By: Karrbon Copy
Was it hot in Lombok, you ask? We ask you this: Is Quartararo a fashionista? Does Rossi have a secret collection of yellow highlighters that he hides from the world, but uses to colour in his leathers? Yes, it was hot. Almost as hot as the action around the Pertamina Manalika Circuit.
Moto3:
Before getting into the racing-drama, we would like to invite you to the Dawdler’s Club Awards Ceremony:
- For dawdling once, Aditama: Warning.
- For dawdling twice, Rueda: One Long Lap.
- For dawdling thrice, Nepa and Ortolá: Two Long Laps each.
- And, for dawdling an impressive four times, Zurutuza: Also Two Long Laps.
Now that that’s out of the way, let us race!
The chaos ensued from the first lap, though the duo of Farioli and Almansa opened the crash-floor by only the third lap, tumbling off at Turn Eight. Local Wildcard, Aditama, crashed out after just five laps. Also on Lap Five, Buasri and Dettweiler came to blows when Dettweiler turned his motorcycle into a bowling-ball through Turn Sixteen, bowling a strike in the form of Buasri who, due to his own small mistake, found himself a little wide and in exactly the wrong place. Buasri went down, banging his head against the screen of his bike in the process.
During Lap Eight, Zurutuza’s bike decided it’d had enough of him, shaking the rider off at the tenth turn and running off on its own to find a nice spot on the beach, preferably under a palm tree. Rossi retired to the pits at the end of Lap Ten. A handful of riders were slapped with penalties for shortcuts at Turn Nine, most notably Ortolá – that’s three Long Laps in one race. Eina.
On Lap Twelve, Veijer blundered while in the lead. This feels extremely déjà-vu-ish… The Flying Dutchman was perhaps trying a little too hard to pull out a lead-gap, because when he tipped over for Turn Thirteen for the twelfth time of asking, he suddenly found himself sliding off towards the grass on his arse, while his motorcycle went airborne, tyres smoking.
From Saturday’s Save of the Day, to Sunday’s Crash of the Day – a rider of many opposing talents. Furusato overexerted his poor Honda’s limits entering Turn One guns blazing on the penultimate lap. His bike cried ‘No more!’, launching Furusato into orbit as it lay down on the inside of the turn. Miraculously, neither sliding bike nor hurtling rider made contact with Holgado, who was directly beside Furusato when everything went skyward. We hope Holgado bought a lottery ticket after the race. Understandably, Furusato was furious with himself. This was certainly a terrible race for the Japanese riders, with Yamanaka crashing out soon after Furusato. We hope their home Grand Prix goes better next weekend.
Alonso emerged victorious, and near death from exhaustion, (as were most riders this weekend). Fernández scored his first-ever Moto3 podium by taking second, while Muñoz came through for third. Alonso’s win in Indonesia meant he equalled Fenati’s record of thirteen Moto3 wins. He didn’t seem to care for that nearly as much as for the coconut he was drinking out of in Parc Fermé, though. During his interview, he noted he was just aiming to ‘score a few points’, but then he felt the Indonesian fans deserved a show. That’s adorable. Even more adorable was him mentioning one of his mechanics who was due to be a dad very soon. But the sweetest thing we heard was Adrián’s older brother – Raúl, from MotoGP – fawning over his little bro’s first-ever podium.
Moto2:
No Foggia this weekend, the Italian had an abscess in one of his wisdom teeth, something many of us know is a proper pain in the jaw. His teammate Moreira would also not be competing, after his terrible abdominal pain from a week ago was found to be due to an inflamed appendix, and thus he would be going under the knife to fix the problem.
Even more chaos!
The race opened with some Turn One fairing-bashing between Van den Goorbergh and Masià, which led to Masià’s extremely rapid ejection from his seat and the race. Jaume landed so hard, you could hear the smack through the screen. Thankfully, nobody else was added to the slide-tally, though Masià appeared to be in considerable pain as he movie-crawled from the wreckage, slumping down on his side just outside of track limits. It was a scene fit for the theatre stage. Van den Goorbergh was later slapped with a Double Long Lapper for his part in the carnage.
