busily watching Lorenzo lengthen his lead until, on Lap 4,he couldn’t stand it anymore, and pitted to swap his wet bike for the dry.  Thus began one of the worst days of his premier class career.  In chronological order, he immediately executed a rousing lowside, limped back to the pits, traded his tattered dry bike for his original wet bike, got flagged for speeding on pit row, took his ride-through penalty, turned a few slow laps, pitted again, traded back his wet bike for his now-repaired dry bike, returned to the track and finished 16th, two laps down. He might as well have gone to Baltimore to watch the Preakness.

In 2010 it was Lorenzo again, joined onstage by Rossi and Dovizioso.  Stoner’s early crash left the door open for the Mallorcan.  At the end of the day Lorenzo led the Australian by 59 points, and Stoner’s dream of a title in 2010 lay in ruins.

Two years ago, Casey Stoner took his first career win at Le Mans with an easy stroll past Dovizioso and Rossi.  This was the race in which the late Marco Simoncelli undercut Pedrosa in one of the lefthanders and sent him flying off his bike and out of the 2011 championship race.  For Rossi, the 2011 French Grand Prix podium would be the high water mark in a brutal inaugural season with Ducati.

Finally, in 2012, Lorenzo again led the way, this time in a driving rainstorm, while Rossi enjoyed one of his two podiums last year, finishing second, ten seconds behind Lorenzo and two seconds in front of Casey Stoner, who had announced his impending retirement only days earlier.

Having enjoyed three wins out of his last four outings in France, in the wet, the dry and in-between, Jorge Lorenzo should be the favorite going into the weekend.  With weather conditions expected to be cold and damp, it’s not that hard to envision Rossi on the podium and Marquez in the gravel.  And with but one third place podium finish at Le Mans since 2007, not to mention his season-ruining crash in 2011, Dan Pedrosa’s expectations for the weekend are bound to be fairly modest.

Ben Spies MIA Again

As was the case last time out in Jerez, Ben Spies will be reclining in Texas this weekend, nursing his shoulder, chest and ego.  Michele Pirro will again be riding a Ducati on Sunday, this time as a substitute rider for the Ignite Pramac team.  Last time out he was a wildcard.  The difference being, this time he’s into Spies’ engine allotment, which can’t make Ben all too happy.  According to SpeedCafe.com, “After a medical check in Dallas, American Spies was advised that it was in his best interests to delay his comeback.”  Um, perhaps until 2014, in World SuperBikes, running around with Nicky Hayden and becoming relevant again.  Everyone’s pointing to Mugello, but we’re taking a wait-and-see attitude.

Quick Hitters

Hectic Hector Barbera received a bit of community service as his punishment for getting beat up by his ex-girlfriend a few weeks ago in Jerez.  One wonders what the sentence might have been had he WON the fight…

Most of the CRT bikes are getting a software upgrade for their ECU units this weekend.  The exceptions are the ART entries of Espargaro, de Puniet, Abraham and Hernandez.  (No one seems to know, or actually care, whether Bryan Staring will be getting new software or not.)  One of the upgrades to the package is referred to as “anti-jerk”, which came along too late to be of any use to James Toseland…

The rumors of Cal Crutchlow’s impending demise at Monster Tech 3 Yamaha just won’t go away.  Stunning, in my opinion, that Pol Espargaro is being groomed to take the place of the gutsy Brit.  This could mean, of course, that Nicky Hayden is toast at Ducati, and that he will be consigned to promoting the Ducati brand in WSB, while Crutchlow will get his long-awaited factory ride.  (You gotta be careful what you wish for, Cal.  Ask Andrea Dovizioso.)  Following the dominoes, it suggests the brass at Yamaha corporate see the end of the Rossi era approaching, especially if Espargaro signs a one year deal with Tech 3.

The cool part will be watching the Espargaro brothers go at each other next season.  Recall 2011 when both were working in Moto2, as older brother Aleix punked Pol by a single point for the season.  Take that, bitch.

