Moto GP is brought to you by Motul and The Karr Report…
Aprilia: “What can we do to get you to the top?”
Vinales: “Just a cape and a Batman mask.”
Aprilia: “ Right. Sorted!”
Vinales: “Watch this space…”
Those old enough, will remember a television drama series named ‘Dallas’, which the whole country watched religiously.
Well, this weekend’s racing had that level of US drama, and then some
Moto3:
We received some unfortunate news pre-race – Rueda, who’d qualified second, had been taken to hospital not long after Saturday’s Qualifying sessions for stomach pains. These turned out to be appendicitis, and Antonio has since undergone surgery and was resting in his hotel room.
No race for him this weekend. Get well soon!
Another interesting statistic that was brought to our attention before the race could commence was that eight riders would start with Long Lap Penalties to their names, as punishment for joining the Dawdlers Club. These were, in no particular order: Roulstone (One LLP), Bertelle (Three LLPs), Lunetta (One LLP), Fernández (Three LLPs), Farioli (One LLP), Esteban (One LLP), Whatley (One LLP), and Rossi (One LLP, which be botched and had to do over).
The moshing, er, racing got underway, Alonso happily skipping into the distance while all hell broke loose behind him.
Farioli tried out a move on Muñoz into the first turn which he’d learned in MMA, body-slamming into David with enough force to temporarily launch him five feet into the air. By some sort of racing miracle, Muñoz managed to land back in his seat and continue on as though nothing’d happened. Farioli, on the other hand, wasn’t as lucky.
At Turn Eight on the same lap, Kelso nicked Holgado’s rear rubber before going sightseeing. Somehow both riders remained upright and seated, continuing their race.
Still on Lap One, Ortolá fell over after clipping Veijer’s rear at Turn Fifteen, sweeping Nepa from the race like a motorcycle-shaped novelty broom. Ortolá got run over by Nepa, though the apparent tyre tread imprint on his left arm was of no interest as he bolted for the first motorcycle he saw. When we saw a frantic Nepa charging at a remounting Ortolá, everyone expected a bout of angry fisticuffs… But, as it turned out, Nepa was yelling at Ortolá to ‘get off my bike, you idiot!’
Poor Ortolá had remounted the wrong steed. Blame it on the glancing blow to his head he’d suffered moments before.
One lap later, at the eleventh turn, Ortolá – now on the correct motorcycle – crashed again. The Spaniard was catapulted over the handlebars before landing heavily on his already shaken noggin.
Lunetta’s bike wanted to check whether it could hear the other bikes coming by leaning against the tar, leaving its rider confused during the fourth lap.
Also on Lap Four, Furusato nicked Veijer’s rear tyre, causing him (Furusato) to go flying.
Ogden crashed on Lap Six at Turn Nine, remounting only to be black-flagged three laps later.
At the start of the tenth lap, Kelso had a fall-over incident.
After multiple other motorcycles touching its rear unsolicitedly, Veijer’s bike had finally had enough, and threw him off as they neared Turn Six, whereafter it attempted to either cross the road, or intentionally Kamikazi at least one other rider by going back through the racing line. Luckily everyone managed to dodge the rogue bike.
With about half of the field obliterated, and a lead that’d reached a peak of nearly seven seconds, Alonso ended up taking the victory. After him, Holgado and Piqueras swept across the line in a photo finish moment, Holgado just managing to pip Piqueras for second place, leaving the rookie in a still-impressive third place, his first-ever Moto3 podium.
Ten out of ten for style awarded to Alonso for that stand-up bow he did as he crossed the line, and a few more for lying down on the star and managing to line up his limbs perfectly with its points.
Moto2:
AKA The New Pirelli Era Race. Had we taken a shot every time this was mentioned during the race, we’d have been stone drunk before the lights even went out.
Though less crashy than the Junior Class, the Middleweight race was very much still a contact sport. Paint was swapped merrily throughout, sometimes even the same paint.
Apart from teammates Aldeguer and Alonso swapping far too much paint while risking giving their team bosses heart attacks, not a lot of controversy occurred for the rest of the race.
García, having led basically the entire race comfortably, took his maiden Moto2 win well ahead of local American boy, Roberts, whose second place is still under celebration.
Third place went the way of Aldeguer.
MotoGP:
“I named my dog Maverick 3 years ago. She was well confused while I was yelling at the TV this weekend Lol. Yay Maverick – patience prevails”
Saturday Sprint Race:
Prior to the Sprint, the Lenovo Ducatis indulged in a last-minute game of musical fenders.
After the Sprint commenced, we lost multiple riders in very short succession: first, Nakagami, then Di Giannantonio whose bike turned into a smoke machine; after DiGi, it was Fernández (Augusto in this instance) and Mir who retired from the race via two separate crashes.
By Lap Seven, Zarco was sauntering off to find something else to do.
Gotta hand it to Maverick, though – he absolutely dominated the entire race, his lead never dipping below 1.7 seconds. It was Viñales’ day. At the end of the Sprint, he took his win over two-point-two seconds clear of Márquez Senior, who claimed second ahead of Martín in third.
Martin however, set a new all time lap record.
Having launched his KTM off the line all the way up into eleventh, Binder stayed there for nearly the entire race, losing it only at the final stages and thus having to settle for twelfth.
Main Race:
Early on, the Premier race resembled a bar-brawl, what with all the banging into each other and tearing off of other bikes’ aero bits.
It was glorious!
On Lap Seven, Zarco quietly retired, while Nakagami opted for the more entertaining route by crashing.
Morbidelli abandoned the race during the eighth lap in order to practice for an upcoming fun run.
By Lap Nine Mir also crashed, not great for Honda.
Márquez Junior crashed on Lap Eleven. Not long thereafter, his big brother flopped down at Turn Eleven, having taken the lead mere seconds prior. Rins did a Rins thing by binning it at Turn Fifteen on Lap Twelve. Eish!
That lead battle… Bloody hell!!
Insane! For a long time it seemed that Acosta would take the win. But a jet-fuel-driven Viñales had other plans.
Even The King Of Cota Marques had a few moments of glory. Until he inexplicably just, well crashed.
Viñales came storming past everyone, taking the lead and eventually also the victory. He becomes the first rider to accomplish a win with three different manufacturers in modern-day MotoGP.
Well done, Mav. A perfect weekend!
Coming in second we saw Acosta, who is now known as the youngest rider in MotoGP to take back-to-back podiums. Bastianini took third.
Binder managed to fight his way up to ninth.
It was a hard weekend.
Round Three has delivered insane, brilliant action!
How to top it?
What does Round Four have in store for us?
~ Karr
