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I'd like to welcome both of my three followers back to the fourth round of
the 2013 MotoGP world championship at Le Mans, which according to Mapquest,
is in France. Last time out, at Jerez, lil' Dani Pedrosa took a
comfortable win, making him the third different winner in as many races.
That wasn't the top story, though. The big 'to-do' out of Jerez was Marc Marquez
punting Jorge Lorenzo off track in the final corner of the last lap. As a
result of his shenanigans, Marky Marquez bagged second place in the race, and
the lead in the championship points. Lorenzo managed third in the race, and epitomized
the phrase 'butthurt', in the process.
So here we are at soggy-assed Le Mans.
As usual, for a MotoGP weekend in France, the weather suited the
indigenious amphibian populaton with a fruity mix of rain, dry, kinda rainy
then dry, and dryish rainy conditions. After the three practice sessions,
the usual suspects were given a 'pass' into QP2, while the rest of the
'drivers' (c. Ralph Sheheen, 2013) duked it out in QP1. At the end of the
first QP session, it was Aleix Espargaro and France's Randy DePuniet who
were crowned the 'best of the rest', and advanced to the QP2 'Showcase
Showdown'. QP2 was a little more dryish than wettish, and a the end of the
session, it was Spain's Marc Marquez who was the closest without going
over. For his efforts, Marquez was rewarded with a waverunner, a pair of
4-wheelers, a pop-up camper, and pole position. Runner-up Jorge Lorenzo
went home with a dinette set, a Broyhill recliner, a set of steak kinives,
and second place on the grid. Dani Pedrosa was happy to accept some
handsome parting gifts and rounded out the front row in third position.
Everyone else went home to spay or neuter their pets.
Sunday, and although there are dry spots forming on track, the race is
declared wet...kind of the opposite of an old man's tighty whiteys.
Marquez kicks his umbrella girl, Vanna White, to the curb, the riders take
their warm-up lap and re-grid, the lights go out, and away we go. An odd
turn of events takes place at the moment the race starts; the Earth
momentarily stops spinning on its axis, which causes poleman Marquez to
drop back to someteenth place, while Ducati's (yes, you read that
correctly) Andrea Dovizioso takes the holeshot and leads everyone into the
first corner...followed by Lorenzo and Pedrosa. Behind them, it's Bradl,
Rossi, Hayden, and Crutchlow. At the end of the first lap Dovizioso has
actually put a gap (I'm for serious) on the field, while Pedrosa has gone
past Lorenzo for second.
A few laps later, Dovizioso's two-lap wet dream comes to an end as Pedrosa
overhauls him for the lead and scampers off for the win.
Meanwhile...Rossi, Crutchlow, and Hayden are closing on podium spots while
Lorenzo, bogged down by the weight of his newly acquired Boyhill recliner
which is bungee'd to his tail section, is dropping way back in the pack.
What about poleman Marquez? After shitting the bed on the start, he's back
on the case, up to seventh behind Bradl, and motoring.
In front of them, Hayden is pressuring Rossi for fourth. Rossi finally succumbs to Hayden's
tomfoolery and beaches his Yamaha. Hayden's podium challenge ended as he
was forced to avoid Rossi's yellow and blue yardsale...losing a lot of time
in the process. Bummer, dude. Rossi remounted and finished in twelfth.
So then, Crutchlow's up to second and Marquez is on Dovi's ass, in fourth,
with three to go.
Two laps to go, and Marquez gets past Dovizioso courtesy of a fuckin'
sweet inside/outside move into/out of the chicane. So, Pedrosa wins it,
and takes over at the front of the championship points in the process.
Crutchlow takes his best-ever MotoGP result in second. Marquez keeps his
podium run alive in third.
After the race, Jorge Lorenzo blamed his shitty result not on his
Broyhill, but on a crap Bridgestone tire. The Bridgestone engineers
investigated the situation and their conclusion was 'dude, you're high'.
