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.
Premier class qualifying took place in the middle of the night, Eastern Daylight Time, and, accordingly, our erstwhile reporter missed it entirely. Apparently the schedule had been massaged to allow the big bikes to run in the dry which, of course, failed. A few early showers gave way to sunny and dry conditions for the rest of the day. Pecco Bagnaia and Brad Binder made it through Q1, abandoning Marco Bezzecchi and Alex Rins to the great unwashed. Q2 was great fun, riders on rain tires at the beginning recording Moto3 times, gradually switching to slicks late in the session and threatening the ATTR.
Grizzled veteran Aleix Espargaro left it to way late before sticking his Aprilia on pole, joined on the front row by KTM NKIT (New Kid in Town) Jack Miller and Fast on Saturday Jorge Martin on his Ducati. Row 2 featured Brad Binder, whose name will come up again in a minute, Pecco Bagnaia and one Dani Pedrosa, guesting on the shiny new KTM at age 37. Farther down on the qualifying food chain were Bezzecchi, the woebegone Fabio Quartararo (P16) and flash in the pan Alex Rins (P18). Enea Bastiannini, the hard luck second bike on the factory Ducati team, tried to race with his knitting right shoulder blade, but withdrew from the festivities after the third practice session.
The Saturday Sprint was great fun for the first 30 seconds until Frankie Morbidelli lost the front in Turn 2, collected Alex Marquez and skittled Marco Bezzecchi. The action completely spooked rookie Augusto Fernandez, who pooped his pants and fell off his satellite KTM. The red flag waved as Bezzecchi’s Desmo went up in flames. A few minutes later the restart found KTMs crowding the front, Binder and Miller leading the way with Mighty Mouse included in the lead group. Round and round they went, with Pecco Bagnaia liotering in the top three. Aleix crashed out on his own on Lap 6, joining Marquez, Nakagami and, a few moments later, the downtrodden Joan Mir in the Have Nots. Miller, Binder and Bagnaia jousted over the last few laps for podium steps, with Martin, Miguel Oliveira and Pedrosa lurking. In the end, it was the surprising Brad Binder claiming the title of Sprint Maven, joined by Bagnaia and Miller on the podium.
KTM has arrived. Binder has won two of the four Sprints. Miller has added something to the overall team effort. It was interesting to note that the top 10 qualifiers and top 11 finishers all rode European bikes. These are, indeed, lean times for Honda and Yamaha. There are bound to be some high profile riders defecting from the Japanese teams–Fabio and #93 at the top of the list–which will put huge pressure on the lower-ranked Aprilia, Ducati and KTM riders wishing to hold on to their seats in 2024. Ten years ago one wouldn’t have been able to give away a Ducati, and neither KTM nor Aprilia were even involved in the premier class. What a difference a decade makes.
Sunday
The changing of the guard amongst the manufacturers continued in full force today. It was not that many years ago that the KTMs were only competitive at the Red Bull Ring, MotoGP’s equivalent of Daytona, with eight turns instead of three. The bikes were fast in a straight line, but impossible to turn. Today, they showed that they are both quick and nimble, at a track where riders spend a third of their time on the brakes and only hit sixth gear once, perhaps twice at the max. In a replay of the Saturday Sprint, the main event was red-flagged after about 30 seconds, during which time, Fully Frustrated Fabio dumped the hideous Yamaha and, in the process, sent Miguel “The Victim” Oliveira tumbling into the gravel, where he dislocated his left shoulder and had to sit out yet another round due to no fault of his own. All this while the factory KTMs were flying at the start, with Pecco fending off Austrians on the left and more Austrians on the right.
The restart was a replay of the first, with Miller and Binder hauling Bagnaia around the circuit, the three of them taking turns in the lead. Bagnaia settled into P2 for the bulk of the day behind Binder, finally going through on Lap 21 for the lead and, ultimately, the win. Binder and Miller took steps 2 and 3 on the podium, followed by Jorge Martin and Aleix. Dani Pedrosa finished a very respectable P7 in between the satellite Ducatis of Marini and Marquez. Takaa Nakagami was the top finisher for Honda in P9 followed by Quartararo, who survived not one but two long lap penalties–the second assessed for his having screwed up the first–for a gritty P10. Crashers for the day included Alex Rins and Joan Mir, both of whom are coming to terms with the Honda RC213V in gravel traps, Zarco, and Bezzecchi, with your boy Cole Trickle retiring with a mechanical on Lap 24, for God’s sake. He helped my fantasy team get hammered today.
