Marc Marquez: Lone Star in the Lone Star State
On a nice spring afternoon outside Austin, Texas, Repsol Honda supernova Marc Marquez, looking much the way he did in 2013 and 2014, put on another clinic, winning the Grand Prix of the Americas from pole for the fourth consecutive year. The win makes Captain America 10 for 10 in premier class tilts run in the United States.
I used to think that bingo was the only game in which one could be bored and anxious at the same time. Today’s race—a procession, punctuated by life-threatening crashes—felt like an evening in the church basement.
Yamaha rider and defending world champion Jorge Lorenzo knew, sitting next to Marquez on the front row at the start, that his only chance for a win today would occur on Lap 1, by getting in Marquez’s business, throwing the young Catalan off his rhythm, and trying to get away. So determined was he to accomplish this that he narrowly avoided running off the track at Turn 1 and again at Turn 11, running ragged with cold tires, too much fuel, and no rhythm of his own. It didn’t work, and Marquez took the lead he would never relinquish.
The front group included Valentino Rossi, Ducati’s hard luck Andrea Dovizioso and factory Honda afterthought Dani Pedrosa. Rossi got caught in traffic and fell back to around 6th, where he and Pedrosa jousted for a short while. At Turn 3 of Lap 3, Rossi lost the front at speed and slid well into the gravel, removing around a dozen sponsor logos from his leathers, his day over. Our crack research staff tells me this is the first time in the last 25 races that Rossi has finished outside the top five.
While Marquez was disappearing, Lorenzo took firm control of second place, having gone through on Dovizioso on Lap 5. Lap 6 saw Ducati Maniac Andrea Iannone go through on Suzuki #2 Aleix Espargaro into 5th place. Pedrosa was dogging Dovizioso in the battle for third place on Lap 6 when the broadcast switched to his front camera. Seconds later, Dovizioso’s bike filled the frame just in time to get poleaxed by Pedrosa, as the Spaniard lost the front in Turn 1 and his suddenly riderless bike creamed the Ducati. How Pedrosa’s Honda missed Dovi’s left leg is a mystery. The Italian’s day was over, but Pedrosa climbed back aboard his RC213V and turned a few more laps before calling it a day.
Everyone Please Take Three Steps Forward
With Dovizioso and Rossi out and Pedrosa trailing the field, the remaining riders behind Lorenzo received promotions of three spots. Kind of like going from private to lieutenant in ten minutes. Iannone, running relatively cautiously after the debacle in Argentina when he took out teammate Dovizioso in a painfully stupid move, was, suddenly, contending for a podium. The two Suzukis, experiencing their own rebirth of sorts, found themselves contesting fourth place in a battle Maverick Vinales would eventually win over Aleix Espargaro.
Octo Pramac Ducati’s Scott Redding was winning The Battle of Britain, enjoying life in 6th place while Cal Crutchlow, on the LCR Honda, and Bradley Smith, on the Tech 3 Yamaha, were slugging it out for seventh. On Lap 8, Crutchlow, in an unforced error that was undoubtedly somebody else’s fault, slid off the track into the runoff area. Scant seconds later, with Smith apparently rubbernecking at Crutchlow’s misfortune, the Tech 3 rider fell, his careening bike missing the back of Crutchlow’s ankles by mere inches. Both men remounted the remnants of their bikes and were the last two riders to see the checkered flag.
A Moment of Reflection
I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that Andrea Dovizioso and Cal Crutchlow are incomprehensibly lucky to be walking around tonight. This is the second week in a row that Crutchlow narrowly avoided a disaster he didn’t even realize was happening. Such is the nature of MotoGP, with objects moving at speeds uncontemplated by our Creator or the slow crawl of evolution (take your choice), lives hanging precariously in the balance. Some riders, like Crutchlow and Dovizioso, may be lucky enough, or blessed enough, to tell stories about these things to their grandchildren one day. Others, like Marco Simoncelli and Shoya Tomizawa, will never have grandchildren to hear them. When a Jorge Lorenzo gets irritated by the stupid antics of an Alvaro Bautista and talks about risking his life every time he climbs aboard, he’s not just whistling “Dixie.”
The Big Picture
If you had suggested at Sepang during winter testing, when Marquez was lapping 1.5 seconds behind Lorenzo, that he would be leading the championship by 21 points after three rounds he probably would have suggested that you get your head examined. Yet here we are. The other anomalies in the top ten include Tech 3 Yamaha’s Pol Espargaro sitting fourth despite seeming to be having a difficult year, swarthy Ducati pilot and underachiever Hectic Hector Barbera sitting sixth, and Ulsterman Eugene Laverty sitting ninth. Laverty’s euphoria from last week was short-lived, as he went from a highly fluky fourth place to four points in a week. Still, not bad for a guy on a two-year-old Ducati.
