Tag

MotoGP

Browsing

We have some good news to report for grand prix racing fans, as Dani Pedrosa has been cleared to ride by MotoGP’s medical team, and thus can compete in the Grand Prix of the Americas, held this weekend in Austin, Texas.

Breaking his wrist in a crash with Johann Zarco, Pedrosa had surgery on the broken bones over a week ago, at the Hospital Universitari Dexeus in Spain.

Though the surgery was deemed a success, there was still some debate as to whether Pedrosa would compete at the American round, but with today’s announcement from Repsol Honda and MotoGP, we will have a full contingent of Honda’s at the Americas GP.

Normally, the Grand Prix of the Americas, as the MotoGP round at COTA in Austin is known, is a straightforward affair. 24 MotoGP riders line up on the grid, and 23 of them stage a fierce battle over who is going to come second behind Marc Márquez.

The Repsol Honda rider has won every single one of the five editions staged at the Circuit of the Americas. In fact, the Spaniard has never been beaten in any of the nine MotoGP races he has contested on American soil, at Laguna Seca, Indianapolis, or in Austin.

Will someone finally break Márquez’s winning streak in the US? On the evidence of the 2018 season so far, the only person capable of beating Márquez at one of his strongest tracks is Marc Márquez himself.

In Argentina, the Repsol Honda rider managed to thoroughly sabotage his own race. First by stalling his bike on the starting grid – a grid already thrown out of kilter by the changing weather.

Then by trying to make up for the time he lost serving a ride through penalty for a multitude of infractions at the start by charging through the field like a wrecking ball, slamming into one rider after another, taking out his arch nemesis Valentino Rossi, before being hit by another penalty, this time adding 30 seconds to his race time and demoting him out of the points.

After the race and in the intervening days since, Rossi has gone on the attack, calling Márquez a dangerous rider who is a threat to everyone on the track with him. He doesn’t feel safe on the track with Márquez, Rossi said.

Rossi’s remarks, while understandable, should be seen within the wider context of his vendetta with Márquez, after he lost the 2015 championship, which Rossi blames entirely on deliberate interference by Márquez.

Further stoking the fire, Rossi was pictured in a social media post with a framed picture of the Argentina incident lying on a sofa at his dirt track ranch.

Whatever the root of Rossi’s remarks, there can be no doubt that they are a distraction, both for Márquez and for Rossi himself.

When the pair arrive at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, they will face questioning on one subject only. And that won’t be Márquez’s chances of winning on Sunday.

Episode 70 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is hot off the presses, and it is the episode that you surely have all been waiting for, as the Argentina GP was in no shortage of action, drama, and consequences for the 2018 MotoGP Championship season.

As such, we have gathered around the microphones David Emmett, Neil Morrison (who calls in from Argentina), and Steve English.

The guy obviously talk about the incident between Marc Marquez and Valentino Rossi, and examine the words said in the aftermath in the larger perspective of MotoGP’s political arena.

Words are also spent talking about Cal Crutchlow’s performance, both on and off the track, as well as the fortunes of riders like Dani Pedrosa, Johann Zarco, and Jorge Lorenzo, the latter being tipped to take Andrea Iannone’s ride inside the ECSTAR Suzuki garage.

Of course the show ends with the guys picking their biggest winners and losers from the weekend’s events, which isn’t as obvious this week as one would think.

We think you will enjoy the show. It is packed with behind-the-scenes info, and insights from teams and riders in the paddock.

As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on FacebookTwitter and subscribe to the show on iTunes and SoundCloud – we even have an RSS feed for you. If you like the show, we would really appreciate you giving it a review on iTunes. Thanks for listening!

On Friday, the Hondas were looking pretty strong at the Termas De Rio Hondo circuit in Argentina. Dani Pedrosa led FP1, with Cal Crutchlow just behind him. In FP2, Marc Márquez opened a big lead over Crutchlow, with the rest some distance behind.

On Saturday, Marc Márquez looked just about unbeatable, despite his slip up in qualifying. Six tenths quicker than Johann Zarco, and effortlessly quick in a wet FP3.

Over a second quicker than his teammate Pedrosa in FP4, an advantage that was almost embarrassing. The portents were clear on Saturday night: this was Marc Márquez’ race to lose.

And that is exactly what he did, before the lights had even gone out. A combination of ignorance of the rules and panic meant he blew his chance of winning the race as soon as he jumped off his bike to try to restart it on the grid.

From there, he piled error upon error to make the situation worse. By the end of Sunday, he had managed to throw away any chance of salvaging points from the Argentina round, and run up a 15-point deficit to Andrea Dovizioso.

He had also managed to create a public relations disaster, though to be fair, he had more than a little help doing that.

Episode 75 of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast is out, and in it we talk about…nothing. We unfortunately didn’t have time to talk about the Suzuki Katana rumors, nor did we have time for Yamaha’s electric trials bike, which has a mechanical clutch.

We also didn’t have time for the debut of the Mugen Shinden Nana electric superbike, nor John McGuinness’s IOMTT movements. There is no time for Jonathan Rea racing at the Suzuka 8-Hours endurance race on a factory Kawasaki team.

