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MotoGP Preview of the Teruel GP: COVID-19 Concerns, & A Second Bite of the Cherry

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It is groundhog day again for MotoGP, the paddock back in the place they left – or in many cases, never left – last Sunday. Some did, of course, and may have picked up the coronavirus as a result.

Riccardo Rossi, of the BOE Skull Rider Moto3 team, is one of those, the Italian now quarantined at home after testing positive for the virus, and forced to miss the race.

Rossi – Riccardo, not Valentino, who is also still at home in Italy – tested positive on Wednesday. There is a chance that the Moto3 rider caught the virus on his way home from Spain to Italy.

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MotoGP Preview of the Emilia-Romagna GP

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We are in the toughest stretch of the punishing 2020 MotoGP schedule, ahead of the second race of the first of three triple headers – 9 races in 11 weeks, in three sets of three.

It is a brutal start to this stretch, with last Sunday’s race followed by a test on Tuesday, then practice starting again on Friday. Over the course of 10 days, the MotoGP riders will have been riding for 7 of them.

What will the second race at Misano look like, after the MotoGP riders have already have 4 days of riding at the track? 

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MotoGP Preview of the San Marino GP

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A couple of days before the Misano MotoGP round – that is, the Gran Premio Lenovo di San Marino e della Riviera di Rimini, not the Gran Premio TISSOT dell’Emilia Romagna e della Riviera di Rimini, or Misano 1 and Misano 2 as most people without photographic memories or a contractual obligation to use their full names will call them – kicked off, there was a flurry of rumors and excitement over possible announcements ahead of the race.

Thursday could see important news made, people whispered.

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MotoGP Preview of the Styria GP – Back to a Dangerous Track, Where Bad Blood Remains

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A week later, and back in the same place. Plus ça change pas… The same riders are back at the same track, in the same situation. So we should have the same result, right?

That’s not quite what the data from Jerez says. Sure, the first two places were the same in both races. But behind that, the results were completely different between the two races, a week apart on the same circuit.

Only 9 of the 22 riders on the entry list of the first race finished both races, three of them ending up injured in the carnage of the two opening rounds.

Only Pol Espargaro crossed the line within one place of his finishing position in the second race, ending sixth in the first race, seventh in the second.

Only Johann Zarco’s finishing position varied by two places, crossing the line eleventh in the first race, ninth in the second. The rest of the field either finished three or more places out of position, or crashed out – and there were a lot of riders who didn’t cross the line one way or another.

The biggest name not to finish in either of the MotoGP races at Jerez was, of course Marc Márquez. The reigning world champion won’t be at the second race at the Red Bull Ring, Repsol Honda announced earlier this week, and an eerie silence surrounds when he will be back.

And so Honda languish in fifth in the manufacturer standings, and the factory Repsol Honda team is dead last in the team standings. Only Takaaki Nakagami is sparing Honda’s blushes, and he is riding a 2019 bike.

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Sepang Test: The Launches

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The day before the MotoGP test starts at Sepang is not usually so hectic. There have sometimes been launches, but as often as not, it has been a matter of catching up with people you have not seen for a long time, and talking to the few riders scheduled for press debriefs. It is a good way of easing yourself back into the MotoGP season.

Not so this year. Three launches in one day, two of them with the biggest news stories of the off-season. The Suzuki launch was interesting; the 2020 livery for the Suzuki Ecstar team is rather fetching in silver and blue, and a homage to the first Grand Prix bike Suzuki ever raced, 60 years ago this year.

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Valencia GP: The Gravity of Jorge Lorenzo Retiring

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It has been a long year in MotoGP. Valencia is full of tired faces, the cold and windy weather a good reflection of the mood of the paddock. The last race of the season should be a festive occasion, but after eighteen races, and the last four overseas, there is little energy or enthusiasm left for the season finale.

Valencia made a fitting backdrop for Jorge Lorenzo’s announcement that he would be retiring. It came as a surprise to almost everyone – except for one canny journo who had put a bet back on the Spaniard hanging up his helmet back in August – but it was a move that was widely understood.

Spinal and head injuries are the two greatest fears of motorcycle racers, and the fact that Lorenzo came very close to suffering a life-changing injury made it easy to find sympathy for him. There was respect not just for Lorenzo’s choice, but also for the Spaniard’s achievements.

Until Marc Márquez came along, Lorenzo looked set to go down in history as Spain’s greatest ever premier class rider. Even then, he remains the only rider so far to have won a title in the Márquez era.

He was a rider whose ability to carry corner speed astounded his rivals, left them befuddled at how he could go so fast through corners without crashing.

He leaves MotoGP as the fifth most successful premier class rider, and the sixth most successful rider of all time in all classes.

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Aragon GP: The Zarco Situation

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It was supposed to be a quiet year for rider rumors. Most riders have a contract for 2020, and much of the speculation had been about when negotiations for 2021 would start.

The biggest controversy looked like being whether Takaaki Nakagami would get a 2020 Honda RC213V or a 2019 bike.

Then we came back from summer break, and it’s all been insane since then. First there were the reports of Jorge Lorenzo talking to Ducati about a possible return for 2020, taking Jack Miller’s seat at Pramac Ducati.