It’s a pretty good bet that last sentence won’t make it past the editors.  J

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MotoGP Jerez 2013 Results

May 5, 2013

An edited version of this story will appear on Motorcycle.com sometime tomorrow.  Until then, enjoy the raw copy here.

Pedrosa wins as Marquez and Lorenzo tangle 

The 2013 Gran Premio bwin de Espana brought a startling reversal of fortune for the top teams and riders in the premier class.  Yamaha owned the practice sessions as factory studs Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, joined by the ascendant Cal Crutchlow, took three of the top four spots again and again.  Honda, though, qualified Dani Pedrosa and rookie Marc Marquez on the front row.  The final podium of Pedrosa, Marquez and Lorenzo delivered a new series leader and a furious double world champion. 

By all rights, defending champion Jorge Lorenzo should have had a more satisfying result today.  He turned 26 on Saturday, and celebrated by having Turn 13 named in his honor.  He had been at or near the top of the timesheets all weekend and qualified on the pole.  While everyone around him spent Saturday crashing into the gravel, Lorenzo ran as if on rails.  In the stifling Spanish heat on Sunday, though, it was Dani Pedrosa who had the pace.  After a poor start, Lorenzo moved back into the early lead on Lap 1 and held it until Lap 6, when Pedrosa passed him on his way to a comfortable win.

By then, Lorenzo was getting dogged by rookie Marquez, who showed no respect going through aggressively on Rossi on Lap 2, with Crutchlow sitting in 5th place hoping for bad karma among the leaders.  As the race approached its midpoint, Marquez was attacking Lorenzo at every opportunity, slipping, sliding and generally causing heart failure among the team and his ever-present dad.  After one of those “moments” on Lap 12, the rookie backed off, appearing content to settle for the third spot on the rostrum.  The race at that point devolved into another of those premier class processions most everyone hates, other than the 111,000 locals in attendance going mental over the prospect of an all-Spanish rostrum.

As the riders crossed the start/finish line for the last time, Marquez re-appeared on Lorenzo’s pipes.  Lorenzo, who had struggled all day with front grip, appeared to be in trouble, but continued blocking Marquez, other than a momentary exchange of positions around Turn 6.  Finally, though, at, of all places, the Jorge Lorenzo corner, its namesake went a shade wide and Marquez, lizard brain firmly in control, dove inside.  As Lorenzo attempted to cut back, the two touched, with Lorenzo being forced wide into third place both for the day and the season.

As race announcers Gavin and Emmett observed, it appeared Marquez, accelerating when he should have been on the brakes, would have run wide had Lorenzo not been there to provide a bounce.  From here, it looked to be one of those incidents where Race Direction might step in and assess some of their shiny new penalty points for 2013.  [At deadline, the silence from the stewards is deafening.]  Lin Jarvis, who directs Yamaha racing, spoke of the contact as being “just a racing incident,” showing immense self-control.  Lorenzo, visibly angry after the race, rebuffed several attempts from Marquez to make nice, but declined to threaten vengeance upon the gifted upstart at LeMans.

Farther Back on the Grid

Valentino Rossi, who ran an uninspired fourth today, sits in fourth place for the year, 15 points behind teammate Lorenzo, and not yet as relevant as we had hoped entering the season.  Cal Crutchlow, with puzzling rumors circulating about him losing his Tech 3 Yamaha ride next season to Pol Espargaro, delivered another gritty performance today for fifth, after crashing twice on Saturday and with everything bone and organ to the left of his sternum throbbing.

A number of other riders acquitted themselves nicely today.  Alvaro Bautista, on the GO&FUN Gresini Honda, battled Crutchlow most of the day, eventually coming in sixth, ten seconds in front of Nicky Hayden, who led the woeful Ducati effort and spanked teammate Andrea Dovizioso by some 16 seconds.  Aleix Espargaro qualified poorly in 13th but finished 9th, once again topping the CRT charts.  Dude deserves a shot at a prototype ride next year, especially if his big brother, who washed out of the premier class once already, gets one at Tech 3.  And Michele Pirro, wildcarding onboard the so-called Ducati GP13 “Lab Bike”, managed 11th place today, which sounds better than it actually is, given the fact that three of the five riders who crashed out early likely would have beaten him.