The Moto3 tilt was a fire drill, as usual, with Ivan Ortola, rookie David Alonso and my boy Jaume Masia ending the day on the podium. In Moto2, Sam Lowes avoided his usual brain fart to win easily in a procession, followed in due course by a stunned Pedro Acosta and Alonzo Lopez. Tony Arbolino, Aron Canet and Jake Dixon took P4 – P6.
I thought the Aprilia contingent would have a better day today, but it was not to be. Sure, Aleix took pole, but spent the day pedaling hard in P5. Ducati claimed P1, P4, P6 and P8, to no one’s surprise. But the factory KTM effort is starting to resemble their dominating little brothers in the lightweight and intermediate classes. If history is a teacher, we can expect better things in the not-too-distant future from both Honda and Yamaha, at which point Dorna will need to start measuring times to four decimal places.
Look who made a cameo this weekend.Aleix avoids a cat on SaturdayMoto3 rider David Salvador (?) doing it wrong on Saturday.
Saturday qualifying was fascinating, as the risk/reward ratios changed along with track conditions. Alex Marquez and Fabio Quartararo passed through a wet Q1, but the rain quit at the end of the session. Q2 took place under the most difficult conditions possible, a cool track drying on the racing line. The session opened with all 12 riders on rain tires, and Frankie Morbidelli, defining “anomoly,” set the benchmark time, sitting briefly on pole.
The riders entered the pits after their first pass. Nine re-emerged on wets, but three brave souls–Marquez, Bagnaia and Bezzecchi–came out on slicks with their hearts in their throats, slipping and sliding. As the session drew to a close and the track continued to dry, their bravery (which is virtually indistinguishable from stupidity) paid off. All three made it to the front row, with Little Brother claiming his first premier class pole and a shiny new Tissot watch. Bezzecchi claimed P2 and Bagnaia P3. The Ducati lockout of the front row produced dancing in the streets in Borgo Paginale. The entire grid was as nervous as Mike Tyson in a spelling bee waiting to see what the weather would be like on Sunday. There would be, however, the matter of a Sprint race before any of that.
The 12-lap Sprint was, for a little while, somewhat biblical, as the last were briefly first. Early on, it was Morbidelli in P1 for the first time since the Truman administration. The two Mooney VR46 youngsters, Luca Marini and Marco Bezzecchi, had good starts, swapping paint on the first lap, looking very comfortable on their year-old Ducatis. The big surprise early, mid-race and at the flag was KTM veteran Brad Binder. Starting from P15, he made his way to P3 by Lap 2 and took the lead from Morbidelli on Lap 3. He held off the best that Ducati Corse has to offer to take the win by an eyelash from Bezzecchi, who would have won a 13-lap race, and Marini. Morbidelli managed to salvage P4 in front of polesitter Marquez and series leader Pecco Bagnaia.
Joan Mir, it says here, is already ruing his decision to join Repsol Honda after last season. He barely qualified at all, at the bottom of the last row, and crashed out on Lap 1 before heading for the medical center. He re-injured the ankle he broke last year; if he is unavailable on Sunday, he will join 11 other riders with no chance of winning the 2023 championship. Last year’s Argentine winner, Aleix Espargaro, went walkabout on Lap 8. He was not hurt physically, but the same cannot be said for his championship aspirations. He’s still in the hunt, but appears to have ceded the #1 seat on the factory Aprilia team to #12, our boy Cole Trickle.
Sidebar: I agreed to watch my daughter’s dog for six days, starting Friday. On Saturday, and again on Sunday morning, he evidenced his displeasure at the situation by defecating all over my white sofa and two chairs in the living room. I was up until midnight Saturday night putting a full load of cushion covers through the wash, and had to repeat the process again on Sunday WHILE THE RACE WAS BEING RUN. Accordingly, I had to scramble to catch the news about the race and watch the video. This week’s race report is, unhappily, terrible. As my Jewish forebears say about The Holocaust, “NEVER AGAIN!”