Methinks someone's still suffering from an advanced case of buttis
hurturis.
Result;
1) Pedrosa/Honda
2) Crutchlow/Yamaha
3) Marquez/Honda
4) Dovizioso/Ducati
5) Hayden/Ducati
6) Bautista/Honda
7) Lorenzo/Broyhill
8) Pirro/Ducati
9) Smith/Ducati
10)Bradl/Honda
11)Iannone/Ducati
12)Rossi/Ducati
13)Espargaro/ART Aprilia
14)Petrucci/Suter BMW
15)Abraham/ART Aprilia
16)Edwards/FTR Kawasaki
17)Laverty/PBM Aprilia
18)Barbera/FTR Kawasaki
19)Aoyama/FTR Kawasaki
DNF)Hernandez/ART Aprilia
DNF)DePuniet/ART Aprilia
DNF)Pesek/Suter BMW
DNF)Corti/FTR Kawasaki
DNF)Staring/FTR Honda
The next stop is in Italy at Mugello. Will homeboy Rossi finally hit the top of the charts, or will the reign of Spain continue? Survey says...
This one's for Aaron.
T...out.
Hola! It's round three of the 2013 MotoGP world championship from the
circuito Jerez de la Frontera, which is Spanish for 'Dude...you parked your
flying saucer on my racetrack!'. After his debut MotoGP win in Texas,
local heart throb, Marc Marquez, comes in to Jerez tied for the
championship points lead with local heart throb 2.0, Jorge Lorenzo at 41
metric points, each. That other fast Spanish guy, Dani Pedrosa, sits back
in third.
Lorenzo may be the first loser in the Spanish 'heart throb' department,
but Saturday found him celebrating his 26th birthday by taking pole
position in qualifying, and having the final corner of the track renamed in
his honor...curva de Jorge Lorenzo, or something like that. I'm sure there
was cake involved.
As for other qualifying shenanigans, Pedrosa starts from second, and
Marquez in third. In the final minutes of qualifying, both Crutchlow and
Rossi looked like they could each threaten for a front-row start, but they
both opted to put on high-speed yard sales, instead. Crutchlow fired his
Yamaha (and himself) into the airfence heading in to the final corner,
resulting in his bike landing in the cheap seats. Rossi tucked the front
into the super-speedy (and awesomely-named) Dry Sack corner. Rossi's bike
did a bunch of rollover flippy-floppies, landed in the gravel, and was
boxed up and shipped back to the Factory Yamaha garage. Homeboy Hayden managed
a decent seventh place grid position, and Edwards a
not-so-decent twentieth. Texas' Ben Spies is sitting this one out with a
jacked-up shoulder.
So, with all that out of the way, it's time to go racing. The riders
grid-up, the crowd wakes up from its pre-race siesta, the lights go out,
and Pedrosa hit the front. Much like Pedrosa himself, his time at the
front is very short, as Lorenzo takes the lead in turn 2. Marquez settles
in third, followed by Rossi, Crutchlow, and everyone else. Rossi tells
Marquez to get off his lawn and moves past him into third. A few corners
later, Marquez, who does not like being told what to do by old Italian men,
gets back past Rossi into third, and sets sail for the other two amigos, up
front.
The next handful of laps were a bit of a snoozefest. Bradl crashed, but
he's German, so even his crash was boring. Lorenzo holds station at the
front, but with Pedrosa right on his ass. Pedrosa finally went past
Lorenzo into the Dry Sack (insert Beavis and Butthead laughs here) corner
to take the lead. I'd tell you that Pedrosa went on to gap the field and
win the race, but then you'd stop reading. I wouldn't blame you.
While Pedrosa is off to maybe win the race, Marquez has caught up Lorenzo, and
the battle for second is on like Connie Chung. Rossi is still back in
lonely fourth, and the only other real action is Crutchlow and Bautista
battling for fif place. Crutchlow and Bautista swapped spit for a few
laps, until Crutchlow finally sealed the deal and cruised home in fif.