Still on the opening lap, multiple incidents occurred at Turn Ten, the participants somehow not getting tangled in one another’s mishaps. First, we spotted Chantra idling off the track, fondling his right leg. In the background, Agius came barrelling through the gravel, while Arbolino had to take the long way through the turn in order not to become part of Senna’s crash. What happened to Chantra, then? When shown some replays, it was revealed that his extended right leg nearly got sheared off by Aldeguer as they entered Turn Ten. The contact was so severe, Chantra had to limp his bike to the pits in front of a Safety Car, while holding his afflicted appendage up, unable to rest his foot on the peg. Safely in the pit garage, Chantra could barely stand the pain, and the Medical Taxi had to be called in to transport him to the Medical Centre. If a MotoGP rider pulls those agonised facial expressions, then you know that it hurts like nobody’s business. (Just an update: Somkiat was, miraculously, later declared fit. These boys are made of that stuff they used on Wolverine.) Turn Ten claimed another victim on Lap Three, this time in the shape of Dixon, though Jake managed to escape the malicious corner and rejoin the race.
Muñoz was one of a few riders having forgettable races this weekend, his first Long Lap Penalty was for taking a shortcut at Turn Eight; but then he was handed another Long Lap Penalty for flirting with unconsenting Track Limits. During the sixteenth lap, García’s luck advanced (or would that be declined?) from Squiwardian to downright Scrat-the-Ice-Age-squirrel-level, with yet another nasty crash seeing the title hopeful being aggressively massaged by the curb on his way off the track, sans motorcycle.
Allow us to summarise Canet’s race: took the lead, gapped the rest by over two seconds within five laps, stretched said gap until it creaked over seven seconds, then cruised to a victory-margin of just over six seconds. He even afforded himself a wheelie across the finish line. Quite the contrast between this and last week, right? It’s almost as if Arón was trying to prove something. Canet the runaway victor (his second-ever win in Moto2, a day ahead of his twenty-fifth birthday), Ogura settled into a relatively safe second, while the brawl for third ultimately went the way of López.
After a fantastic race, and fighting for that final podium step, Binder finished fifth, his best result in Moto2 thus far. Good job, Daz!
A few young ladies fainted in Indonesia after the Moto2 race; not from the heat, as such: Aldeguer was caught stripping in his pit box by the cameraman.
*Some post-race drama to add here: Guevara has allegedly been disqualified from the race for being underweight post-race. Probably sweated all that weight off during the race.
MotoGP:
Sprint Race: So much Championship drama, you’d think someone was writing a script for these guys to follow.
Pre-race, on the grid, Quartararo casually massaged the neck of one of his crew members, who was bent over the bike in front of him, grinning as he did so. The camera angle was most unfortunate; we could see the memes popping up already in our mind’s eye.
In yet another plot-twisting incident, Martín laid his Ducati down going through Turn Sixteen for the first time, handing the race lead over to Bagnaia. He rapidly rejoined, having remained seated throughout his slide and thus managing to pop upright at impressive speed. He would storm through the field, recovering a final position of tenth, just shy of the points-positions.
Fernández – Raúl, had a minor slip at Turn Ten during the second lap, but managed to rejoin the race. At the end of the same lap, Mir slid off at Turn Sixteen, in much the same way as Martín, the difference being that he, unlike Martín, did not get to rejoin the action. While entering the tenth corner on Lap Seven, Bezzecchi locked up the front, avoiding a catastrophic collision with Bagnaia’s rear wheel by a whisper. Breaths were pulled in, fists were clenched. The crash was avoided. Breaths were released. Fists unclenched. The other Fernández (Augusto) had a crash on Lap Twelve, but was so insignificant that he didn’t warrant coverage.