The Big Picture

In a split second, the 2013 standings shifted, with rookie Marquez now standing alone at the top of the pile, with a large bull’s-eye on his back.  Pedrosa is resurrected into second place, four points down and a single point ahead of Lorenzo, who had entered the weekend tied for the lead.  After three races this season, we’ve had three winners, a major upset, and the beginning of a new inter-team rivalry.  Jorge Lorenzo is saying his Yamaha M-1 is not yet good enough, although he certainly is.  And let’s not forget that Jerez is one of the tight, slow tracks that typically favors the Honda RC213V.  Lorenzo can be forgiven for being in a bad mood after today’s cluster.

Quick Hitters

The rider suddenly under considerable pressure is 2012 Moto2 champion Stefan Bradl, whose quick offseason testing on the LCR Honda raised eyebrows and expectations heading into the season.  With two crashes in three starts and 11 points for the season, Bradl may start looking over his shoulder.  Given, however, the history of Germans in France, we can expect young Stefan to return to form at LeMans, possibly at the head of a Panzer division…Yonny Hernandez took the weekend off, qualifying 21st and crashing out early.  And here I thought he was on his way up the food chain.

Randy de Puniet, who pressed teammate Espargaro all last year for top CRT honors, appears to be coasting this season, after rumors of a romance with Suzuki surfaced several weeks ago.  With but six points to show for 2013, he’ll undoubtedly play the “home race” card in two weeks and turn a fast lap in qualifying before settling back into the bottom ten on Sunday…Colin Edwards made a liar out of me, moving from 17th to 15th position on the last lap to steal his first championship point of the year, and making hash of my prediction he would go 0-for-2013.

There will be a one day testing session here on Monday, and, as has become customary since Casey Stoner left in 2011, Ducati has the most on the line. Having again raised expectations with their new Lab Bike, we are fully prepared for another major disappointment from the Bologna factory, which seems to need an entire division just to keep track of the hundreds of iterations of the once-proud Desmosedici floating around.  These days, Ducati Corse must resemble O’Hare Airport on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.

Watching the Sun Setting on the Circuito de Jerez

Although attendance today was huge—111,000—it’s down from 2010, when I joined 130,000 fans at the storied Andalusian venue.  As the Spanish equivalent of the Daytona 500, the Grand Premio bwin de Espana continues to draw spectators, some of whom probably had to hock their watches to buy tickets.  The track oozes water when the weather is wet and oil when it’s hot.  Hot and slippery works great for sex, but not so much for two-wheeled racing, as it was today when five riders crashed out on the first four laps.  And the infield, which was a manicured lawn back in the day, is now a sea of dandelions and weeds, a symptom of the decline of the Spanish economy and the Estoril-like future of one of its most loved venues.  Qué pena!

 

 

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MotoGP 2013 Qatar Results

April 8, 2013

An edited version of this story appears on Motorcycle.com, complete with high-rez images.

Lorenzo rules in defense of his title; Rossi second 

Under the lights of Losail, Jorge Lorenzo led the big bikes of the MotoGP premier class on a merry chase from wire to wire, winning the season opener without breaking a sweat.  He was joined on the podium by prodigal son and teammate Valentino Rossi, whose return from two years in exile couldn’t have been much more exciting.  Standing in third position on the podium was Wonder Kid Marc Marquez, who punked Repsol Honda teammate and preseason favorite Dani Pedrosa for the first of what promises to be many podium celebrations for the young Spaniard.

Past, Present and Future Champions full final

The new qualifying format, the Q1 preliminaries and the Q2 finale, resulted in an odd starting grid.  It included satellite Yamaha Brit Cal Crutchlow in second position, ahead of Pedrosa, whose weekend was basically terrible.  Qualifying in fourth on the Ducati—surprise surprise—was Andrea Dovizioso, while the best Marquez could manage was 6th.  Rossi starting in seventh place was more disappointing than surprising.