Meanwhile, Pedrosa is very much(maybe)on his way to his first win of the
season. Marquez is still honey-badgering Lorenzo for second...nearly
ass-packing him, on several occasions, in the process. Rast rap...Marquez
is on Lorenzo's case in full 'crouching tiger' stance (i.e.; waiting for
Lorenzo to fuck up). Out of the long right-hander and into the final
(Lorenzo) corner, Lorenzo leaves the door wide-open. Marquez, in an ode to
Rossi/Gibernau 2005, dive bombs up the inside of Lorenzo, punt him off the
track, and brings it home in second. Lorenzo manages to keep it upright,
and pouts across the line in third.
In Parc Ferme', Marquez tries to apologize to Lorenzo for his antics.
Lorenzo responds with a Mutumbo-styled finger wag after exploding a box of
Captain Crunch Marquez had offered up as a token of peace. So with that,
Marquez leaves 'Hereth' with the championship points lead and a face full
of Captain Crunch dust.
Result;
1) Pedrosa
2) Marquez
3) Lorenzo
4) Rossi
5) Crutchlow
6) Bautista
7) Haystack
8) Dovizioso
9) Esparago
10)Smith
11)Pirro
12)Barbera
13)Laverty
14)Petrucci
15)Edwards
16)Staring
17)Corti
18)Aoyama
DNF)Bradl/crash
DNF)Iannone/mechanical
DNF)Pesek/mechanical
DNF)DePuniet/crash
DNF)Hernandez/crash
The next round is in two weeks in France at Le
Moans...cheer up emo kid.
T...out.
Round 13 of the 2012 MotoGP world championship brings the crew to the recently renamed Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli in the Republic of Dan Marino. The track was renamed in honor of local MotoGP star and hair-farmer, Marco Simoncelli, who who lost his life as a result of injuries sustained during the opening laps of last year's Malaysian Grand Prix.
In other news...Homeboy Hayden is back after his Indy moonshot, Honda World Superbike's Johnny Rea is in for Stoner on a Repsol Honda, and Spies finally spilled the beans that he would be on a 'factory-supported' Pramac Ducati, for 2013.
Hurry up and wait...after scurrying around to get their trucks unloaded, pit boxes assembled, and bikes set up in time for Friday's first practice session, the rain fell mainly in San Marino. Only a handful of riders went out in either of the day's free practice sessions, and accomplished a whole lotta nothing. Everyone else just loafed around in the paddock doing what/whoever. Water scares them almost as much as being away from their iPhones and white sunglasses for any amount of time.
No time for cartoons, on Saturday, as the boys need to get their shit together and figure out what color of power bands work best around the MWCMS. The first session, on Saturday was wet-n-patchy, which had most of the riders going with the more conservative-colored power bands. Blue, purple, and olive green seemed to work the best as they tenderfooted around in the wet-to-drying conditions.
By the time Saturday afternoon's qualifying session rolled around, the track was dry, the sun was shining, and it was time to uncork the power of the preferred colors...fire engine red, neon orange, and bedazzled glitterchroma. With that rainbow party out of the way, we have Pedro on pole, JLo in second, and Calvin Crutchlow in third. The second row was Bradl, Bautista, and Rossi. The Ben Spies was the top Yank in eighth, and everyone else blah blah blah...so on and so forth,
So with the clusterfuck that was practice and qualifying out of the way, I was sure we can count on a hassle-free, smoothly-executed race, right? Negative Ghostrider. On the starting grid, daddy's boy Abraham managed to stall his Ducati just as the red lights were about to go out. The yellow flags came out, the red lights turned to blinky amber lamps, and about half the grid launched from their grid spots...somehow, no one got ass-packed.
