Ducati pilot Enea Bastiannini and Repsol Honda legend Marc Marquez will both miss Round 3 at COTA this weekend. Their inclusion on our list of Helplessly Hoping Pilots is looking better and better. Joan Mir’s recent travails have made him the 12th rider purported to have no chance of winning the 2023 title.
Ducati test rider Michele Pirro will take Bastiannini’s place in Texas, while the erstwhile Stefan Bradl will suit up for the pitiful Repsol Honda team.
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.
I’d like to think that I called it when I suggested an inverse relationship between the number of DNFs recorded by a rider and his rank in the chase. These top ten YTD standings are current as of 05/21/2022.
Rider Points #DNF
Quartararo 102 0
A. Espargaro 98 0
Bastianini 94 1
Rins 69 1
Miller 62 2
Zarco 62 2
Bagnaia 56 2
B. Binder 56 1
Mir 56 2
M Marquez 54 2
This illustrates, once again, that, as the expression goes, in order to finish first, one must first finish.
The four riders leading the 2022 chase have averaged, over the first seven rounds, half a DNF, with neither Quartararo nor Aleix haven’t crashed once. Riders five, six and seven–Miller, Zarco and Bagnaia–have all crashed out of two races, returning us briefly to the days when the Desmo was considered unridable by anyone other than Casey Stoner. In fact, of riders five through eleven, all have crashed out twice other than Brad Binder, whose numbers suggest he is too stubborn to stay down, that he may have remounted once or twice.
The current poster child for this “win or bin” mentality is Pramac Racing’s Jorge Martin, with DNFs in four of his first seven. Earlier in the season he looked ready to assume the second chair on the factory Ducati team. Lately, however, Mo Mentum, the famous sixth man in basketball, the 12th man in the Seattle Seahawks’ crazy home field advantage, seems to be smiling on your boy EBas, at the expense of Jack Miller, who would look good in KTM colors. Honda must be sweating bullets trying to get Mir signed now that PEsp is feeling unwanted. Mir, one supposes, is not looking forward to wrestling the RC213V, at least the 2022 iteration. Neither of the LCR boys, Nakagami nor Little Brother, can ride the Honda. PEsp will have his moments at his tracks but is nothing like consistent. And, if you were a betting man, um, person, who would you rather have a grand on right now–Marquez, with 54 points or Bagnaia with 56.
Interesting that Maverick Vinales has a clean DNF record but only 33 points, suggesting he is not riding the Aprilia hard enough. Much the same could be said about PEsp. Oh, and just for the record I expect Ducati to crush Mugello, lock out the podium, and convince Fabio that his future does not lie with Yamaha, that he’s caught them with the OEM pendulum swinging in the wrong direction. Is this the weekend Zarco finally achieves liftoff speed? Can Marquez continue trying to catch a tow into Q2? Will young EBas continue his poised, efficient efforts to winning a premier class title as a sophomore in the Marquez era, or at least the close of it. Fabio knows he has to remain perfect in order to remain in contention, putting massive pressure on himself. And my boy Aleix is sitting there making it look easy on an Aprilia that finally does what it’s told.
One of the few things I remember from five years of university-level economics is the tendency of large numbers to regress to the mean, all things being equal, which they never are. In the immediate case, as is almost always the case, you have a new group of Aliens. It’s true. Your present group of Aliens includes EBas, Pecco, Fabio, Aleix. The jury is officially out on #93; we may be witnessing the end of an era, the emergence of Italy, fast young Italian Riders and the, ahem, iconic Italian brand, the Really Big Red Machine. Europe, in Ducati and Aprilia, seeming to enjoy the upper hand in recent times, Fabio and Yamaha holding on for dear life. The Suzuki boys, Rins and Mir, appear disillusioned, watching their teams disintegrate beneath them.
And so it goes in grand prix yachting. I expect that latest division amongst the racing cognoscenti is whether Marquez can bring it back home again, like, in 2023, 2024? He needs a better bike, which Honda has generally provided. No sense in gathering input from PEsp any longer, as his head is unlikely to still be in the game. Nor does he appear to be at all effective as a wingman. Anyway, I think the top three riders at this moment–Fabio, Aleix and EBas–will not be the same three at the top of the heap heading to Valencia. In my unsolicited opinion, I think Fabio is in trouble at tracks like Mugello and Red Bull Ring. Assen is the fastest track on the calendar. He is so unlikely to maintain his clean slate, and when it goes, there goes his lead in the series. Aleix is making it look easy, a third of the way through the season, and EBas is threatening to run away with things.
Somewhere in me resides the thought that the guys who’ve avoided gravel traps thus far are due for a visit. That once Fabio loses his grip on the title, his successor will have a brief ride at the top. The greatest movements, the worst movements, are a DNF at this point. The figures would argue that the riders most at risk of a DNF at this time are Fabio, Aleix, EBas and Rins. This is the type of season in which the MotoGP announcers begin wetting themselves, waxing euphoric about “those precious _____ points.”
Similar to their race strategy at certain tracks, perhaps the riders don’t actually want to be in the lead this early in the season, especially since there is no runaway winner who needs stopping. It is simply vital that the riders gathered at the top of the heap today remain upright on race days, that they continue to gather points no matter what, that they know who and what is ahead of them and behind them. That they take no stupid risks that would jeopardize another rider.