Okay, so I’ve never been a big fan of Cal Crutchlow, who has always, in my opinion, talked a better race than he rides. He so rarely mans up and takes the blame when things go wrong. So I may be forgiven for enjoying seeing him sitting in last place, 0-for-2016 after three rounds. Looking forward to the article on the MotoGP website—it should appear tomorrow or Tuesday—in which he explains who was to blame for today’s crash and how he skillfully avoided getting shattered by Smith’s unguided missile. As they say in Coventry, hard cheese old boy.
And another thing. Jack Miller, the Great Anglo-Saxon Hope, so cool and fast he was allowed to skip second grade, is declared out of today’s race after two more heavy crashes this weekend. Honda is so anxious to locate the second coming of Casey Stoner, and the kid’s ambition is so large, he’s going to seriously injure himself or someone else out there, generally riding out of control and creating huge piles of brightly painted and utterly trashed carbon fiber. Dude needs to think about a step back to Moto2.
A Final Thought Before Returning to Europe
Everything’s big in Texas—from the state itself, which takes 24 hours to drive across, to the iniquity of its junior US senator. COTA maintains the tradition, with the most corners (20) in a MotoGP circuit (Red Bull Ring in Austria has nine), the longest straight on the tour, the steepest hill, seating for 120,000 fans, etc., etc. But seriously, let’s just get it over with and rename the track the Marc Marquez Circuit. Better yet, how about the Circuito Marc Marquez, since Texas was originally a northern state of Mexico before Sam Houston and his boys shoved the locals across the Rio Grande way back when.
Round Four touches off in Jerez in two weeks. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on the Lorenzo to Ducati and Vinales to Yamaha stories, and will have them for you in full once they’re official.
Having tested at Losail just weeks ago, the grid had a reasonably good idea what to expect from the standard ECU and Michelin rubber when the lights went out in Doha. Not so at Rio Hondo. Friday will mark the first time the riders have set foot on the Argentine asphalt in 2016. We are reminded of how Repsol Honda star Marc Marquez acquainted himself with the place in 2014 when the track first opened. He strolled around in 14th place during FP1, then cinched everything up, lowered his visor, and topped the charts in FP2, FP3, FP4, Q2, the warm-up practice and, finally, the race itself. Caution will be the order of the day on Friday morning. 
The feng shui (Japanese for “latest fad”) in MotoGP these days are these little wing thingies that have sprouted from the front fairings of just about every bike on the grid over the past few years. According to Matt Oxley, former rider and current paddock layabout, the appendages on the Ducatis are suspected of producing dirty air—read: turbulence—for trailing riders. Many of us are accustomed to hearing this concept applied to racing yachts and fighter jets, but this is a new finding in MotoGP. Matt cites anecdotal evidence that such turbulence came close to unseating Dani Pedrosa in Australia last year.
One rider for whom I had high hopes this season is Danilo Petrucci, Scott Redding’s teammate on the Pramac Ducati team. Despite having averaged 23 points a year during his first three premier class seasons, all of which were spent on execrable machinery, someone at Ducati saw something in him and gave him a ride on a second hand Desmosedici last season. He went from having earned 17 points in 2014 to 113 and a top ten finish last year. With an even stronger bike beneath him, I thought him capable of finishing between sixth and tenth this year.
Qualifying had produced an ethnically-striated grid—Spaniards filling up rows one and three, with an all-Italian second row and an all-British fourth. Lorenzo laid down a fast lap early in the session, as did Marquez a bit later, and both held up despite Maverick Vinales and “Maniac Joe” Iannone taking serious runs at them at session’s end. Vinales missed out on the two hole by 4/1000ths of a second. Iannone could have easily moved up to the front row had he not been momentarily held up by Scott Redding, who appeared to be doing his best to get out of the way. (A track record final lap by Marquez was tossed when it was determined he had started it one second after the checkered flag had waved.)
team, trailed by Valentino Rossi and Marquez. At the start of Lap 2, both Ducatis flew past Lorenzo, Iannone in the lead. Marquez slipped past Rossi on Lap 3 and began dogging Lorenzo on Lap 4. I was just getting comfortable with the idea of Iannone winning his first premier class race when he lowsided out of the lead in Turn 13 of Lap 6, leaving Dovizioso to slug it out with the Aliens. Sure enough, on Lap 9 Lorenzo found his way through on Dovizioso and that was that. Marquez and Dovizioso would trade places a few times over the remaining 14 laps, but no one was able to mount any kind of serious challenge to Lorenzo once he found his rhythm.
Right, so Rossi and Lorenzo were reportedly offered contracts for 2017-18 simultaneously, by email. Rossi signs his immediately. Lorenzo does not. Rossi suggests Lorenzo is shopping Ducati. (Lorenzo is, in fact, shopping Ducati.) Lorenzo fires back that Rossi had no choice because no one else would want him. Boom. Bradley Smith, on the verge of eviction by Tech 3 boss Herve Poncharal, signs a deal with KTM for next year, leaving Yamaha a spot with which to woo Alex Rins.
