On a race weekend where every rider in every class was assured he’d have at least two avid fans holding up his number in the crowds – we welcome you to Thailand, and the Thai GP!
Moto3:
The Lightweights had their race cut down to two-thirds of the original distance before even setting off for their Sighting Laps – the race had been declared ‘Wet’, though it was more ‘Slightly damp’ than actually wet out there. They were also given extra time to suss out track conditions, resulting in a five-minute delay in the start.
In the end, everyone went for slicks, except for O’Shea, who was sure it would start pouring down soon.
All the stress of this season seemed to have turned Farioli’s hair Platinum grey. At the opposite side of the grid, Buasri appeared with a head of pink hair – he’d apparently lost a bet against Alonso. He should’ve known better: Alonso wins everything.
Though there were a few drops of the wet stuff falling while the riders were waiting for the race to start, it’d vanished by the time the lights went out.
The drizzle made another brief appearance during Lap Four, waking the Rain Flags at Turns Five and Six for about half a lap.
As expected of the youngsters, the race was filled with sticker-swapping passes while the lead changed gloves multiple times.
First to crash was Esteban, slipping out at Turn Seven on Lap Ten.
At the end of Lap Ten, O’Shea had to retire to his pit box, his rain rubber likely shredded like the cheese on your unbaked pizza.
Teamwork seems to extend to crashes at Leopard: during the eleventh lap, Piqueras and Fernández locked elbows, sliding and tumbling out of Turn Eight together. We wished we could be present in that garage after the race; the atmosphere could chill our beers faster than the fridge would.
Final Lap, final corner exit: amidst a closely-spaced group of riders all trying to get onto the podium, Furusato exited the turn with his front wheel lining up next to Veijer’s rear. There was a clattering of wheels, then a sideways slide that would make a pro stunt rider jealous were it not for the unfortunate crashing afterwards. Veijer turned around in the saddle to see what the heck had whacked his rear end, and saw a side-view of Furusato going full stuntman.
Furusato and his bike crossed the finish line at the same time, though not at the same place. This meant that he still got fifth, even though he went over the line skidding on his back.
Ahead of the Furusato flop, Alonso had crossed the line to claim his twelfth race victory of 2024, landing him another record as he broke Rossi’s single-season win record to become the only rider ever to do it twelve times in one season. To add to this, he’d now won five on the trot, coming close to yet another record.
Lunetta took second, his best result in Moto2.
Third place went to Veijer who, in his Parc Fermé interview, revealed that he was having some trouble in the closing stages of the race: ‘…my gearbox started to break…’
In terms of the other Championships, Aspar had taken the Team’s Championship, while CFMoto snatched up the Constructor’s title. Well done, everyone.
Moto2:
Chantra! Injured to the point that he couldn’t use his right hand to brake properly, his fabulous team modified his bike in order for him to be able to brake with his OTHER hand. And he made it work so spectacularly, we’re humbled.
Speaking of Chantra and his bike, he’d saddled up a tiger for his home GP, and we’re smitten. That feline work of art has to feature amongst some of the best special liveries we’ve seen. Like, ever.
If you’ve not seen or heard of the infamous pitlane-entry debacle involving Arbolino and Van den Goorbergh, where have you been hiding?
Arbolino, ignoring a marshal’s instructions to wheel his bike out of the pitlane entry and down a service road to get back to his box, was trying to bump start his stricken ride when a daydreaming Van den Goorbergh piled into the rear of him. In Zonta’s defence, there are no parking bays in the middle of the entry slipway, so why would there be a parked bike?
For ignoring the marshal, Arbolino would have to drop three positions on the grid, while Van den Goorbergh had to start from pit lane for not looking where he was going.
At least Van den Goorbergh had some company before the Warm-Up Lap – Alcoba’s bike was rapidly wheeled off the grid nearing the start, his team apparently having fuelled it up for a (shortened) wet race, and thus had to very quickly fill it up when they realised what a blunder they’d made.
Alcoba was allowed to start on the grid, albeit from the rear.
Mayhem kicked off from the first lap, when Aldeguer tried to overtake half the field from a mile back through Turn Five, sliding under Alcoba last, trying to fit a too-big-peg into a too-small-hole. This resulted in a coming-together of bikes, an airborne Fermín, and a painful tumble for both riders.
Aldeguer’s fight for the Championship was now officially buggered. Little consolation for Alcoba, who crutched his way into his pit box at a speed suggesting that the pain in his leg was nothing compared to the level of pissed off he was.
During the seventh lap, Ogura punted Binder out of the way in an arguably aggressive overtaking manoeuvre through Turn Three, sending Darryn wide while his motorcycle attempted a high-speed wheelie.
Also on Lap Seven, Turn Three claimed Agius. A lap later, it also took Baltus.
While trying to regain the positions he’d lost, Binder shot off at speed going into Turn Eight on the eighth lap.
Turn Three wasn’t quite done collecting scalps, oh no: during Lap Twelve it picked off Escrig, too.
Thai weather, a Moto2 summary: Lap Fifteen: teeny spots of rain; Lap Sixteen: Rain Flags; Lap Eighteen: Rain eases off again; Lap Twenty: more rain, again.
After what was described as a ‘big crash’ for Alcoba at Turn Eleven on Lap Twenty, the Red Flag came out.
The race was over.
Canet snapped up his third Moto2 victory, while Ogura took second place, and Ramírez happily accepted third.