So far, IMHO, this season is shaping up exactly the way fans want it. There are three Aliens at this moment. There is a host of challengers waiting for someone in front of them to fall. There is just so much riding on every turn, the race, the season, the silly season, which brand is on the upswing, which brand is heading down? Competition amongst the teams–first and foremost, beat your teammate.
It’s fair to expect financial pressures to force teams to cut costs, a process well beyond the scope of this effort. We’e been down this road before and have been breaking all-time track records along the way. If I were a betting man I would be that all the money spent on winglets is all the money that will get spent, i.e., no more R&D on winglets with wind tunnels and etc. Beyond that I don’t know, other than them that has, gets.
Some teams are scratching their heads this year.l LCR Honda. Factory Suzuki. Gresini, current employer of EBas. Jack Miller needs to pull a rabbit out of his hat to keep his current seat. Why does Alex Rins appear to be odd man out during this silly season? Riding Aprilia for Leopard Racing, that could work.
This week is Mugello, one of the great venues in this sport. So much history, none of which I can remember, but I know it’s out there. Perhaps the best slipstream anywhere, adds a whole new dimension to bike racing. The noise. As we like to say out here in Hoosierville, “MotoGP is one of God’s great gifts to mankind. It. Just. Is.
So go tell your friends. Tell them it’s the best sport on two wheels. Ever.
[Sorry guys and Allison. This is going to happen occasionally with Catholic grandfathers. One of my grandsons is getting confirmed this weekend, which entails an all-day retreat on Saturday and a full slate of activities on Sunday. I will get up early on Sunday and watch the races, but practice and qualifying are mostly a lost cause. I will do a brief write-up of the MotoGP race, probably Sunday night.
Thank you for hanging with me.]
Let’s talk about race day.
Moto3 was a victim of a two-minute rain shower during the first two laps of the race, leaving almost a dozen riders dazed with gravel in their underwear, a red flag, and a 14 lap sprint as a result. Young Jaume Masia, the latest Pride of KTM, persevered against Ayuma Sasaki, Izan Guevara (the next great MotoGP rider) and Dennis Foggia, taking the lead in Turn 13 of the last lap for 25 points, gaining 12 points on series leader Sergio Garcia and cutting his lead for 2022 to 17 points. Foggia and Masia are tied, with young Guevara only 6 points farther back. The Hondas figure to have an advantage at Mugello, but, seriously, who can predict what will happen week-to-week in this, the best racing in MotoGP.
Moto2 was a two man procession led by the factory KTM duo of Pedro Acosta and Augusto Fernandez. Acosta, a disappointment for 2022 after tearing a new one in the Moto3 championship last year, looked like he would finally begin to return to his dominant 2021 form, leading from the holeshot until an unforced error on Lap 11 took him out of the race, handing the win to teammate Fernandez. Bridesmaid Aron Canet took P2 yet again, with Thai sensation Somkiat Chantra stealing the final podium spot ahead of erstwhile American Cam Baubier, who came as close to his first grand prix podium as one can get. After an atrocious qualifying and early race, series leader Celestino Vietti salvaged eight points with a late charge, leaving him 16 points in front of Ai Ogura for the year, with Canet another three points back. Not the best Moto2 race I’ve ever seen, but they can’t all be barn burners.
MotoGP was eventful, especially for the Ducati contingent, which thrives at point-and-shoot layouts like Bugatti. From gasping Yamaha pilot Frankie Morbidelli running off track during the sighting lap to Pecco Bagnaia crashing out of the lead on Lap 21, ceding the win to Enea Bastianini, there was something for every taste and budget. Alex Rins continued his recent return to MotoGP hell, crashing out on Lap 2 after going for a long walkabout in the gravel. Herve Poncharal’s KTM boys crashed out within three laps of one another early in the race. Joan Mir joined Suzuki teammate Rins on the sidelines after crashing out on Lap 14.
Bastianini moved past Jack Miller into P2 on Lap 12, setting up an Italian Ducati duel with Bagnaia, which took shape on Lap 19. Bastianini is my current favorite to take the 2022 title, having won three out of seven outings, consistently having plenty of rear tire left late in the race to scare the crap out of anyone still in front of him. Today it was Pecco who folded under the pressure, giving him two DNFs in 2022 and putting a serious dent in his title hopes. Miller held on for a rather quiet P2, with plucky Aleix Espargaro and his newly-competitive Aprilia keeping his chances alive with another impressive P3. Fabio Quartararo salvaged P4 after struggling early. Had the 100,000 French fans been sober at the end of the race, they would have been disappointed by their young heartthrob; as it was, P4 probably felt like a win. Johann Zarco, the other French pilot, looking increasingly like a caricature of the swarthy villain in an animated French movie, followed Fabio to the finish in P5, having disposed of the increasingly irrelevant Marc Marquez on Lap 17.
So, for the season, Quartararo sits on top with 102 points, followed by Aleix at 98 and EBas at 94. I’d have to go back and look, but my earlier-in-the-season projection for the 2022 podium had two of these guys, plus Joan Mir, slugging it out for the year. Mir and Rins appear to be completely scrambled by having their team collapse beneath them, withdrawing from the chase at the end of 2022. Pussies! I think it’s a safe bet that the Ducatis are going to enjoy another clambake at their home crib in Mugello in two weeks. Fabio is going to have to rely on some serious slipstreaming to keep up. I’ve stopped worrying about Espargaro, as he seems to do well everywhere after over a decade of futility; he must have a permanent erection these days.
A Little Eye Candy for Youse Guys
From MotoGP.com
Late-Braking MotoGP 