Thne, and anticipating more duels between Fabio Quartararo and Miguel Oliveira for the remainder of the season, Chicho Lorenzo argues that the portuguese rider is one of the fastest riders in the entire paddock:.
So yes, I think they will perform well. All Rights Reserved. Powered by. All Gear and Accessories. Home MotoGP. Share Tweet Pin. Related Posts. Next Post. Leave Comment. Daniel Sanders winner of stage 4 of the Silk Way Rally 4 months ago. Pedrosa king of Jerez and Lorenzo take Ducati to the podium 5 years ago.
Siga-nos nas redes sociais:. Motorcycle Sports Network. I am not talking about homicidal hate but violent, yes.
Lorenzo and Rossi had a frosty relationship before. Giacomo Agostini, the Italian motorcycle racing legend, echoed Rossi's sentiments recently, telling the Gazzetto dello Sport that it would be 'impossible' for the pair to remain friends next season.
Lorenzo and Rossi will have their first outing as reunited teammates at Qatar on April 7th, the start of what is set to be an enthralling year MotoGP season; only time will tell if the Yamaha duo can remain friends for the its duration.
Red Bull Motorsports. Mir, who spent much of the day in the second group, finished seventh, showing more progress, moving up the learning curve. Friday was more or less predictable for Quartararo, Marquez, Rins and Vinales were all sniffing around the top of the sheet. Crutchlow arrived in town hobbled by a non-riding accident suffered at home. Bravo, Danilo! FP3 delivered guys like Marquez, Quartararo, Vinales and Rins directly to Q2, consigning, yet again, the famously struggling Valentino Rossi, along with Dovizioso and Zarco to the fighting and clawing of Q1.
Even with his back to the wall, Rossi is unable to coax the same speed out of the M1 as Vinales and either of the satellite guys. He does not appear to have lost much overall, but the quick thin blade, flashed so often at the end of races as he routinely snatched victory from less-confident foes, is gone. Shades of Assen. Marquez was caught flirting with his track record at the end of the session.
Rossi appeared determined to make it out of Q1 and did so. The Catalan made it ten-for on pole in Germany, joined on the front row by Quartararo and Vinales. Rossi could do no better than P11, the weakest of the four Yamahas in the first four rows. Oh, and just for the record, Marquez on Saturday set a new track record for motorcycles at the Sachsenring.
This German Grand Prix was no work of art, a high-speed procession punctuated by falls from rather high-profile riders. Rookies Quartararo and Oliveira both crashed out in Lap 2, though the Portuguese rider would re-enter the race, for whatever reason. KTM sad sack Johann Zarco crashed out at the same spot a lap later. Pecco Bagnaia went walky on Lap 8, taking himself out of points contention. But it was Rins, all alone in second place, laying his Suzuki down on Lap Crutchlow could never catch Vinales.
Dovizioso could never catch Petrucci. And no one currently living could catch Marc Marquez, who was thinking about COTA and how he would not let that happen today. The big picture is as ugly as an outhouse on an August afternoon. With 58 points in hand at the clubhouse turn, Marquez could leave his woods in a locker and walk the back nine with just a putter, a wedge, a three-iron, a seven-iron and a sleeve of Titleists in a Saturday bag and win the club championship.
While the riders scrambling for a top-ten finish in are sweating blood, Marquez makes this hugely demanding, physically debilitating job look easy, effortless. His team is a well-oiled machine that never looks stressed out. He stops on his way to the garage to get his picture taken with a four-year old boy wearing 93 gear.
He lives with his brother. Haters gonna hate. Beyond Marquez, you have a bunch of riders with significant pedigrees snapping and tearing at one another over scraps. Last week I observed how some celebrants—OK, it was Vinales—were celebrating having held Marquez to 20 points. Today, the remaining Aliens and top tenners seem relieved to have held Marquez to a mere 25 points.
MotoGP now hobbles off to summer vacation, a number of riders to lick wounds, several to entertain existential crises, and others to just chase women and enjoy being young, wealthy and in shape. We, obviously, will be hanging with the latter group. Should anything noteworthy occur during the interlude, I shall faithfully report on it at Late-Braking MotoGP , your site for all the stuff not good enough to make it to the pages of Motorcycle.