The race took place on a drenched track. Marco Bezzecchi got away early and was never challenged. Franco Morbidelli spent the entire weekend in P4. The two Frenchmen on the grid, Pramac Ducati pilot Johann Zarco and former world champion Fabio Quartararo, rallied furiously late in the race after lackluster starts. Zarco, running in P8 at the end of Lap 7, ended his day on the second step of the podium and was gaining on Bezzecchi at the close of festivities. Quartararo, tagged by Takaa Nakagami early in the race, completed Lap 1 in P16. By the time he saw the checkered flag, he sat in P7. Hats off to both riders, and to Bezz on his first premier class win; he also leads the 2023 title chase after Pecco Bagnaia lowsided out of P2 and into P16 late in the race.
All in all, a forgettable weekend for yours truly. Let’s hope COTA has more excitement and less excrement.
One more thing. Unsurprisingly, the MotoGP Fantasy game is user un-friendly to the max. I spent 15 minutes on Friday changing my picks for the weekend. Last night, I checked in to discover none of the changes had stuck. I’m going to try this one more time, but, seriously, why can’t these guys get it right the first time?
Well FP1 & FP2 for the Argentina MotoGP is done. The “Italian Mob” has secured the first 7 positions. A nice wrinkle though, as the “The Grand Ole Man” of MotoGP Aleix Espargaro put’s in the fastest time just over a tenth quicker than his teammate “Top Gun” Maverick Vinales who was 2nd. Obviously, a great venue for the small Italian manufacturer Aprilia. Aleix’s only win a year ago came here, could he do it again? When Maverick is happy, he’s a threat to win. I think he’s happy, a first win on his Aprilia here looks like a possibility, backing up a strong 5/2 tally last week.. The “Rossi Boys”, Marco Bezzecchi 3rd fastest, coming off a podium finish a week ago at Portimao looking for another. His teammate Luca Marini 4th, trying to right the ship after a abysmal start to his season last week with 2 DNF’s. 5th, the new “Flying Frenchman” Johann Zarco, once again a great qualifying run, coming of a well deserved 4th place last week at Portimao. Could he finally win one of these things? I’m hoping so, he’s come so close on a number of occasions. 6th, defending Champ Franco Bagnaia, coming off a perfect weekend and once again in a great position to challenge for podiums in Argentina. 7th, “Mighty Mouse” Jorge Martin, another solid qualifying effort, after a strong second last week in the Sprint race, only to be collected by an overzealous Marc Marquez in Sunday’s feature, knocking him out of a another potential podium. 8th, from “The Land of the Rising Sun”, Takaaki Nakagami, on the first non Italian machine and first Honda. His up and down career has been filled with many crashes, flashes of brilliance and more crashes. Maybe he can have some luck this weekend. 9th and first Yamaha, not who you’d expect, but great to see back in the top ten, former Moto2 champ, Franco Mordibelli. After almost winning the title in 2020, frankly he should have, nothing but injury and poor finishes the past 2 seasons. Hopefully, the likeable Italian can find his 2020 form and get some much needed results. 10th “Mr. Smooth”, Alex Rins on the second Honda. I’ve always liked him, reminds me so much of Jorge Lorenzo, hoping he can come to grips with the Honda and maybe help them make it more rideable.
Tomorrow will be Q1 and only 2 will advance to Q2. Some fast guys that really need to get to Q2 to help their chances this weekend. Alex Marquez 11th, just missing the cut today. Brad “The Grinder” Binder, 12th after a good run in last Sunday’s long race. Joan Mir 13th, still struggling with the Honda and needing something to build on. 14th Fabio Quartararo, the former champ in desperate need of some good news. Today, for the first time in a couple of years, being out qualified by his teammate. 15th FDG, a name to long to type, still looking for some speed on his Ducati. 16th, “The Thriller” Jack Miller, looking to pull a “rabbit out of his hat” tomorrow, as it appears the KTM’s are having issues in Argentina. Augusto and Raul Fernandez rounding out the slightly deleted field 17th and 18th.
Qualifying has become a “premium” this season as your grid is set both days by your final Q1/Q2 tally. With the top 15 being separated by less than a second, the days of the come from behind rides are almost over. Looks good for Aprilia and Ducati this weekend. They’ve qualified well and if their FP3 race set up pace is solid, it’ll be a long weekend for any brand not made in Italy. I’m hoping Honda, KTM or Yamaha can come up with something to be more competitive to liven up the series. Finally, Q2 qualifying will once again play a major role in both of this weekend’s races for the reasons mentioned above. Also, I’m thinking we’ll have a couple of different winners this weekend, to be continued…
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.
