Episode 218 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this one is our Moto2 and Moto3 follow-up to Episode 217, which focused on the MotoGP action from the German GP at Sachsenring.
On the mics, we have Steve English, David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Adam Wheeler, as they walk us through the on-track action in the intermediate classes, along with special insights from ex-racer Michael Laverty.
I was supposed to have an interview with Yamaha Racing managing director Lin Jarvis this weekend, arranged well beforehand. That ended up not happening, unsurprisingly.
Lin Jarvis had more important things to deal with than answering my questions. And my list of questions seemed a good deal less relevant this weekend than they had a few days earlier.
For this weekend was all about Maverick Viñales. Whether he, or we, wanted it to be or not.
The Monster Energy Yamaha rider (but not for long) arrived at Assen after finishing dead last at the Sachsenring, topped both sessions of free practice on Friday, had an explosive meeting with Yamaha on Friday evening, secured pole with a blistering lap on Saturday, then found a way to only finish second on Sunday, well behind his teammate Fabio Quartararo.
Oh yes, and there were the reports that he had signed for Aprilia for 2021 on Saturday night as well.
The last time we had a weekend like this was at Austria in 2019, when Johann Zarco announced that he had asked KTM to terminate his contract with immediate effect.
But, though that rupture was more dramatic, Zarco stepping away with immediate effect and leaving KTM scrabbling around for a replacement rider, at least it made sense from a results perspective.
Zarco had had one top ten finish and one front row start, after three podiums in each of the preceding two years.
Episode 219 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this show covers the MotoGP action from the Dutch TT at Assen.
On the mics, we have Steve English, David Emmett and Neil Morrison, as the trio attempts to talk about the racing action at the Cathedral of Speed.
Of course, before the show can get to the on-track action, the guys have to first tackle the breaking news that Maverick Viñales will be leaving Yamaha at 2021.
Saturday at Assen only deepened the enigma that is Maverick Viñales. After being fastest in both sessions of practice on Friday, the Monster Energy Yamaha man added FP3 to his belt in the morning, then finished second in FP4.
That result was a little deceptive, however: he started FP4 on a used soft tire with 15 laps, nearly two thirds race distance, on it, and put nearly race distance on it, ending with a couple of 1’33.7s.
For context, the race lap record at Assen is 1’33.617, set by Marc Márquez on lap 4 of the 2015 race. Viñales’ second run was on a new medium tire, assessing tire choice for the race.
Eventful. That was the best way to describe the first day of practice at Assen.
The riders got a chance to sample the new asphalt, and they also got a chance to sample typical Assen summer weather: cool and dry in the morning, sprinkles of rain in the afternoon, followed by a downpour harsh enough to soak the track and allow a few laps in full wet conditions.
Not ideal for working on bike setup, especially if your name is Garrett Gerloff, and you have been drafted in to replace Franco Morbidelli, who spent the morning having surgery on his meniscus and ACL, and faces an 8-week period of rehab.
That would mean a return after the two races in Austria. But more of Gerloff later.
“This track is special.” Alex Rins summed up what most of the MotoGP riders, and indeed, almost anyone who has raced a motorcycle, think of the Circuit van Drenthe, the official name of the TT Circuit, or as most fans around the world know it, Assen. “One of my favorite tracks,” is how championship leader Fabio Quartararo described it.
Pecco Bagnaia loves it so much he has a tattoo of the circuit on his arm. “I really like the layout of this track,” the Ducati Lenovo Team rider told us. He had good reason to like the layout, as Assen has been a happy hunting ground for him.
“My first victory, the best weekend of my career in Moto2 here, when I was first in all the sessions and in the race,” Bagnaia told. Reason enough to create an indelible reminder of the occasion on his own body.
“Assen is a great place,” Valentino Rossi said. “It is the track that more or less every rider loves because, first of all, it is the track with the most history in motorcycle racing and was on the calendar from the beginning, and secondly, the layout is fantastic. Now it is modified but it remains the taste of the old Assen and the ride here is always a great pleasure.”
One might accuse Rossi of being biased, having been made an honorary citizen of the city of Assen by the Mayor, Marco Out. But the fact that it was almost impossible to find a dissenting voice suggests he was not lying.
American racing fans will see a familiar face on the MotoGP grid this weekend, at the Dutch TT in Assen, as Garrett Gerloff will be filling in for Franco Morbidelli on the Petronas Yamaha SRT squad.
Making waves already in the WorldSBK paddock, Gerloff’s race debut in the MotoGP Championship could be a sort of audition for the 25-year-old, showing off his skills for the grand prix paddock for the first time.
So far, the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on the 2020 MotoGP season has been to delay everything. But today, we had the first cancelations.
The races at the Sachsenring in Germany, Assen in the Netherlands, and the Kymiring in Finland have all been canceled for 2020.
The 2020 world championship motorcycle racing calendars continue to slide due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Tuesday evening, it became apparent that there will be no racing in either MotoGP or WorldSBK before the end of June.
After last Wednesday’s announcement by German Chancellor Angela Merkel that large-scale events would be banned in Germany through August 31st, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte extended the ban on large-scale events in The Netherlands to September 1st.
These two announcements have a direct bearing on the WorldSBK and MotoGP calendars.
Episode 1076 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and in it we see Neil Morrison and David Emmett on the microphones, as we discuss the happenings at the Dutch TT in Assen, The Netherlands.
Our dynamic duo is joined on this episode by Adam Wheeler, from the magazine On-Track Off-Road, and once again he brings his great insights to the table for our show.
Is there still such a thing as a Honda track, a Yamaha track, or a Ducati track (or even a Suzuki track)? Once upon a time, it seemed like there was. MotoGP would go to Indianapolis, and you knew that a Honda would win. Go to Mugello, and chances are, a Yamaha would emerge victorious.
In the press room, we would spend hours trying to decipher why one bike or another would win at a particular track. Was it temperature which counted? We suspected that, but then a Yamaha or a Honda would win at a cold track one week, and a hot track the next. Was it the layout or the type of corner that mattered?
Hondas dominated the stop-and-go layout of Motegi, and then got destroyed by the Yamahas at the stop-and-go layout of Le Mans. In the end, we figured it all came down to grip: in low grip conditions, the Hondas were quick; when there was plenty of grip, the Yamahas were unbeatable.
That disappeared in recent years, killed by the technical developments which led up to the switch to Michelin tires. 1000cc engines, spec electronics, and the regulations which have seen the bikes grow ever closer in performance.
With the differences between the machines so small, other factors had a greater impact on results than just the character of the bike. No longer can you predict a winner based on which bike they are on.