Grid up, part deaux...the riders are waiting to do another warm up lap when Pedrosa's crew suddenly wheel his Honda off the grid and back behind pitwall. It turns out the well-oiled machine that is Pedrosa's crew managed to get his tire warmer caught in the brakes. They finally figured their shit out and send Pedro out on his sighting lap, from pit lane. Pedro barely makes the grid, having to draft the pace car just to get there. Since his bike had to be wheeled off the grid and into the pits, Polesitter Pedro is forced to start from last on the grid. Brutal.
Lights out....finally. JLo gets away with the holeshot, with Rossi (gasp!) in second, and Bradl barging his way into third. From last on the grid, Pedrosa gets up to twelfth, but that doesn't matter, because a few corners later, Hectic Hector Barbera mumbles something about Estoril 2006, and uses his Pramac Ducati to torpedo Pedro...sending the wee-Spaniard tumbleweeding into the gravel. No es bueno.
Up front, JLo's going away...guess who wins? Rossi and his shiny red shopping cart are looking solid and fast, as opposed to earlier this season (and all of 2011) when they looked more tentative than a senior citizen trying walk down a sidewalk after an icestorm. Behind Rossi was Bradl in a solid third, with the Tech 3-skateers, Crutchlow and Dovi, playing grab ass in fourth and fifth. Cancel that...Crutchlow just hit the deck. The Spies is now in fifth with Bautista closing fast, in sixth.
Bautista finally gets past Spies and quickly starts to reel in Dovi. Within a few laps, Bautista is on Dovi's ass (not in a gay way), and is looking threatening (not in a rapey way). Bradl's in front of the both of them, but is dropping fast. Bautista makes quick work of Dovi and proceeds to latch on to the rear of Bradl (OK...that one's questionable). At this point Bautista, Bradl, and Dovi are scrapping it out for the bottom position...err...step...on the podium. Bautista's looking comfortable as he tops this battle for the bottom spot on the podium. Dovi starts to push hard, and gets right on the tailpipe of Bautista, but Bautista pushes harder and finishes just .003 of a second before Dovi. Towel, please.
Rossi bags a solid second, and his first dry podium on a Ducati since the dawn of time. Is a win out of the question before he re-jumps ship to Yamaha?
JLo cruised home to a, pretty much, flawless 23rd win of the season. With Stoner gone at the end of the year, and JLo back with Yamaha, 2013 could be a bit of a snoozer. Then again, we have Moto2 nutcases Marq Marquez and Andrea Iannone moving up to the big boy class. They might hurt a few people's feelings...I hope.
Did Good:
1)Lorenzo / Yamaha Factory Racing
2)Rossi / Ducati Team
3)Bautista / San Carlo Honda Gresini
4)Dovizioso / Monster Yamaha Tech 3
5)Spies / Yamaha Factory Racing
6)Bradl / LCR Honda MotoGP
7)Hayden / Ducati Team
8)Rea / Stoner's Bike
9)De Puniet / Power Electronics Aspar
10)Pirro / San Carlo Honda Gresini
11)Edwards / NGM Forward Racing
12)Hernandez / COL Avintia Blusens
13)Ellison / Paul Bird Motorsport
14)Petrucci / Came Ioda Racing
15)Salom / Avintia Blusens
Did Not:
DNF)Espargaro / Power Electronics Aspar
DNF)Crutchlow / Monster Yamaha Tech 3
DNF)Pasini / Speed Master
DNF)Barbera / Pramac Racing
DNF)Pedrosa / Repsol Honda
DNF)Abraham / Cardion AB Motoracing
JLo has left the building with a grown up-sized 38 point lead over Pedro. Stoner and his jacked-up ankle are still in with a mathematical chance, but sit a hefty 84 points behind JLo, with five rounds to go. The next stop is September 30th (a.k.a. my birthday) at the Aragon circuit near Alcañiz, Spain. Send me gifts.
T...Out.
*Pictures from www.cycleworld.com, www.mcnews.com.au, and www.topsportracing.com