The muffled, rhythmic, pneumatic sound you hear in the background comes from the equipment keeping Fabio Quartararo’s 2022 MotoGP title hopes alive. Mathematically speaking. People with a dog in this fight will tell you the championship is now down to an exciting shootout in Valencia, despite Quartararo’s indisposition. As if. Young Pecco must now endure another two weeks of nightmares, in which, being dogged by Quartararo, he crashes late in Valencia, and lies there in the gravel watching the Italian punk him and win the title. Whereas Fabio has had to endure a long late-season decline, Bagnaia’s deep set fear must be choking in his One Shining Moment.
Saturday
I was working my grandson like a field hand in the yard most of Saturday–paid him handsomely and fixed his lunch, gave him a few free secrets of life etc.–and so missed most of the action from the track. I’m now ignoring Moto3 and can’t stand the suspense of Moto2, so I’ll focus on the big bikes this week. This is, after all, where Fabio Quartararo’s dream of repeating as MotoGP world champion was going to go up in smoke, courtesy of a miserable second half of the season, a hand injury at exactly the wrong time, and the blinding dominance of the bikes manufactured by Ducati Corse. Marquez said after qualifying he is losing 3/10ths to the Ducatis in the main straight. The Yamaha is losing 3/10ths to Marquez. The writing has been on the wall for some time in the premier class. Fabio will not repeat as MotoGP champion in 2022.
Qualifying was another master class by two riders clearly at the top of their respective games, Marc Marquez once again, Pecco Bagnaia at last. My favorite interviewer, Simon Crafar, was in the booth today, observing that the Honda RC213V does not have a single winning characteristic, yet there goes Marquez, putting it in places no other rider can even conceive of, ending up in P3 for the start of the race. In Q1 with double zeroes on the clock, he steals a ticket into Q2. Afterwards, he is surrounded by the resurgent Alex Rins avec his soon-to-be-extinct Suzuki GSX-RR and another quartet of the damned Italian engineering marvels, starting in P1 where Jorge Martin calmly set an all-time track record (by 6/10ths!) in Q2. EBas sits in P2 looking frisky, with Rossi’s wild boys, Bezzecchi and Marini, sitting pretty on Row 2. Marquez gives the impression of being close to 100% again. His bike gives the impression it needs to be taken back behind the garage and shot.
For those of you keeping score at home, the top three contenders for the 2022 MotoGP title–Pecco Bagnaia, Fabio Quartararo and Aleix Espargaro–would be starting Sunday’s race in P9, P12 and P10 respectively. Disrespectively. How this happened would take a while to explain, but my theory of untimely crashes is coming into clear focus. I’m looking forward to writing the season recap, as events seem to be unfolding as expected, other than Aleix is probably doomed. Oh, and the fact that the north star of my predictions, and worldview, is on its way to being proven exactly wrong.
Sunday
There were moments in the middle of the race in which the tension was absolutely superb, moments which offered us a glimpse of the immediate future–Bagnaia and Bastiannini dominating the 2023 championship season–as well as my own vision of the future, in which Ducati Corse makes the decision to stop supporting all these random teams and simply becomes the engine supplier for the premier class, the rest of the OEMs reduced to Moto2 status, building their brand entries around a single engine. The superiority of the Italian machines is occasionally blinding and was on full display at Sepang after taking six of the top eight spots in Australia a week ago (minus the top two, for whatever reason.) Today a podium closeout was shaping up until Jorge Martin, who had destroyed a longstanding track record during QP2, casually crashed out of a comfortable lead on Lap 7, doing a reasonable impression of Warren Zevon’s “Excitable Boy.”
For me, the most interesting part of the race occurred during laps 9 through 14 when Bagnaia and EBas were arguing over the lead and young Marco Bezzecchi, spawn of the Valentino Rossi clan, suddenly appeared on Quartararo’s tail. The sitch at the time was if Bezzecchi could overtake Quartararo and Pecco hold on to win, the championship would be over. The announcers theorized that MB’s tires were going off. My own thought was that he was thinking, “Step three on the podium, or make the factory bitch win it on his own in Spain?” To me, it looked like he backed off, but that’s just me. Same way I looked at Martin’s off–my notes read ‘team player,’ promoting Bagnaia to the lead. Silly.
My new favorite metaphor for crashing out of the race came courtesy of Louis Suddaby, describing Bastiannini’s decision “not to throw it at the scenery,” a phrase which is bound to show up in future articles…By Lap 2 it looked as if we were going to see an electric face-off between Quartararo in P5 and Marquez in P4, but it never took place. Quartararo went through early while Marquez faded, as expected, ending his day in P7. It was a set-up ripe for controversy, had the two mixed it up while the Ducati contingent was busy getting away. Maybe next year.