Then on Sunday night at the Red Bull Ring in Austria, KTM’s home race, we learned that Johann Zarco had told KTM that he wanted to leave at the end of 2019, after just one year of his two-year contract.

So far, so shocking. On Tuesday, KTM announced they were replacing Zarco with immediate effect, and giving his bike to Mika Kallio to ride. Zarco was left without a ride for the rest of the season, and facing an uncertain future. More about that in a moment.

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the San Marino GP: Preconceptions, Disagreements, Come Backs, & Critics

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Thursday was the first chance most of the media got to talk to the MotoGP riders after the test at Misano two weeks ago, and find out what they really thought about the test, rather than trying to decode the meaning of the press releases issued.

That clarified a lot about the test, answering some of the questions we had been left with, and intriguingly, raising yet more questions which had slipped under the radar.

As always, however, when you ask different riders about a subject, they will have different opinions. Even if they are teammates, like Fabio Quartararo and Franco Morbidelli. Asked about the state of the track, Quartararo expressed concern about the lack of grip, especially in certain places.

“For me, [track grip] was terrible, but some corners were good, some corners were less, and one corner was totally a disaster, corner 14,” the Petronas Yamaha rider said.

“I think many riders crashed in this corner. I heard that when Marc crashed, he thought it was the white line which they just painted, but as soon as you want to put lean angle in this corner, you crash. And I have a lot of big moments in this corner. Let’s see if it improves this weekend, because in the test it was a really critical place to ride.”

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Italian GP: The Danger & Glory of Mugello

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“Mugello is a fantastic track,” Valentino Rossi told the pre-event press conference at Mugello, a sentiment echoed by every single rider and just about everyone in the paddock. “When you ride the feeling is great.” It really is a magical place, and a magical experience.

But it is not without its dangers, chief among them the brow of the hill the riders take at over 350 km/h just before they have to brake. “It’s also an old style track,” Rossi said “So in some points it’s also dangerous because you are very fast, not a lot of space around and the braking for the first corner is at the limit.”

“It’s very good to ride, but if you arrive at 340 or 350 km/h, it starts to be dangerous because of the jump, the hill. So maybe we have to modify a little bit, but I think it’s not very easy. Maybe we try to arrive at little bit slower. Or we try to cut a little bit the jump and make it a bit more flat, if it’s possible.”

It is a constant topic in the Safety Commission, where the riders meet with FIM and Dorna officials to discuss how to make the racing safer and better.

Marc Márquez explained that the end of the straight, where the track snakes right and left up a slight incline, until reaching the brow of the hill before plunging down towards San Donato, the first corner, was something under continuous discussion.

The wall on the left is too close, the crest itself is dangerous, and speeds generally are very high at that point of the track.

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Americas GP: Dealing with a Bumpy Track, & Addressing Jump Starts

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The Grand Prix of the Americas is one of the MotoGP paddock’s favorite races, because of the setting, the atmosphere, and the city of Austin. The layout of the Circuit of the Americas is beloved by many a rider.

They love the challenge of threading the needle of Turns 2 through 10, the braking for Turn 11, Turn 12, Turn 1. They love the run up the hill to Turn 1, the sweep down through Turn 2, the fact that the back straight is not straight, but meanders like the straights at many great tracks.

The front straight at Mugello wanders, the Veenslang at Assen is anything but straight, that adds an element of challenge to a straight.

What the riders don’t love are the bumps. The bumps turn the Austin racetrack into a rodeo, the MotoGP bikes into bucking broncos. At close to 350 km/h along the back straight, the bikes become very difficult to control.

The bumps turn into whoops, a motocross track taken at light speed, and almost impossible to ride safely. Turn 2, that glorious sweeping downhill right hander has a bump in it which threatens to unseat anyone who takes it at the speed it begs of a rider.

Whether the work undertaken to try to address the problem will be sufficient remains to be seen. “I check a little bit and I know that they did a few modifications,” Marc Márquez said. “They didn’t do what we asked in the Safety Commission. But we will see in FP1 what is going on, how is the track.” Past experience holds out little hope.

The area around Turn 10 has been resurfaced, and the top of some of the larger bumps has once again been shaved off. That didn’t make a great deal of difference last year, but we will have to wait until Friday to see if it has been effective for the 2019 race.

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Thursday MotoGP Summary at the Sepang Test

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For fans of technological innovation, the first day of the Sepang MotoGP test had been something of a disappointment.

There were very few clearly visible upgrades to the bikes on display on Wednesday, teams using the first day to get themselves accustomed, and focus on checking the engine choices made back at the November tests.

There were one or two things going on, but they weren’t obviously visible to casual fans.

Thursday was a much better day for MotoGP tech nerds. New parts started to appear, as factories started working their way through the list of parts they have prepared for the 2019 season. Suzuki debuted a new fairing, with a more Yamaha-like aero package, with wider wing surfaces and a slimmer side section.

Alex Rins was positive about the new fairing. “It gave me more support on the front, less wheelie, which is important for the speed. We are faster on the straight because of the fairing – it’s more aerodynamic. The front wheel is more on the floor.”

That was borne out by his lap times, the Spaniard finishing with the second fastest time of the day, and the second highest number of laps in 1’59, including a run of four in a row. This was pace, rather than just a single quick lap.

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