By: Karrbon Copy
(This lady is one of the most entertaining contributors to our publication, if you appreciate her hours of toiling over a grubby keyboard, then please feel free to support her on her Patreon Link: https://www.patreon.com/KarrbonCopy)
Surrounded by mist-crowned mountains, the Red Bull Ring in Austria had a mystical atmosphere with its giant metal Bull watching on and guarding all who enters its domain. Someone must’ve invited Oprah back on to the Stewards’ panel this weekend: Nearly everyone received Track Limits Warnings, throughout all four classes covered in this report.
Moto E.
Race One: The Rapid Toasters were back again for some more fairing-bashing action.
Entering the first turn of the race, Zannoni’s bike decided it wanted to draw some zigzags on the track surface. This somehow didn’t result in a crash. At the end of the first lap, Ferrari went luge-ing down the track, his teammate and other riders somehow avoiding trampling the abandoned rider on his way towards Turn Ten. Abandoned, you say? Yes, his ride had concluded that it now identified as a huge fidget spinner, gayly spinning off on its side.
Going into Lap Two, Gutierrez and Garzó made contact violently enough to rip off Garzó’s left knee-slider, and launch Gutierrez into temporary orbit. Miraculously, there was no resulting crash. Pons’ race ended when he pushed a little too hard going into the final turn, came in too hot, and subsequently slid off the circuit and out of a potential podium position.
By Lap Five, Granado slid off at Turn Three, his front brakes positively simmering from the abuse. There was smoke rising from the front discs. After seven laps of epic racing, the rookie Gutierrez claimed his second race win of the season, while Garzó had to settle for second. Third place initially went to Zannoni, but by the time he reached Parc Fermé, he was informed that, due to him running over the green bits at Turn Two on the final lap, his third place had been handed to Casadei. Naturally, Zannoni and his team tried to argue, but the evidence was quite damning. Garzó kept rubbing his left, sliderless knee on his cooldown lap. Lots of ice packs, bring him lots of ice packs.
Race Two:
did you see Ferrari caressing his Ducati’s (fake) tank like it was made of boobies while awaiting the start of Race Two? PRICELESS!
The second race of the day yielded more daring overtakes than we cared to count, with Gutierrez once again bringing the fight to Garzó in a most fantastical way. Pons’ second race, however, ended even sooner than his first, with a contact-induced tumble at the first turn on the first lap. Utterly defeated, and possibly a little rattled, Pons rested his head on the tyre wall after surviving the throng of bikes taking evasive actions in order not to join him on the ground.
Come the final lap, Gutierrez seemed set to make it a two-for-two in Austria as he led the way around the ‘Ring for the final time. Then, at Turn Nine, the penultimate corner of the track and, indeed, the race, Misfortune stuck out a leg and tripped Oscar’s bike. It was heart-wrenching to see the golden rookie slide from the lead and into the litter. In the gravel, Gutierrez first kneeled and threw his gaze up at the heavens, likely crying out in despair, before folding himself into a four-legged leather-clad ball and bawling his eyes out inside of his helmet.
He eventually got up and strode around, his shoulders nearly touching his chin, so far were they slumped forward. While walking off towards the exit, he aimed to toss his gloves in the dirt, but thought better of it. With Gutierrez having disappeared from his view, Garzó went on to take the win, with Zannoni in second, and Casadei again in third as a result of someone ahead of him’s poor luck.
Moto3:
This was the race of the day – No contest!
But let’s get the penalties out of the way first, shall we? Because, as is tradition in Moto3, there were a FEW.
- Long Lap Penalties for riding like a granny on a mobility scooter which is low on battery power, went to Alonso, Piqueras, Suzuki, and Furusato.
- Double Long Lap Penalties were earned by Lunetta, for continuously doing the granny-scooter-thing…. and Farioli for punting Ogden on Saturday.
- As stated earlier, there were many Track Limits Warnings being handed out. In the Junior class, a good few riders evolved theirs into Long Lappers: Carraro, Zurutuza, Furusato (again), Dettweiler, and Esteban.
