We have been fortunate this year compared to 2020. Last year, we had repeat-races at five circuits, making up ten of the fourteen MotoGP rounds held.
In 2021, the situation with the COVID-19 pandemic has improved to the point that MotoGP managed to visit three different continents, needing to return to the same circuit only three times.
Six races out of eighteen is far from perfect, but much better than the situation in 2020.
Marc Marquez is to miss the Algarve Grand Prix, to be held at the Portimão circuit this weekend.
According to a press release from the Repsol Honda team, the Spaniard suffered a crash during training which has left him with a mild concussion.
As he was still feeling unwell a couple of days after the event, Marquez and the team have decided to skip the penultimate round of MotoGP.
Episode 62 of the Two Enthusiasts Podcast is out, and it covers an omnibus of motorcycle topics.
Things start with a discussion about the recently spied 2018 Honda Gold Wing, and its Hossack-style front-end. Our conversation then turns to the resurrection of the Skully helmet brand, which culminates in a frank conversation about head safety and concussions.
With injuries on the brain (see what I did there?), we can’t help but talk about Valentino Rossi and his return to MotoGP action after breaking his tibia and fibula. Note, this show was recorded before Sunday’s Aragon GP race.
We finish the show talking about the official unveiling of the Ducati Desmosedici Stradale V4 engine, and the unofficial leaking of the Ducati Panigale V4 photos. As you can imagine, Quentin and myself have some strong feelings about both those topics.
There’s a little something for everyone in this show. We think you’ll like it.
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.
Conventional wisdom says that mixing wine with motorcycles is a bad idea, but in the case of last week’s 4th annual Kurt Caselli Foundation fundraiser at Doffo Winery in Temecula, California, it was a perfect pairing.
Kurt Caselli was an accomplished off-road racer with multiple AMA District 37 championships, Hare and Hound titles, and was the overall class champion in the International Six Day Enduro in 2007 and 2011.
Additionally, he was a competitor in the Dakar Rally and the Baja 1000. The Baja 1000 was where he met his untimely death in 2013, and after his death, the Kurt Caselli Foundation was formed.
The foundation was established to promote safety for off-road riders and racers, and strives to support these riders before, during, and after a racing career.
Thanks to increased public attention on the subject, the issue of riders racing while with a concussion is something that is being talked about at higher levels of the motorcycle industry, and today we see MotoAmerica elevating how it regards brain injuries at the race track.
As such, MotoAmerica will begin using the Vestibular-Ocular Motor Screening (VOMS) system during the 2017 racing season, in order to monitor MotoAmerica participants for head injuries after a crash.
For those who don’t know, VOMS will allow race officials to more effectively and accurately diagnosis whether a rider has suffered a concussion, and is capable of competing after a head trauma.
Some illness amongst our crew is the reason this show is getting to you a bit late, but never fear, Episode 39 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is here.
Re-capping the Aragon GP, David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Steve English talk about the racing events in Spain, and place a friendly wager about how the rest of the season is going to shape up in the MotoGP paddock.
Turning to more serious discussion though, the guys also examine the FIM’s concussion protocol, as it was center stage in Aragon after Danilo Petrucci’s heavy crash, and perhaps hasty return to riding a motorcycle.
The attention then turns to the World Superbike paddock, with a talk about the recent round at Magny-Cours, and how the production-class racers are faring so far this season, and what is in store for next year. We also have a short interview with rider Chaz Davies about the progress of the Ducati squad.
We think this show is well worth the wait, so we hope you like it.
As always, be sure to follow the Paddock Pass Podcast on Facebook, Twitter 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!
Motorcycle racing is the cruelest form of addiction. What racers need to feed their habit is to win, but winning is hard, one of the hardest things of all. To do so, you have to go beyond yourself, push beyond your limits, exceed what you thought was possible.
That creates a paradox: if you want to win a championship, sometimes you have to accept you can’t win a race. Too much of that servility, though, and ambition will chafe at the bit. The temptation to have a go is hard to resist, with the risk of ending in gravelly ignominy.
That has been the fate of Marc Márquez so far this season. Wins have been few this season, just three in thirteen races. Even podiums have eluded him, Márquez ending off the box in three of the last four races. There is only so much a young man bursting with ambition can take.
That ambition looks set to burst forth at Aragon. If Misano was a track which Marc Márquez had marked down as a place he could risk losing a lot of points, he had comforted himself with the thought that Aragon followed.
Aragon is a Honda track, a Márquez track even. It is a track where he has won. But also a track where he has crashed trying to win.
The meeting of the Grand Prix Commission, held on Tuesday in Madrid, made a number of minor changes to the rules for all three Grand Prix classes, as well as a couple of more significant revisions.
The biggest changes concerned the setting of the maximum fuel allocation from 2016 at 22 liters, and the adoption of the SCAT3 test for concussion for riders after a crash. But perhaps the most significant outcome of the meeting of the GPC is not what was decided, but what was not.
Of the various minor rule changes, a few are worthy of comment. The first is the reduction of the time penalty at the start for a rider exceeding the engine allocation in any given year.
From 2015, anyone using an extra engine will start the race from pit lane 5 seconds after the green light is displayed after the official start (once all riders on the grid have passed pit lane exit), rather than 10 seconds.
This will have little direct impact on the outcome of any races, but should make it easier for riders using an extra engine to get close to the backmarkers, and perhaps score a point or two.
Dani Pedrosa is in doubt for Sunday’s race after suffering a major highside on Saturday morning at the Sachsenring. The Repsol Honda man entered the slow right hander at Turn 1 on his first full flying lap when the rear of the bike came round on him, flinging him a long way off the bike.
Pedrosa fell heavily on his left shoulder – the shoulder he injured badly at Motegi in 2010, and then again at Le Mans in 2011, suffering complications until the end of the 2011 season. He got up holding his collarbone, and as rushed to the medical center.
Yamaha Racing just can’t seem to get a break these last few rounds of the 2011 MotoGP season. With Jorge Lorenzo already sidelined from the Malaysian GP because of the finger injury he sustained at Philip Island, factory Yamaha rider Ben Spies has also withdrawn from the Malaysian round. Sitting out the Australian GP last weekend, Spies had been struggling with the injuries he received while crashing at 167 mph at Phillip Island. Sore and in pain, Spies’s injuries have caused the American rider to visit the gravel traps this weekend, which have concussed the Yamaha rider, and torn further the soft tissue around his ribs.