We also glanced past RevZilla’s in-house apparel brand, REAX, which debuted last week. Did we talk about MotoGP?…Nope.

We do talk a little about what it is like to ride the MV Agusta Brutale 800 RR, the Italian brand’s superbike plans, and what new bikes we can expect to see from  MV Agusta.

The show finishes with us trying not to talk about a story that has been going viral in the two-wheeled space. You can probably guess it from the title of the show, but rather than stoke the fires directly, we try and approach the subject from a more elevated perspective.

You can listen to the show via the embedded SoundCloud player, after the jump, or you can find the show on iTunes (please leave a review) or this RSS feed. Be sure to follow us on Facebook and Twitter as well. 

We hope you will join the conversation, and leave us some audio comments at our new email address: twoenthusiasts@gmail.com.

Dani Pedrosa has suffered a fractured wrist in his lap one crash at the Termas De Rio Hondo circuit in Argentina on Sunday.

As a consequence of that crash, Pedrosa had to undergo surgery today in Barcelona to fix the intra-articular fracture in his right distal radius.

The fracture reduction and internal fixation with a titanium screw was performed at the Hospital Universitari Dexeus, by Dr. Xavier Mir and his team from the Catalan Institute of Traumatology and Sports Medicine (ICATME).

Every MotoGP weekend throws up dozens of talking points, notes and points of interest that can help an interested observer better understand what remains the greatest sport on earth.

Some weekends have more to offer than others. And then there are weekends like Argentina. Already by qualifying, the Grand Prix at the Termas De Rio Hondo circuit had produced more wildness and weirdness than you get at most rounds. And then Sunday came along.

Yesterday, I wrote a little about the peculiar and unique set of circumstances that caused the start of the race to be delayed, and about how Cal Crutchlow came to win what would be a fantastic race riddled with controversy.

Before I move on to the most controversial part of the weekend – Marc Márquez’s frantic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde ride through the field, which eventually saw him penalized out of the points – a few more notes on the race itself, and the result as it ended up in the books.

Responding to the backlash in the media from this weekend’s Argentina GP round, Dorna CEO and MotoGP boss Carmelo Ezpeleta issued a statement via the MotoGP.com website, where he backed the decisions made by the MotoGP Race Direction officials.

Notably though, Ezpeleta’s statement focuses mostly on the decisions made during the starting procedure of the MotoGP race at the Argentinean round, and not the on-track action, which also gained the scrutiny of Race Direction.

Interesting too, Ezpeleta pleads the case for Dorna, noting how the media right holder for MotoGP is not involved in picking the FIM Stewards (that is the job of the FIM and IRTA), thus trying to absolve the Spanish firm from any controversial decisions, and the appearance of bias.

On Saturday after qualifying, I wrote about how one of motorcycle racing’s defining characteristics is its unpredictability. That was written in response to a thrilling qualifying session that saw Jack Miller take pole by rolling the dice on slicks on a drying track, and outperforming everyone else.

The rest of the grid had been pretty unpredictable too: Tito Rabat in fourth on the Reale Avintia Ducati GP17. Marc Márquez, the man who had been fastest by a country mile all weekend, only starting in sixth. Three first-time pole sitters in the three Grand Prix classes. Saturday at Argentina defied expectations.

Sunday at the Termas De Rio Hondo circuit made Saturday look positively straight-laced. Wild doesn’t even begin to cover the events on race day. There were Moto3 riders gambling on slicks on a track with just a very narrow dry line.

There were new names and fresh faces at the front of the Moto2 race, a thriller that went down to the wire. But when MotoGP came around, even those events were made to look positively mundane.

So much happened that it will take several days to digest, let alone do justice to in writing. There were so many facets to this race that I will need more than one report to deconstruct it all. For now, we will start at the beginning, and work our way forwards from there.

It all begins with the weather. Heavy rain all night, followed by the track drying out through the course of the Moto3 and Moto2 races left the track in a difficult condition.

The Moto2 bikes and their fat Dunlop rubber had at least cleared out a dry line around most of the track, but it was not very wide in places, and there was water crossing the track. Then a light rain started to fall as the riders prepared to leave pit lane, making them choose wets instead of slicks.

All except Jack Miller, that is, who rolled the dice on slicks once again, determined to seize an advantage wherever he could find it.

God-given ability can be a crutch or curse depending on the mindset of an athlete. Talent can take you all the way to the top, but eventually you’ll face a challenge that can only be overcome through hard work.

Lessons need to be learned along the way to ensure success, and only a handful of riders ever make it to MotoGP on their talent alone.

Most riders marry talent with dedication at an early age in the Grand Prix paddock, and some have had to learn those lessons at a very young age. Vince Lombardi once said that “the only place where success comes before work is in the dictionary.”

In any sport, to get to the very top you need dedication as well as raw talent, but how far can natural ability get you in motorcycle racing? We set out to answer that question at the recent Qatar Grand Prix.