Thinking about how Ducati has seemingly found a way to solve the economics of MotoGP, compared to the quandary endured by Suzuki, having experienced recent success but unable to make the numbers work for even a single team…Brad Binder, with his skeletal air, his shaved head and beard looks like one of the South African mercenaries so often found in modern action films. Don’t mess with him on the track… I had to post the photo of Carmelo Ezpeleta and Sultan Somethingorother, Carmelo, the Big Cheese of MotoGP, doing an excellent job of not sweating through his trousers, while the Sultan, Grand Gouda of the locals, looks cool as a cucumber in the equatorial steam bath…The rain expected by the announcers never materialized, to the dismay of fans like myself who love the entropy of flag-to-flag tilts…
On to Valencia
Before Round 18 at Phillip Island, there were five combatants–Pecco, Fabio, Aleix, Miller and EBas.
Before Round 19 today, there were four–Pecco, Fabio, Aleix and EBas.
Heading to Round 20 in Valencia, there remain but two contestants. The Italian holds every card in the deck; the Frenchman, with a broken finger on his left hand, can’t even hold the few cards he has. The Italian, with his fellow Ducati teams, will have, in effect, up to seven wingmen watching his six should the need arise. The Frenchman is all on his own, his teammate mired in the muck all year, the satellite guys ready and willing but unable to help fend off the swarm of Desmos. On paper, it looks to be no contest, Pecco riding the last two laps with one hand on the handlebars and the other blowing kisses to the irritated fans, who want, above all, to see a Spaniard on the top step and hear their beloved anthem one more time in 2022. This November, the contest writ large will not involve a Spaniard, not that the fans care that much. The rumor expected to be circulating in the stands at the finale will assure all those in attendance that, like the swallows to Capistrano, #93 will be back next year, and the anthem is likely to get a good workout once again.
See you in two weeks.
Brolly #1Brolly #2SepangThese Frenchmen are incorrigible. Don’t do it, Johann.Big Cheese and Grand Gouda.Then there were two…
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
We here at Late-Braking MotoGP have admittedly become something of a clanging gong on the subject of Fabio Quartararo and the likelihood of his repeating as world champion in 2022. Such concerns arrived in full force today in the steam bath that is Buriram, in a part of the world that offers one a choice of climatic conditions. Not a range, mind you, but a choice–heat found only on hell’s front porch or torrential downpours that raise the humidity above 100%. These come and go with reckless abandon, causing events such as we saw today in Round 17.
Doesn’t the editorial We above sound better than some mope sitting at his kitchen table clattering away about stuff he doesn’t really understand?
I suppose I should mention somewhere that Miguel Oliveira won the race.
I have our crack research staff examining 2022 records for help answering the following question: Is a rider’s fate on Sunday largely decided by the events in FP3 and Q1, or are you stupid? Of course it’s decided on Saturday, from top to bottom. I’ve decided I love the current qualifying format in that it is progressively Darwinian. You have to make the top 10 in the combined FP1 – FP3 sessions. If you fail to do so, it is imperative that you battle through Q1 to make it to Q2. [When was the last time a rider won in MotoGP starting outside the top 12? The nerds are looking into that, as well. No they’re not.] Once in Q2, it is ultra-helpful if the rider can finish the session above the 50th percentile, i.e., in the first two rows. Only then does one get a credible chance for the win.
One example of this (not a very good one) was Johann Zarco today, who got pistol-whipped at the start from P5 and spent his day trying to get his wipers to work in traffic, with a notable lack of success. Until Lap 15, when he laid down the first of five consecutive fastest race laps and put himself up with the big dogs for the last half dozen. He would overtake Marquez, who appeared to develop grip issues late in the day, but was unable to penetrate Bagnaia for a place on the podium. Likewise, Marquez missed a decent chance to capture his 100th career podium, but he looked fit doing it. He barged into a couple of riders along the way today, but escaped penalty, unless he’s the rider given three extra seconds for bashing directly into Marco Bezzecchi without so much as a by your leave on Lap 8. Just sayin’.