At the start, with 24 bikes on the grid, it looked like a Moto2 race on steroids. Lorenzo held his lead in turn one, stayed clean, put 20 meters between himself and the field, and began laying down sub-1:56 laps one after another in a fashion Nick the Announcer characterized as “metronomic.”  I might have chosen “piston-like.”

Behind him, however, it was bedlam.

Midway through the first lap, surging in 4th or 5th position, Rossi traded paint with Dovizioso, stood the bike up, and ended up back in seventh place, with the difficult Stefan Bradl and his factory spec Honda obstructing his efforts.  Pedrosa and Crutchlow had settled into second and third, respectively, and the Brit was grinding his teeth to dust trying to put Pedrosa behind him, with no success.  (Crutchlow, after a highly encouraging weekend and a front row start, ended up in fifth place, but not without a fight.)

Reviewing my notes, during Lap 2 I wrote “Here comes MM.”  Marquez, after a subdued start, started knocking down opponents like tenpins.  On Lap 2 he went through on Dovizioso into 4th place.  He passed Crutchlow on Lap 4 into 3rd, where he began actively disrespecting Pedrosa, even with an angry Brit glued to his pipes.  With Lorenzo by now having disappeared, things stayed mostly like this for the next 13 laps, at which point Marquez insolently moved past Pedrosa into 2nd.  A Lorenzo-Marquez-Pedrosa podium, at that point, looked pretty good.

Not so fast.  As tomorrow’s headlines will scream, “Rossi is BACK!”

On Lap 8, Rossi weaseled his Yamaha through on Bradl into 5th place.  Shortly thereafter, Bradl crashed out, apparently stunned at the difference between Vale 2012 and Vale 2013.  Having disposed of the German, and with a podium finish dominating his thoughts, Rossi gave us a 2008 vintage comeback.  He drew a bead on Crutchlow’s back and started laying down his own string of 1:56 laps until Lap 18, when he went through on the determined Brit who, trying to keep up, went hot into the next turn and took a brief detour across the lawn and out of contention.

Now running fourth and fast, seeing red (and orange) with two Repsol Hondas in front of him, Rossi gave us five of the most enjoyable laps EVER.  The Doctor went through on Pedrosa on Lap 19 and schooled rookie Marquez on Lap 20.  Marquez, not inclined to accept such a lesson gracefully, came right back at him.  After a few position swaps, Rossi eventually prevailed.  Thus, in some seven minutes, we were graced with a riveting tire-to-tire fight between the Future and the Past of grand prix racing excellence.  Score one for the old guy.

At the end of the day, or perhaps Monday morning local time, we find ourselves gleeful over the return of Butch and Sundance in the Yamaha garage, fascinated with Marquez, and feeling a little bad for Dani Pedrosa.  Pedrosa, who had won six of the last eight races in 2012 and had been lighting up the timesheets all winter, never got it rolling in Qatar.  The good news is that he is starting the season healthy, with arguably the fastest bike on the grid under him.  The bad news is that he was mostly a non-factor all weekend.  We will write this off as one bad outing, pending his performance in Texas in two weeks.

Ten Things We Learned at Losail 

  1. Jorge Lorenzo is not going to surrender his title willingly.  Someone is going to have to step up and TAKE it from him.
  2. Valentino Rossi is a legitimate threat to do just that.
  3. Marc Marquez’s future is so bright, he needs Ben Spies’ Ray-Ban contract.
  4. Andrea Dovizioso is going to have a long two years.  The 2013 Ducati is maybe a half step faster than the Power Electronics ART bikes.
  5. Contrary to his pronouncement last week, Colin Edwards is not going to run at the top of the CRT charts.
  6. The new qualifying format is a cluster.
  7. A podium celebration without champagne is like kissing your sister through a screen door in a submarine.
  8. If I were Herve Poncharal, I’d feel a lot more comfortable with Scott Redding in my #2 seat than Bradley Smith.  Redding would have won the Moto2 race today if he hadn’t been carrying 20 more pounds than Espargaro.  Just sayin’.
  9. Having two Czech riders, Karel Abraham and Lukas Pesek, on the grid is about the same as having one.
  10.   Hector Barbera will not qualify 22nd very often this season.

