Marc Marquez has fractured his upper right arm in a highside during the Jerez race.
Doing the math ahead of the Thai GP, it would be hard to see how Marc Marquez would come out of Buriram not the 2019 MotoGP World Champion, as the Spaniard only needed to finish two points ahead of Andrea Dovizioso to clinch the title.
The problem though is that Marc Marquez is not known for taking the easy points, and instead we witnessed a masterful race from the Repsol Honda rider, as he battled his way to the front of the race.
The result was Marc Marquez taking the MotoGP World Championship title in dominating form – a fitting end to his 2019 season.
As expected, the result of the 2019 Suzuka 8-Hours was decided well after the podium ceremony for the Yamaha Factory Racing Team, with the factory Kawasaki team protesting Race Direction’s interpretation of the rulebook.
Agreeing with the Kawasaki Racing Team’s reading, the FIM concluded that because the race ended on a red flag, the results should be counted from the first full lap before the incident, which had KRT leading by a comfortable margin.
This overrules Race Direction’s opinion that KRT failed to return to the pits five minutes after the race ended, which saw the Kawasaki team declared a non-finisher, and thus off the podium box.
In what will surely go down in history as the most frantic and confusing conclusion to the Suzuka 8-Hours ever recorded, the Yamaha Factory Racing Team won its fifth straight victory at the iconic Japanese endurance race.
The result, which wasn’t clear until moments before the podium ceremony, sees the Red Bull Honda team on the second step, followed by the F.C.C. TSR Honda squad, which also finished second in the FIM EWC standings.
It is a truism in MotoGP that though they hand out the trophies on Sunday, the race is often won on Friday and Saturday. Practice is when riders and teams can find the setup tweaks they need to go faster, evaluate tire choices, and plan a strategy.
Which tires offer the most potential? Which area of the track can we gain most while sacrificing the least in other points? Is there more to be gained by pushing hard early and trying to manage, or by being patient in the first half of the race, hoping to have an advantage in the second half?
The wide range of tires offered by Michelin make practice even more important. Michelin’s remit from Dorna is to produce three front tires and three rear tires that can all be used during the race.
That requires a certain amount of compromise: labeling tires soft, medium, and hard does not mean that Michelin make three tires with an equal step in between the three different tires. It is more like an indicator of how well the French tire make expects each tire to cope with the heat and stress of a race, and the trade off in terms of grip.
So a soft and a medium tire may use the same rubber on one side of the tire, or on opposite sides of the tire. Or they may use the same compounds with a stiffer carcass, to reduce flex and therefore the amount of heat being generated.
Understanding how all these factors work together, and what that will mean for the race, is what the teams spend their time doing in practice. The team and rider that does this best on Friday and Saturday gets to spend Sunday evening celebrating their victory during the race. If all goes to plan, of course.
Five riders from four manufacturers stood on the Misano podium to show the strength and depth of WorldSBK.
“This is the real Superbike racing” was how Marco Melandri assessed the Sunday’s racing at Misano, and it was hard to argue with the Italian.
Under blue skies and a burning sun, the action on track was just as hot with Jonathan Rea, Michael van der Mark, and Melandri all fighting it out for the win.
With Chaz Davies keeping a watching brief following his Saturday podium, and Eugene Laverty having stood on the Race 1 rostrum, it was clear this was the best race weekend of the 2018 season.
Five riders spraying Prosecco on the podium, and four manufacturers able to see their riders on the box, it was a fantastic weekend to bring a close to racing before the summer break.