2013–Heading into the season, with Stoner gone and Marquez arrived, defending world champion Jorge Lorenzo looked ready, willing and able to repeat, with chase coming from Pedrosa, Rossi and Marquez. Rossi would take most of the year to get comfortable on the Yamaha in his first year back from Ducati purgatory. Pedrosa and Lorenzo got hurt in the Netherlands and Germany. Marquez made it look easy, snatching his first world championship as a rookie and assaulting the record books across the board. Crutchlow, Bautista and Bradl were expected to make some noise at some point, and mostly didn’t.
of several races early, concedes the early lead to Lorenzo, concedes more to Rossi, and watches helplessly as the title devolves into a Rossi vs. Lorenzo scrap. He mixes it up with Rossi on several occasions, the Italian getting the better of all of them. Rossi and Lorenzo head into Valencia essentially tied for the lead but with Rossi having been severely punished for events in Sepang, resulting in him starting last on the grid and ultimately finishing fourth, with Lorenzo cruising to both the win and the championship, Marquez at his wing.
Several things. Lorenzo appears to be the man to beat. Maverick Vinales intends to stick his nose in some podium contests and appears to have sufficient machine beneath him to do so. Rossi, Marquez and Iannone appear destined to battle Vinales for second and third. Scott Redding may have found the right bike at the right time to propel him into a consistent top six performer. (Remember him during his last season in Moto2 when he would ride the wheels off in the turns then get eaten alive in the straights.) Dani Pedrosa needs to stay upright all season long if he wants to finish in the top four, otherwise he is destined for a second division seeding along with:
Stoner in 2011, Lorenzo in 2012 and Marquez in 2014. Since they are also three of the last five, it’s clear to me that past performance has little to do with future performance. Recent performance, however, might well have something to do with performance this year.
Vinales and young Alex Rins in Moto2 are in the wind, pretty much everyone’s best guess as to Aliens-in-Waiting. An aging Dani Pedrosa (dearly coveted by KTM for 2017) at Repsol Honda, a seriously aging Rossi at Yamaha; at some point the suits are gonna pull some plugs. Plus, it’s impossible not to wonder when Casey Stoner, watching riders he considers barely his equal go flying over the handlebars trying to get it on with the Michelins, says “lol” and climbs back onboard for a wildcard at Phillips Island. Could throw a spanner into the works of more than one rider at that point in the season. Easier to envision if doing so were to provide him an opportunity to interrupt a Yamaha or a Honda on its way to the title. Stoner could easily add some extra testosterone to the mix.
Factor in the cosmic motion brought on by new ECU and Michelins, and uncharacteristically good performances by names like Barbera and Redding–indeed, much of the Ducati contingent–and you could leave Qatar with three Ducs in the top five. Then move the entire show to the Middle of Nowhere, Argentina-style for the annual Bungle in the Jungle, aka Hot and Hondarific, two weeks later, followed immediately by another Honda clambake the ensuing week in Austin.
Vinales is an Alien waiting to happen, looking for that big contract next season, which might even come from Suzuki. Suzuki needs another two man team and more data; they’re onto something there and they need to wear long pants and do this thing right. They could win the whole thing in a year or two.
Andrea Iannone should have what it takes to be the top Ducati rider in 2016, meaning he should be a top three contender. So Iannone, Redding and Vinales challenge Lorenzo and Marquez each week and Rossi some weeks, with more of Pedrosa or Barbera late in the season.
I’ve just discovered something I, as a would be writer, loathe. Note to self: Never use this technique unless it pertains to, say, the last race of the season, 5 points separating teammates and rivals, Marquez in the mix, in which case it may be permissible to jock the sport while you’re reporting on it. Otherwise, DO NOT PROMOTE MOTOGP WHILE YOU’RE IN REPORTER MODE.
people I know and people in the universe to read about it. But when I’m on deadline, getting paid to think hard about the sport, I’m not taking time out to ponder how I love Michelin tires on my ride. It’s bad form, especially for someone like me who doesn’t ride at all. Of course, if I ever found a sponsor willing to buy me a disclaimer, no telling what might happen. None of the OEMs that MO deals with want to sully their reputations by sponsoring the likes of me, and who can blame them?
What my readers expect from me is an objective accounting of events up to and including the race, delivered with as many laughs as I can haul out of th
So, we will call the 2016 season the way we see it. At this juncture, it looks like Vinales is going to be a top four guy, and even Redding, taking to the Duc like a duc to water, is sniffing around the top of the timesheets. Pedrosa looks miserable, Marquez desperate to stay on the bike with any pace at all, and Rossi sounding unconvincingly like all the changes work in his favor. Lorenzo, meanwhile, has that look in his eye. As he learned in 2011 and 2013, however, the look in the eye thing doesn’t necessarily get you a repeat, a threepeat or a fourpeat.
With two of the three major testing sessions behind us and Losail beckoning, life at the top of the MotoGP food chain is beginning to change. New teams at the top appear certain. The relative degrees of improvement each team achieved during the offseason are illuminating.
Late-Braking MotoGP 