The Big Picture

The Grand Prix of Qatar is so different from any other race on the calendar—sand, lights, night racing, etc.—that it doesn’t make much sense to project forward based upon what took place today.  But the Repsol Honda team is already, after one round, being forced to play catch-up to the Bruise Brothers on the factory Yamahas.  Jorge Lorenzo would have been even more comfortable sailing in front of the fray had he known that his wingman was back there harassing and eventually disposing of the big bad RC213V’s.  On the other hand, for Lorenzo, having Rossi as his “wingman” may be only a temporary convenience.  It was only three years ago that the two rivals needed a wall built between them in the garage.

Over on the CRT side of the tracks, teammates Aleix Espargaro and Randy de Puniet are once again the class of the class.  If anyone looks capable of giving them a run, it may be Avintia Blusens’ Hector Barbera or, my personal fave, Yonny Hernandez on the PBM ART.

On to Austin

Two weeks hence MotoGP will descend upon Austin, Texas for the inaugural Grand Prix of the Americas, so named because the race organizers could not come up with anything MORE pretentious.  It is always fun to watch the riders attack unfamiliar circuits, and COTA may have a leavening effect on the field, removing some of the advantage enjoyed by the veteran riders who know every crack and crevice at places like Mugello, to the benefit of the rookies

For his part, Marc Marquez doesn’t appear to need any more advantages.

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2013 MotoGP Qatar Preview

April 5, 2013

An article similar to this appears at Motorcycle.com, with some great images.  Here is the raw version.

Pedrosa, Marquez feeling it as the season begins 

When last we left our brave young men, they were engaged in a damp all-day Valenciana crashfest that saw eight riders exit the racing surface prematurely and allowed Yamaha factory test rider Katsuyuki Nakasuga the feel good moment of the season with his easy second-place finish.  Starting the season under the lights of Doha, there appear to be four Aliens in 2013, as Casey Stoner has retired, for now, while rookie Marc Marquez joins returning alum Valentino Rossi in the premier class fast lane.  They, along with 2012 runner-up Dani Pedrosa, will set off under the lights on Sunday night in the hope of taking down two time champion Yamaha icon Jorge Lorenzo. 

Judging from the changes that have occurred in the field since last November, as well as the results of the off-season testing runs, it appears that the 24 bike premier class breaks fairly cleanly into several distinct gaggles:

The Aliens—Honda and Yamaha Factory studs Pedrosa, Marquez, Lorenzo and Rossi.  These four guys should account for 95% of the podium spots in 2013.  Rossi has something to prove after two years lollygagging on the Ducati.  Has he lost a step?  Probably.  Is he still good enough to compete for a podium every week on the factory Yamaha?  You betcha.  Marquez appears to be the fastest thing since Lorenzo in 2008.  We’ll look at how these aliens started their careers in a moment, in order to gauge expectations for young Marquez.

The Lurkers—Cal Crutchlown on the Monster Tech 3 Yamaha, Stefan Bradl on the LCR Honda and Alvaro Bautista on the GO & FUN Gresini Honda.  If one or two of the Aliens falter, one of these guys could snag a podium this season.  Crutchlow’s reluctant decision to stay on the satellite Yamaha will look much better when he finishes in the Top 6 and Dovizioso has to work to make the Top 10.  Bradl will probably have to wait for Pedrosa to retire or move on before he gets his Repsol factory ride.  And Bautista keeps on being the best rider available for Fausto Gresini, although the two don’t seem to get along all that well.

Good, but not Very Good—Nicky Hayden and Andrea Dovizioso on the factory Ducatis and rookie Bradley Smith on the satellite Yamaha.  These three will have to work like crazy or pray for rain to see many Top 6 finishes.  Hayden appears to be in his last contract with Ducati, while Dovizioso has rented, if not sold, his soul for two years of all-Italian inconsequentiality.  Smith was, and remains, a rather curious choice for promotion from Moto2.  Reasonable to assume the team knows more about him than do I.