Bagnaia claimed victory, his teammate Bastianini got second, and Márquez – Marc – settled for third. Maaa! Marc said a naughty word! Pulling off a bit of a recovery job, Binder managed to finish thirteenth. Back at Pramac Ducati, Martín hopped off his bike, ducking straight through the garage and out the back, not being in a very chatty mood.
Main Race:
That Novia Bachmid lady sure sang the national anthem beautifully, amidst some of the coolest pre-race celebrations to be seen in MotoGP. Martín was squeezing his girl’s hand so hard while waiting on the grid, it looked like he was going to take her along for the ride. Perhaps that was the reason she looked so nervous.
Not to be out-chaosed by the smaller classes, the MotoGP race kicked off with a massive pile-up at Turn Three, leaving riders and machines scattered across the track and beyond track limits. Upon further investigation, the cause for the tidal wave of racers was found to be Miller, who had lost the front so abruptly on the inside of the turn that his teeth clattered from the impact. Miller and his KTM swooped off the circuit, taking Márquez Junior, Espargaró Senior, and Marini along with them. Multiple riders had to pull out their dodgem skills in order to avoid being added to the tidal-wave-guest list. So much for your two-hundred-and-fiftieth MotoGP, Aleix. Congrats and, well, sorry it lasted only two-and-a-half turns. Clean-up after the melee lasted about three laps, it was that chaotic.
Marc Márquez versus Di Giannantonio made for amusing viewing, though we suspect that neither of the riders, especially Marc, would’ve been thinking the same thing. Much to our disappointment, and Marc’s relief, DiGi suffered a hypersonic topple going through Turn Ten on the ninth lap. We knew he was alright when he sat on his knees, shouting expletives at the sky as if it was to blame for his blunder.
While navigating Turn Eleven for the twelfth time, Márquez (the remaining one) suddenly had his Ducati cut out on him, forcing him to coast off the track. Whether he’d realised it before dismounting or not, his bike was on fire, great orange flames adorning the engine like some gaudy decoration. After hopping off, Marc first held on to the bike, yelling at the marshals to get over there with the fire extinguishers. He very soon abandoned the fiery carcass and disappeared to safety, when nobody immediately blasted the fire. We would learn later that, according to a very unhappy Márquez, the marshals didn’t have the correct extinguishers on-hand.
Oh dear. Someone’s in trouble.
At the start of Lap Thirteen, Mir crashed. This wasn’t very scandalous news, and so we moved past it without looking too hard. As we’ve come to expect, Bastianini pressed the Turbo Boost button in the late stages of the race, setting the Fastest Lap of the race on twenty-lap-old rubber. But just when he’d excited us out of our pants, he crashed at the first turn of Lap Twenty-One, slipping off the track and out of a then-third place moments after setting said fastest lap. For crying out loud, Bastia. Why’d you do us dirty like that?
A wild Yamaha fairing was spotted grazing at the edge of the final turn during Lap Twenty-Five. Turning his Sprint Race blunder into motivation, Martín claimed victory in the Sunday race by a very safe margin. He was so happy, he deleted the screen from his Ducati. Acosta held firm for second, but was a little nervous to celebrate when they announced that his tyre pressure was being investigated. (Thankfully, they later announced that the loss in pressure was due to a ‘leaky wheel rim’, and thus there would be no penalty for the rookie.) After a race not entirely to his taste, Bagnaia finished third.
Brad Binder fought his way up the field, assisted by a few crashes along the way that, importantly did not involve him, to finish eighth. He, too, along with Nakagami in eleventh, were investigated for their tyre pressures. Both were later told that, for now, they were fine, but there would be confirmation of this by Motegi.
Meanwhile, Martín got swarmed at Turn Sixteen by a pack of crazy marshals celebrating like he’d won the Championship. Calm down, folks, we still have a few races to go. Bagnaia F-bombing the intro to his Parc Fermé interview response was gold. The commentators didn’t even bother to apologise this time.
On we march to an even earlier local wake-up session, courtesy of the Japanese MotoGP this coming weekend.
We can hardly wait!
~ Karr
