© Bruce Allen May 11, 2021
FIM Rearranging Moto2 Deck Chairs–Wants You to Know
Attached is the blah blah blah about fairings and fenders on NTS and MV Agusta bikes. Knowing my readers as I do, I figure you’ll be fascinated by this stuff, arguing amongst y’selves, about such and such gives such and such a big advantage, etc.
We Hoosiers generally make fun of stuff we don’t understand.
© Bruce Allen November 11, 2020
Click to access CAS_Media_Release_6978_decision_Andrea_Ianonne.pdf
And so it goes for Andrea Iannone. This is a career buster; his years spent as a world-class motorcycle racer are now over. He would have had a hard time reviving his career had he been acquitted. His suspension is now in effect until December 2023. He will be 34 and out of the game for four years.
I was never a huge fan. There was a brief period when it looked like he had the chops to apply for an Alien card, but that quickly went away as it became clear he was/is a little Sick in the Head (a great FB page BTW). He became something of a hazard to himself and those around him for awhile, then got booted to Aprilia where he no longer had to concern himself with contending for podiums and such.
I’m informed by a reader who should know that Iannone was, in all likelihood, guilty; if I were an attorney I’d be happy to stipulate that. But, in 2020, the punishment seems a little, well, draconian. He has joined the pantheon of athletes who willfully disregarded the rules of their sport in the hope of gaining an edge, got caught, and get punished. Those involved know the rules, and the penalties, when they decide to use PEDs. So it is hard, after the fact, to criticize the sentence handed down by the suits in charge. But it points, perhaps, to a need to update the regs, insofar as MotoGP is concerned.
Everyone should get a second chance to screw up and ruin their careers. The first offense–presence of banned substances–the miscreant submits to weekly blood and urine sampling, for, like, a year. Second offense, accompanied by a charge of stupidity, would be an automatic 18 month suspension. Third offense–they would be rare, as the 18 monther is a killer–and the rider is banned.
In the Iannone case, there was no middle ground. Had this been a second offense (I don’t know if it was a first or second or whatever) he would have been found guilty, and let off with time served, in time, perhaps, to continue with Aprilia next year. That faint, last hope, along with the fact that he was on his way down the food chain anyway, has now been extinguished. With the financial threats the sport faces due to the pandemic, he should be thinking about a new line of work.
Iannone moving on continues the takeover by the new crop of young riders and the discombobulation of older established names. We’ve been pounding the table on this subject all year; no need to do it again. But it seems like 2020 was something of a watershed year year, with the cramped schedule, a Suzuki winning the title*, and no Marquez. Add to that the turnover in ‘mature’ riders essentially exiting–Crutchlow, Dovizioso, Iannone, Rabat, Rossi soon, Petrucci probably soon. See the shiny new faces–Marini, Bastiannini, Martin, Alex Marquez, even Bagnaia–and it’s clear the team owners have decided in favor of young and strong over old and clever. Conveniently, the bosses at Aprilia had no need to fire Iannone; he took care of that for them.
And so it goes.
<p value="<amp-fit-text layout="fixed-height" min-font-size="6" max-font-size="72" height="80">© Bruce Allen
Attached is the latest 2020 MotoGP schedule released by FIM:
Before getting too far into the nuts and bolts of the latest round of wishful thinking on the part of The Powers That Be, let us note that the usual blah blah blah about the virus is still in there, that this is only the latest, most radical attempt to salvage the remnants of what was to have been another Repsol/ Marquez coronation in 2020. It remains to be seen whether any actual races will take place. From a global perspective, the virus isn’t going away anytime soon. It will be with us for the foreseeable future. This is a bad thing for all types of racing, including MotoGP.
For the sake of keeping our oar in the water, we can take a moment to shred the calendar, which features two back-to-back weekends and three triple-headers. An American swing and a truncated Asian swing are pinned to the end of the scheduled schedule. Like an addendum. Like the suits at Dorna and FIM spent hours arguing about leaving these rounds on the schedule at all, given how tenuous the European part of the schedule was looking already. To suggest that MotoGP will be spending Christmas in Malaysia strains the imagination.
Nonetheless. Two rounds at Jerez on the 19th and 26th of July. A round in Brno followed by a twofer at Red Bull Ring, in a tip of the hat to Ducati Corse. Then, two rounds in Misano–mmmm–and one in Catalunya. A week in France, then two weeks in Aragon as penance. Ending with two weeks at Valencia on November 15th. In italics, basically, is a fictional Americas swing to Austin and Argentina, with an additional “swing” to Thailand and Malaysia. At risk of running into the end of the calendar. All a fantasy.
I found myself thinking about what an awesome vacation it would be to spend 10 days or so in Misano. We might spend Saturdays at the track, otherwise catching Sundays as usual on the website and reporting the results sometime after the race. It occurred to me that neither I or my wife would want to go to Italy in the summer of 2020 with The Rona out there. Adriatic Riviera or not, it’s not a good idea, at least not for us, coming from the U.S. It’s just such a beautiful place, shoehorned in-between the mountains and the sea. Our health insurance wouldn’t work over there, etc. Not in the cards.
So I’m wondering whether any of this is more than a pipe dream, if it’s not just a little something to keep us occupied during this dreadful hiatus. If there is an amusing aspect to this latest and greatest calendar it is the refutation of Carmelo Ezpeleta’s hollow claim that MotoGP is more than just a Spanish sport. Seven of the scheduled 14 rounds are in Spain, at all four usual tracks. Catalunya, perhaps because of the heated current political environment there, only gets a single week, while the other three get a pair each. The remaining seven rounds are schedule for other places on the planet. Four of the eight tracks in 2020 are in Spain. The Spanish riders will enjoy an advantage.
No Mugello. No Sachsenring. No Finland. No Silverstone. No Motegi or Phillip Island. Perhaps two of the last four races listed after the schedule could take place; probably none of them will. Some of Marc Marquez’s bread and butter–Austin and Sachsenring–won’t happen. He should still do okay.
With all the drama surrounding the signings for 2021-22 it will be slightly weird to see the lame ducks–Petrucci, Pol Espargaro, Alex Marquez, Jack Miller in a way, possibly no Andrea Iannone–knowing they are headed to greener pastures in 2021 regardless of what, if anything, happens this year. Rossi’s last year on the factory Yamaha. The two Suzuki riders gunning for Alien status. Marquez fighting off all challengers. The era continues, assuming there is a racing season in 2020.
I suspect this latest schedule should be thought of as Hypothetical. So many things need to go right, and so few things can go wrong, that the odds against us watching these remarkable athletes racing in anger in 2020 are long. Will they pipe in noise? Will they let fans in? Will they provide all of the necessary yellow smoke? Will the marshals have masks? The mechanics?
At this point, the 2020 MotoGP schedule looks fantastic, as in a figment of someone’s fertile imagination. If it happens, I look forward to being wrong and getting jacked up on Saturdays and Sundays. Don’t we all.
From MotoGP.com
Late-Braking MotoGP 