Pramacs and Aspars—The teams of rookie Andrea Iannone and veteran Ben Spies on the “junior” Ducati Desmosedicis, and top CRT teammates Aleix Espargaro and Randy de Puniet on the Aprilia-powered ART frankenbikes.  Ducati says they expect Spies and Iannone to be competitive this year.  Hope their happy competing with the top CRT guys, and not the factory entries.  It seems to me that the last few seasons, the only competition for the Ducati bikes was other Ducatis.  Just sayin’.

Group Five—Not sure what else to call Avintia Blusens teammates Hectic Hector Barbera and Hiro Aoyama on their Kawasaki-powered FTR machines.  Danillo Petrucci, the second-year senior of the two IodaRacing entries, joins Karel Abraham, working his way downhill on the new Cardion CRT entry.  These four will just have to entertain each other most weeks, as they will seriously lag Pramac-Aspar and will generally lead this last bunch.

This Last Bunch—must have located sponsors needing huge tax losses, as there is not much here.  Yonny Hernandez and Michael Laverty on the Paul Byrd Motorsports combo.    Forward Racing teammates Colin Edwards and rookie Claudio Corti, moving up from Moto2.  Finally, you have Lukas Pesek, the junior IodaRacing entry, and Bryan Staring, the junior Gresini (CRT) entry whose hopes are as faint as the dried wings of a dragonfly.  Of these six riders, I expect four to still be turning laps when Valencia rolls around.

Alien Debut Seasons

ROOKIE STATS ARTICLE 1

This chart says it all.  I’ve taken the liberty of predicting Marc Marquez’s statistics for the season.  He’ll need a year or two to learn how to stay aboard the RC213V.  Once he does, he’ll be a consistent winner for as long as he wants.  Someone needs to remind me in November to compare these numbers to his actual.    But, for the record, let me just state here and now that Marquez, no matter how brilliant his rookie season may turn out to be, will not finish at Laguna Seca.

So, the expectation here is that excitable boy Marquez will easily win Rookie of the Year, will set a few rookie records, and will crash often enough to stay out of serious contention for the title.  Pedrosa looks as if this may be his year, but Lorenzo already has two titles and Rossi seven, and they will have plenty to say about who takes it home in 2013.

Late News

As we approach deadline, one item passed across the wire that inspire hope in our hearts.  The first is that Suzuki is apparently going to try to join the 2014 grid through a partnership with Aspar, with Randy de Puniet rumored to be under contract to test for Suzuki several times this season.  Aspar could easily mimic Fausto Gresini, with an “A” prototype bike under de Puniet and a “B” CRT entry.  One article I read described the new Suzuki as mad fast.  That’s good news. 

Round One:  The Losail Circuit, Doha, Qatar 

Once upon a time, Losail was spoken of as being “Ducati-friendly.”  Stoner won here in 2007, 2008 and 2009 and crashed out of the lead in 2010.  He returned to win again in 2011, but on the Repsol Honda.  Sadly, those were the days.  Rossi won on the Yamaha back in 2010, and Lorenzo captured the flag in 2012.  At this point, it’s safe to say only that one of the Aliens will win on Sunday.

Losail is long and wide and hot and gritty and dark, a layout that has favored the Yamaha in the recent past.  So far this year, it seems that every circuit on the calendar may be Honda-friendly, with a smaller number favoring the Yamaha.  2013, it appears, is Dani Pedrosa’s last best chance to capture a title.  Perhaps the Repsol team will haze the rookie, make him lie back and tangle with the Yamahas.  Doubtful.  But I expect Marquez to avoid contact with Pedrosa and invite it with Lorenzo and Rossi, which should make for exciting racing and some epic images of Marquez sailing over his handlebars.  See Lorenzo in China in 2008.

Lorenzo airborn on Saturday, finishes 2nd on Sunday!