When the lights came on after the Warm-Up lap, something seemed amiss… Ortolá, the pole sitter, had seemingly been abducted by aliens during the course of the Warm-Up.A replay later on dismissed the alien abduction theory, Ortolá instead having arrived on the grid with his hand in the air, clearly suffering some kind of problem. He dove straight for the gap in the wall, where his team sorted him out in pit lane so fast, he managed to take the start from there.
Karma gave Farioli a slap upside the head on Lap Two, sending him crashing at Turn Two; the very corner he’d punted Ogden off the circuit and was given his Double Long Lapper for.
An enthralling battle for top honours raged on for the entire race, at its peak involving at least eight riders. At the end of Lap Fifteen, Nepa slid off at Turn Ten. After checking on his stricken machine, and confirming he wasn’t about to remount it anytime soon, Nepa stomped off while angrily yanking off his gloves.
We had our hands over our eyes throughout the final lap; yes, we still peeked through our fingers. Five riders all smelled victory, but ultimately, there could be only one. That one was Alonso, the Columbian Charger taking yet another victory, closing in fast on the record for most wins in Moto3, and possibly already having one of the best (if not THE best) race starts-to-wins ratios in the class. Behind him, Muñoz pipped Holgado to the line, taking second place with a five-thousandths of a second gap between them. This meant Holgado had to be happy with third.
Honorary mention: Ortolá, for going from pole to pit lane, and still finishing the race in ninth. Alonso’s post-race celebrations were Columbia’s Got Talent worthy (and if they do not have a Columbia’s Got Talent? They should). He first stopped at the Long Lap Loop, a place he had to visit once early in the race, where he French kissed the tarmac before pulling off a decent dance routine still fully suited up. Nine out of ten. Very good. In Parc Fermé, he dedicated his victory to his team who, he stated, didn’t deserve his poor Saturday performance, and so he had to make it up to them. His dance moves were again showcased as he was called up to the podium. Dances better than Marc Márquez. Sorry – not sorry, Marc.
Moto2:
- No Ai Ogura, the Japanese rider suffered a nasty highside during FP3, and was ruled unfit to race with fractures in his right hand. Crashes once for the entire season and doesn’t half-arse it.
- Arbolino had to drop three places on the grid for being at a near-standstill at Turn Nine during practice, directly in the path of Canet going at race-speed.
- On Lap One Escrig and Aji had what was likely a rapid, painful offing together. Both were shown having a hard time catching their breaths, and hobbling off like elderly citizens with knee problems. Not much was shown of the actual coming-together, though.
- Somewhere along the line, Baltus vanished. Another alien abduction?
- While comfortably leading the race, Vietti lost more than half of his lead gap on Lap Ten when he accidentally, or glitchedly, hit neutral going into Turn Three. Luckily, he managed to get it back into gear without losing all of his advantage, and steadily redug the chasm between him and second place.
- The Long Lap Penalty club garnered some more members from the Moto2 field: First was Alcoba who, after serving his initial Long Lap Penalty, was instructed to do it over, as he’d not served it correctly the first time.
- Others giving the Long Lap Loop some action were: Masià, Pasini, and García. The latter really hadn’t been making the most of his main title rival’s absence this Sunday.
Foggia’s race ended with a little slip off at Turn Two on Lap Twelve, while Navarro crashed out secretly during the twenty-second lap. Having built a significant lead again, Vietti afforded himself the luxury of doing a stand-up wheelie across the finish line. Behind him, López held on to second, while Dixon was awarded third. Dixon’s third place was the topic of much deliberation, since he’d clearly run onto the green when he’d passed Canet at the start of the final lap. However, according to the stewards, Canet also ran off onto the green at the final corner, which meant they would have swapped places twice, leaving them in the same order as they’d crossed the line. Rules are confusing, and have us confused. We’re opting not to dig into them here. Darryn again ran a solid race, finishing in seventh. Good job, Daz! Incidentally, this was Vietti’s first victory for KTM, and he did it at KTM’s home race. Ironically, he doesn’t have a seat with them for 2025.
