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 David Emmett and Neil Morrison, and they walk us through the on-track action in the intermediate classes.
Episode 217 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this show covers the MotoGP action from the German GP at Sachsenring.
On the mics, we have David Emmett and Neil Morrison, and they are joined by two esteemed MotoGP photographers, Cormac Ryan-Meenan (CormacGP) and Rob Gray (Polarity Photo).
On Friday, at the meeting of the Safety Commission, where MotoGP riders meet with representatives of Dorna and the FIM to speak freely and without penalty about matters pertaining to every aspect of safety (the clue is in the name) at MotoGP events, the riders invited Rivacold Snipers Team Moto3 rider Andrea Migno to attend, to discuss ways to improve safety in the smallest capacity class of Grand Prix racing.
The invitation had been issued in response to the terrifying scenes at the Barcelona Moto3 race, where riders were sitting up and backing off in the middle of the track in the final laps of the race. It was a miracle that nobody was seriously injured.
Stern lectures were given, and serious thought given to how to improve the state of affairs, and how to avoid such extremely dangerous situations in the future. The riders and officials gathered there did their level best to find ways to improve the safety of the sport.
Fast forward 11 days, and in the final minutes of MotoGP Q2, those self same riders are sitting up on the racing line, hanging around for a tow, cutting the throttle while others try to follow them, gesticulating wildly at one another as they cross the racing line while riders on fast laps approach at high speed.
It was as if the people who were focusing their mental energy on finding ways to prevent riders from creating dangerous situations on track had lost their collective minds, and decided to illustrate the problem by doing all of the things they had been condemning less than 24 hours earlier.
Day one of the German Grand Prix is in the bag, and is Marc Márquez still the outright favorite for the win on Sunday?
If you went by FP1 on Friday, you would say yes: the Repsol Honda rider took three flying laps to set the fastest time of the session, before turning his attention to working on race pace.
He used one set of medium tires front and rear for the entire session, ending with a 1’22.334 on a tire with 24 laps on it. That lap would have been good enough for thirteenth place in FP1, just a hundredth of a second slower than Miguel Oliveira’s best lap.
Oliveira made it clear that he considered Márquez to be the favorite at the end of the day as well. “For me since the beginning Marc is the clear favorite for the win on Sunday,” the Red Bull KTM Factory Racing rider told us.
“We have been trying to understand what he is doing different to the others on this track because he is so successful.”
By the end of the afternoon, Marc Márquez didn’t look quite so invincible. The Repsol Honda rider finished the day twelfth fastest, six tenths off the fastest rider Miguel Oliveira.
The KTM man had achieved his first objective. “I believe together with him will come another couple of riders that are able to challenge for the win. I am working to be one of them,” Oliveira said on Friday afternoon.
Earlier this week, I wrote an article setting out why I think that Marc Márquez is the favorite to win at the Sachsenring. What the riders told the media on Thursday at the Sachsenring merely cemented the Repsol Honda rider’s status as front runner.
Despite his entirely mediocre results since his return to racing, Márquez was identified as at least a potential podium candidate by just about anyone you asked.
Should this be a surprise? Not when you consider that, as veteran US journalist Dennis Noyes pointed out to me, Marc Márquez has quite the record at anticlockwise circuits, tracks with more left handers than rights.
How good? He wins nearly 7 out of every 10 races he starts at a track which mainly turns left.
Episode 216 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this show previews the upcoming German GP at Sachsenring.
On the mics, we have Steve English, David Emmett, and Adam Wheeler, as they get us ready for the on-track action coming this weekend.
Since the beginning of the season, the media has been buzzing with HRC’s tales of woe. After seven rounds, the factory sits fifth in the manufacturers championship, 91 points behind Yamaha and Ducati (who are tied for first place), and just 10 points ahead of Aprilia.
To put that into perspective, all four Honda riders – Marc Márquez, Pol Espargaro, Alex Márquez, and Takaaki Nakagami – have contributed to Honda’s total of 52 points, while Aprilia’s stopgap second rider, promoted tester Lorenzo Savadori, has added just a single, solitary point to Aprilia’s total, Aleix Espargaro having scored the other 44.
The situation for the Repsol Honda team is, if anything, even worse.
By all fair accounts, BMW Motorrad’s sales drop in 2020 (the first in nine years) should still be considered a positive result considering the circumstances, though perhaps not quite the extent that BMW’s press release would lead you to believe.
This is because the German brand is busy spinning its 2020 motorcycle sales figures with a full-court press, including the caveat that 2020 was the second-best sales result in BMW Motorrad’s history (which they are), though the success of BMW Motorrad varies greatly by region.
The beancounters are working hard to close the books on 2020, which means we are starting to see our first reports on the total economic situation from last year.
With factory closures, disrupted supply chains, and stay-at-home orders featuring heavily in the first-half of the year, the coronavirus decimated motorcycle sales worldwide.
Then, the second-half of the year saw a huge bump in two-wheel interest, buoyed by economic relief efforts, delayed sales trends, and a renewed interest in the ultimate social-distancing machine.
This makes for a grab bag of perspectives when it comes to motorcycles sales, and nothing could be more true than what Ducati Motor Holding is reporting today.
If you were planning on attending the INTERMOT show in Cologne, Germany this year, well…we have some bad news for you.
The German show has just been canceled amongst concerns about public safety due to the coronavirus, meaning its next installment will come in 2022, as the show runs every two years.
The German round of WorldSBK at Oschersleben has now officially been canceled.
With Germany still imposing restrictions due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and large-scale events being banned in the country until August 31st, it was clear that the race would have to be postponed at the very least.
When postponement proved not to be possible, cancellation was the only option which remained. In its place, Dorna is planning to hold a round of WorldSBK in Jerez.