Chineese GP 2008–Lorenzo airborne on Saturday, finishes 2nd on Sunday!

We’ll have race results for you late Sunday or early Monday.

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MotoGP 2012 Motegi Preview

October 10, 2012

The pressure on Dani Pedrosa grows at Round 15

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

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

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

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

Recent History at Motegi

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

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

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

Home for Honda

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

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

Musical Chairs in CRT Land

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

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

News from Deep In the Heart

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

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

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

Let’s Not Even Bother with the Weather

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

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MotoGP 2012 Brno Results

August 26, 2012

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

Pedrosa Captures Last Lap Thriller; Race Tightens Again

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

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

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

Brno 2012:  One for the Pedrosa Family Scrapbook

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

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

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

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

Elsewhere on the Grid

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

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

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

Three Final Thoughts

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

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

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

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MotoGP 2012 Indianapolis Preview

August 14, 2012

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

Aliens Take Aim at the IMS Infield Track

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

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

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

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

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

The MotoGP World Tips Slightly on its Axis

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

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

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

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

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

Toni and the Wildcards

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

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

Chasing Jorge Lorenzo

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

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

It’s not happening.

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

Just not this weekend.

Your Hurrying Hoosier Forecast

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

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

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MotoGP 2012 Laguna Seca Results

July 29, 2012

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

Stoner Outduels Lorenzo in Replay of 2011 Classic

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, Not Exactly Everyone

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

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

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

Elsewhere on the Grid

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

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

Bits and Pieces

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

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

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

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MotoGP Sachsenring Results

July 8, 2012

An edited version of this story will appear on Motorcycle.com with stunning photos later today.  Until then, please enjoy this summary of the 2012 German Grand Prix.

Pedrosa’s Win Tightens the 2012 Championship Race

For the third consecutive year, countrymen Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo finished one-two in the German Grand Prix.  For the diminutive Repsol Honda pilot, today’s race was a field study in skill, stamina and stones, as he tangled with teammate Casey Stoner all day, until Stoner slid off in Turn 12 of the last lap.  Yamaha ace Lorenzo, nursing an injured ankle, had appeared content to settle for third until Stoner’s mishap.  When the dust cleared, the standings at the top of the championship were scrambled, and the 2012 season had just became a lot more interesting.

The weather had been a factor all weekend, alternating between damp, dry and wet, and led to some surprising practice results.  Exhibit A was FP3, run in the wet, in which the top two finishers were CRT plodders Michele Pirro and Mattia Pasini.  Qualifying practice closely resembled last week’s shocker in Assen, as the wet track suddenly dried out late in the session, and Stoner again snatched the pole to join Pedrosa and Yamaha’s Ben Spies on the front row.  Row two included the highly ambitious Cal Crutchlow, a limping Lorenzo, and homeboy Stefan Bradl on the LCR Honda.  When the red light went out, the sun was shining, the track was hot, and the big dogs had their game faces on, along with hard compound asymmetric rear slicks.

If Losail, Silverstone and Aragon are Yamaha-oriented circuits, the Sachsenring is clearly Honda-friendly.  Tight and twisty, it favors the RC213V, with its superior corner-exit power.  (The 1000cc Yamaha M1 loves long straights, but in Germany the longest is only 700 meters.)  As expected, Stoner and Pedrosa took off early, leaving all four Yamahas to scramble for third place, led by an increasingly desperate Spies.  The American, whose fortunes are waning, gave way to Lorenzo on Lap 5, and both Andrea Dovizioso and Crutchlow on Lap 9.  Though Ben would ultimately finish 4th, his best result of the year, it was more a matter of luck than skill, as we shall see.

On Lap 19, Pedrosa went through on Stoner, but the Australian looked comfortable, apparently biding his time until opportunity arose to break his teammate’s little heart once again.  With Lorenzo by himself in third, the battle for fourth place was raging.  Normally, I don’t pay much attention to the ‘race within the race’ off the lead, but there is much at stake in the Spies-Dovizioso-Crutchlow wars, namely the second factory seat alongside Jorge Lorenzo for the next couple of years.  As of this past week, Spies is officially “disappointing” team manager Wilco Zeelenberg.