I guess what I’m suggesting is that my idea back in 2008 when the Indianapolis round was busy failing due to Hurricane Ike that new venues, like the IMS at the time, offer free admission on the first Saturday of racing. Give the uninitiated a dozen or so sessions during the day, saving the best for last. In the absence of a tropical depression, such a promotion could have brought 150,000 paid admissions on Sunday; it would have instantly become the best-attended race on the calendar. A full day of MotoGP, all three classes, is enough to get any 4 wheel gearhead interested in two-wheeled racing. Although the thought of offering free admission on Saturday during the dubious India round could result in six or seven million people crashing the gates. Not a great idea after all, I suppose.
Today’s race was highlighted by the fact that the riders had virtually no practice time whatsoever, at all, no how no way. None. A couple of extra sighting laps before the race. The notable mudders on the grid–Miller, Oliveira, Marquez, Alex (!) Marquez, Zarco–were going to have a good day, being veterans comfortable on rain tires. Oddly, rookie and Valentino Rossi protégé Marco Bezzecchi took pole on Saturday, joined by Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia for an all Ducati front row. Duc Duc Duc. Young Marco took the hole shot and proceeded to get mauled by pretty much everyone, ending his day in P16.
By Lap 4, Jack Miller had established a clear but unconvincing lead, with KTM wet weather ace Miguel Oliveira sniffing around his tailpipe. Oliveira took P2 from Bezzecchi on Lap 7 and seized the lead from Miller on Lap 8 as Aleix Espargaro was being assessed a long lap penalty for, as I understand it, “being kind of an asshole all day,” as it said in the FIM press release. I overheard the announcers say that someone had been assessed a three-second penalty for conduct unbecoming, but missed the rider’s name. One of you, I’m sure, will inform me. Wouldn’t be surprised to learn it was #93.
Quartararo’s day was awful in several ways. He gave up 16 of his 18 point lead and now is in a dogfight with Bagnaia for the title. Aleix sits in third, any momentum he enjoyed early in the season largely gone. EBas had a quiet P6 today, his ten points taking him to within 18 of Bagnaia. And along comes Jack, suddenly, having secured 45 points in the last eight days, sitting in a somewhat menacing P5. Conceding the win to Oliveira late in the race, Miller appeared somewhat circumspect about the prospect of trading paint with the rider he will replace on the KTM factory team next season.
For me, the highlight of the day occurred after the conclusion, when Simon Crafar, World’s Worst Interviewer, was sufficiently at sea, all deer in headlights, such that he could only manage to ask Pecco, “How happy are you?” I suspect Simon is moonlighting for some magazine, maybe Us or Forever21, and that he bootlegs these clips into articles about relationships and feelings and leather.
OK. I heard Matt Birt allude to the possibility the 2022 title could be decided in Valencia. So, we Dummies, we Morons, can look forward to that prospect today, when six weeks ago it seemed unlikely. Reality, it seems, has caught up with your boy Fabio and I’m afraid it’s downhill from here. Phillip Island and Sepang are happy hunting grounds for the Ducati phalanx. As usual, the primary question remains, “Who is composed enough to stay out of the gravel during the last four rounds?” Which is why we watch this stuff. I wish I had it in me to share my thoughts on Moto3 and Moto2 today. All I can say at this time is that the Moto2 race was shredded by the weather and, accordingly, for the first time in my memory, awarded half points to the riders of the truncated fiasco. The main beneficiaries of this decision, it would appear, are the bookmakers who can now avoid pushes using full point spread increments. There’s a sentence in there somewhere.
A week off before heading out to Australia and Malaysia. It appears plausible to believe 2022 will be one of those years when two riders head to Valencia within three points of one another, perhaps with a third another ten points back. A race in which the three riders will push all of their chips into the middle of the table, look each other in the eye, and say, “All in.” The guys who are making the videos recapping each MotoGP season will get their teeth into the jangling nerves and rampant obsessive compulsive disorders on display behind the scenes in Valencia on Friday night. One guy on the team stress-refreshing the Accuweather forecast. Fabio getting his roots done. Vinales on the phone for two hours with his infant daughter discussing race strategy. Jack Miller getting well into the beer before arm-wrestling members of his team. The young VR46 guns, Marini and Bezzecchi and Bastiannini, sitting with The Great Rossi listening to stories about 2008, barely able to keep their eyes open other than the breathtaking number of, um, encounters with, ahem, female admirers.
The hits just keep coming in MotoGP. Stay tuned for more up-to-date expressions of wild speculation.
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.
Late-Braking MotoGP 