But the podium celebrations were temporarily forgotten, as Ogura bawled his eyes out under his helmet from the moment the race ended: he had officially become the Moto2 World Champion of 2024, the first Japanese Champ since Aoyama fifteen years ago, and the first Asia Talent Cup rider to ever manage the feat.
It wasn’t just Ai in tears, either. Half his team was crying, while the rest took care of the shouting.
Stopping for a very quick game of Shogi, which he won – we think it was rigged – Ogura had the Champion bib pulled over his head, before receiving his Champion’s helmet, which was a fresh, splendid combination of golds and turquoise.
After the obligatory photoshoot, Ogura’s bike was restarted, whereafter he tried to do a burnout. He tried, he really did, but all he managed was to stall the bike. Twice. Ai, Ogura!
Back in Parc Fermé, Ogura was tossed into the team-crowd. We’re sure he was exhausted after it all, being such a shy, quiet character off the track.
MT Helmets MSI were crowned the Team Champions, too, so there would be much celebrating all through Sunday evening.
Ai Ogura the new Moto2 World Champion.
MotoGP:
Quartararo’s Venom helmet = total badassery. Ten out of ten.
Martín’s special Thai GP helmet is very…golden. Cockily golden, you might say. It’s still a very good-looking lid, though, the Hindu god of prosperity clinging to the back.
This would be Di Giannantonio’s last race weekend for 2024, the Other Fabio going for his planned – and very necessary – surgery after the Thai GP.
Sprint Race:
Not the craziest of Sprint Races we’ve had this season, though Martín served up enough hypertension-inducing moments to keep his team on their toes (and knees).
He flirted with Track Limits, he raced like a mangy, starving dog who’d spotted a piece of prime rib falling off a plate, yet by some miracle he wasn’t slapped with a penalty.
Grand debates are still raging on about this last point, and probably would be until someone else does something to distract from his green-paint-fancy.
During the fourth lap, Acosta slid into Turn Three Supermoto style, then slid out of Turn Three Rally style.
He managed to quickly remount, but called it a day by the end of Lap Ten, sliding into the pits.
Bastianini had run off with the lead from the get-go, snapping up his second Sprint Race victory. Way behind him, Scrappy Martín took second, while Bagnaia had to be content with third.
Binder fended off Quartararo in the closing stages of the race, in order to take ninth.
Fun fact: All eight Ducatis outperformed the rest of the pack locking out the first eight positions. This meant that Brad was the first non-Ducati-mounted rider across the line.
Main Race:
The Premier Class race started wet. Very wet. And stayed wet by varying degrees.
Márquez Junior had a fall on the Sighting Lap; luckily it was at Turn Eleven, a stone’s throw from the pits. Not so luckily, his Ducati wasn’t going anywhere. But, luckily, there was a guy on a scooter nearby, and Álex was able to commandeer it for a quick dash to his garage.
And, not so luckily again, he would have to start the race from the back of the grid.
We were treated to The Battle of Hanuman pre-race, and it was lovely.
When the pack pulled off the grid, it looked more like a speedboat race than a motorcycle race, what with the wakes streaking off the motorcycles’ rear tyres.
During the second lap, Acosta went to town to pick up a snack, returning to the race from his Turn Three exit.
Bezzecchi was awarded the Sparky Award for his Turn One slide at the start of Lap Four. He still trudged off, looking miffed.
Elsewhere on Lap Four, Morbidelli tried a very hard pass on Quartararo into Turn Eight, slamming into the Yamaha and sending Quartararo on a collision course with the tarmac. Fabio hit the deck so hard, his head bounced like a basketball. Whiplash. That looked like whiplash.
Still, Quartararo managed to remount and return to racing, while Morbidelli was handed a Long Lap Penalty for his overly-enthusiastic antics.
On Lap Five, Martín went off to find the snacks that Acosta had went after a few laps earlier at Turn Three, returning to the circuit empty-handed.
Savadori fell off and got back on at the end of the back straight, during the sixth lap, only for him to crash a second time by Lap Nineteen.
Fernández – Raúl – morphed into a high-speed litter shovel as he piled out of Turn Eight on Lap Seven.
By the eighth lap, Morbidelli had what we like to call a denial-slide out of Turn Eight, remaining glued to his seat and handlebars in a racing position until well after he’d stopped moving.
One lap later, Bastianini did much the same as Morbidelli, at the same turn, to boot.
Márquez (Senior) nearly made the save of the day during Lap Fourteen, when he kept his Ducati from falling over by propping it up on his right elbow through Turn Eight. And he would’ve done it, too, had he not tripped over the curb on the outside of the corner.
Marc had crashed out of a promising second, which broke a little fan’s heart. Could someone please find that boy and hand him an autographed Marc Márquez… something?
During the twenty-third lap, Rins got rinsed from the track at Turn Three by the remounted Marc Márquez, who was slapped across the wrist and told to drop a position. He did not bother to do this, and would be penalised by three seconds post-race.
Was that Mir’s teammate going bowling at Turn Four on Lap Twenty-Four? You know, Marini?
Anyway.
The second of the Fernández’s fell off at Turn Seven during Lap Twenty-Four.
For most of Lap Twenty-Five, we were treated to a splendid battle between Miller and Acosta. Neither was going to simply back off and concede that final podium position. It was poetry in motion.
Bagnaia comfortably took the win, while Martín decided to settle for a safe second, and Acosta won the battle for third.
Binder finished a decent sixth.
Though the Rider’s Championship was still wide open, the Team’s Championship was now final: Ducato Lenovo had once again snatched up the Team trophy. Well done.
Two race weekends left, and one Championship still undecided – things are going to get wilder still!
~ Karr