On Lap 26, Crutchlow, trying to get past Dovizioso, went too hot into one of the three right-handers and ended up in the kitty litter, falling back to 11th position and effectively ending his day.  (It may be that this lone error will result in his going to work for Ducati next year, a mistake the dimensions of which cannot be overstated.  If it does, I can serenely predict that Cal will earn fewer points on the factory Ducati in 2013 than will either of the Tech 3 Yamaha riders.  Take that to the bank.)

A Shocking, Karma-Laden Finish

Pedrosa was still managing to hold off Stoner when the two crossed the start-finish line to start the last lap.  Lorenzo was a mile back, and the Dovizioso-Spies battle continued in the distance.  The only question in my mind was when Stoner would try to go through on Pedrosa.  The racing gods, apparently offended by last week’s events, in which Lorenzo was forced to give up his 25 point championship lead to Stoner, suddenly intervened.  In the midst of Turn 12, a fast left-hander, the front end of Stoner’s bike gradually folded into a lowside, with the Australian sliding 100 yards into his first DNF in 22 races.  The domino effect was remarkable, as follows.

Pedrosa’s win elevated him from third place into second, 14 points behind Lorenzo.  Stoner’s shutout dropped him from a tie for first into third, six points behind Pedrosa.  Dovizioso, who edged Spies by 7/100ths of a second, enjoyed his second consecutive podium finish.  Behind Spies sat Bradl, who coaxed his satellite Honda into fifth place, to the delight of the tollwütigen Zuschauer, for whom he is The Great Aryan Hope.  San Carlo Honda pilot Alvaro Bautista, forced to start from the back of the grid after last week’s debacle, stormed back into 7th place, a fraction of a second in front of the hard-luck Crutchlow.  For the record, Valentino Rossi finished sixth today, and had absolutely nothing to do with anything.

Idle Speculation from the Department of Idle Speculation

The torrent of leaks from the Bologna factory show the depth of concern Ducati has about the 2013 season and beyond.  They seem to think Rossi will not be returning next year, and are giving the distinct impression they don’t want Hayden, either.  They’ve offered a contract to Crutchlow, who would be crazy to accept it.  The sense here is that the overall quality of life on a factory team is so superior to that on the satellite teams (never mind the CRTs) that Crutchlow will find the “opportunity” irresistible, despite the likelihood that it will effectively remove any chance he might have to contend for a world championship in MotoGP.

This past week we learned that both Scott Redding and Danilo Petrucci are in discussions with the Italian company regarding 2013.  I’m starting to feel that I’m the only guy involved in this sport who has NOT been approached by some well-groomed Italian guy in a red windbreaker.  Never mind that I’ve never ridden anything larger than 80cc, and that was during the Nixon administration.

The Big Picture

So, Pedrosa now has his hat trick, with three consecutive wins in Saxony.  Lorenzo has his fourth consecutive bridesmaid finish here, although this one likely feels much better than the last three.  Stoner received some payback for his lucky win last time out, and has work to do if he wants to repeat as world champion.  With only 20 points separating the three Aliens at the top of the heap, the 2012 season is suddenly fascinating.  Approaching the halfway point of the season next week, no one is running away with the title this year.

Next Stop—Mugello

Practice starts again on Friday for the Gran Premio d’Italia TIM.  Between the virulent European financial crisis, which now has Italy in its crosshairs, and the sagging fortunes of Rossi and Ducati, expect a sparse, subdued crowd.  Wait—what am I saying?  Never mind the economy, or the standings.  Next to soccer, MotoGP is the biggest thing in Italy, and the stands will be packed with delirious jabbering men and gorgeous, sultry and, hopefully, under-dressed Italian women.  The brolly girls will be a thing of joy.  And the circuit is one of the best on the planet.

It will be a three day party, a few short miles from Florence, the birthplace of the Renaissance.  For Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa, the renaissance of the 2012 season started today in Turn 12.  Portarlo sulla!

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