MotoGP:
For those who just joined us for the racing action, here are a few things to catch up on:
- Martín managed to nearly cut off his left thumb in the shower Friday evening, causing the Doctor to hover about him like a concerned mother, or a hungry fly.
- DiGi dislocated his shoulder on Friday, and would not be partaking further in Styria.
- Pol Espargaró returned to the grid as a Wildcard, straddling a machine that looks an awful lot like the lovechild of a KTM RC16 and the 1989-era Batmobile. We’re not complaining, as such.
- Teammates Oliveira and Fernández have been testing out some new tail-wings. No epic transformation in performance noted.
Sprint Race:
The Sprint Race started off on a hot note, Bagnaia and Martín fighting tooth and nail for the lead. Márquez (Junior) was ejected from the pack between Turns Two A and Two B on the very first lap, but managed to remount in order to at least complete the race.
Controversy and all-round sh*tty luck hit Martín like a brick falling from an overpass, he pushed a little too hard trying to keep the lead from Bagnaia, which forced him to run off after Turn Two A, thus taking the shortcut through Turn Two B so he could rejoin the race. Much to Martín’s dismay, however, it was soon determined that he hadn’t lost the obligatory one second while doing so, and as a result had to complete one Long Lap Penalty.
The Senior Márquez brother was sitting pretty, en-route to yet another Sprint second-place finish, when he slipped off at Turn Three during the tenth lap. Someone’d superglued his gloves to the handlebars, judging by the on-board footage of his slide, which showed that he’d rather eat a face full of screen than let go of the grips. Marc did remount, but only to limp to an early retirement to the pits.
At the end of the second-to-last lap, Augusto Fernández, Rins, and Bradl all ducked off into pit lane, retiring from a near-completed race. Bagnaia claimed a comfortable win, Martín took an equally comfortable (at least, regarding gap times) second, while Espargaró (Aleix) nabbed third place, and was over the moon about it. Fighting hard, Binder managed to take seventh. Well run, Brad.
Main Race:
First of all, that rendition of the Austrian National Anthem could easily be a chart-topping hit. We felt the urge to dance along; good thing nobody could see us.
Márquez Senior’s race got off on the wrong foot right from the get-go, when his front start-device refused to engage. This led to a wheelie awkward pull-off (hee hee), leading to a game of tag with Morbidelli en-route to Turn One. Morbidelli hadn’t consented to this contact, and both riders went sightseeing before returning to the race. Quite early in the race, Marini snuck into the pits.
From around a third race distance in, the clouds around Spielberg began changing colour from bright, happy white, to a more ominous, menacing grey. Speculation began on whether there would be some late-race wet drama; much to our disappointment, there was none.
At the start of Lap Ten, Márquez (still Marc) elbowed Miller’s rear tyre going into Turn One. We’re unsure what this tactic would be called. One lap later, Miller laid his KTM down exiting Turn Two A, sliding off gently towards the gravel.
By this time, Bagnaia had pulled a multi-second lead gap (again), while Martín and Bastianini followed him equally distant from one another and the rest of the field. These insane gaps are happening far too frequently; people are complaining about the lack of mayhem these days, and we grudgingly have to agree with their dissatisfaction. But we digress. Back to the racing at hand.
During Lap Sixteen, the Mystery Yellows appeared for a brief moment in the fourth sector, disappearing without informing us of their reason for popping up…. Aliens again??? Unlike the other classes, there were very few Long Lap Penalties handed out: Quartararo was the only notable rider to gain one.
For the sake of continuity, your race winner by a landslide was Bagnaia; second was Martín, and far behind in third was Bastianini. the following group was around 7 seconds behind them. Crazy!
With this victory, Bagnaia has equalled his personal best of seven race wins in a single season; we’re quite certain this will be improved upon soon, the way things are going and all…
After running fourth for most of the GP, Binder ended the race in a very healthy fifth. Nice One!