Here we go again. Up by 44 heading to The Sachsenring, a Marquez clambake in the works. Aliens celebrate winning a race while holding 93 to 20 points, suggesting has already been conceded.
This situation will require a joust, in which a rider, say Alex Rins, decides to go one-on-one with Marquez in the early corners, looking for trouble, likely to find it. Vinales escaped with his life at Assen, despite his best performance in ages. For this to be a season, it will require more. It will require a duel. As my old boss used to say, right now would be fine.
Let us light a candle in gratitude for Marquez having put it on the floor while easily leading at COTA, another personal sandbox. Track conditions contributed to that fall, and he is unlikely to make that mistake again soon; once he takes the lead he often gets away.
Had he gone on to win in Texas, he would now have points. It can be done. It just needs to be done early in the race, with the same level of aggression Marquez shows the other riders.
There needs to be some contact. Moto3 stuff. Catalunya stuff, with Marquez caught up in it. Although ten straight wins in Germany would be something to see. Business as usual will find young Marquez, world by the balls, leaving for summer vacation leading the series by at least 49 points. Racing fans will start going for long, solitary rides instead of watching more of The Marquez Show. The wonderful handful of folks who actively track MotoGP at Motorcycle. Except for our boy Marquez, who pitted on time but came out on slicks, upon which he strafed the entire field in a great example of teamwork between rider and crew.
Instead, the young Catalan survived some early muggings from pole, dropped back in traffic, methodically worked his way through to the front, went through on Tech 3 Yamaha homeboy Jonas Folger midway through the race and won going away.
In doing so, he seized the lead in the championship for the first time in Real competition in the premier class. Marquez, starting from pole for the ninth consecutive year, got a little swamped by a couple of Ducatis at the start. By Lap 5 he had moved past Danilo Petrucci into second place. On Lap 13 he went through on Jorge Lorenzo into the lead. Same as the previous year. And we all know how that turned out.
Going all Black Knight in an effort to unseat Marquez at the top of the Honda heap? Understand that if he were to leave Honda his only possible destination would be with, like, Avintia. There will be no satellite Suzuki team in I find it almost physically painful to read the articles on the MotoGP site.
Some poor Spanish bastard is working in a second language trying to make it sound right. Which is to say, sound British. They could hire me to turn the English translation into a stand-up routine.
Assen was eventful in both classes. People who turn their noses up at the lightweight classes miss those ground level camera shots that show the Moto3 bikes flying past, Doppler effect in full force, literally a blur. In Moto2, our old buddy Tom Luthi took back the lead in the series as prior leader Alex Marquez was knocked out of the race by BadAss Baldassarri, with things getting a little physical in the gravel trap. There are perhaps five or six riders capable of winning in Apparently, Marc Marquez is lobbying hard for brother Alex to receive a seat on the Pramac team.
I failed to write it down, but one of the Japanese riders made a comically-ridiculous save after getting tagged, nothing connecting him to his bike but his hands.
The long-range forecast for the greater Hohenstein-Ernstthal metro is for clear and cool conditions over the weekend. The great equalizer. There was a day in MotoGP when riders would routinely exit the pits on a cool morning and crash before ever getting their tires warmed up. The cool weather will, to some extent, help the Yamahas and take away an advantage for the Hondas.
None of the war horses, the grizzled veterans, the legends in their own minds. The MotoGP world is being re-shaped before our eyes. Quartararo, Mir and Nakagami and Bagnaia are standing in the wings. Now, if someone could just do something about that pesky Marquez guy, we could have a helluva series. After a two-year drought, Yamaha finally won a grand prix today, with Maverick Vinales finishing first, rookie Fabio Quartararo third, and his teammate Franco Morbidelli fifth.
Marc Marquez extended his championship lead, but Valentino Rossi was a non-factor in perfect conditions at a track he loves. The Doctor needs a doctor. Vinales, who has been AWOL since Phillip Island last year although his three DNFs this season were assisted by other riders finally got himself a win that did next to nothing for his season other than to provide a little window dressing.
Marc Marquez was in the hunt all day until he threw in the towel with two laps left and smartly settled for second. Rookie wonder Fabio Quartararo started from pole and led for over half the race before fading to third beneath the onslaught of 12 and Andrea Dovizioso flogged his Ducati to a face-saving P4, as Marquez extended his lead over the Italian to 44 points with the Sachsenring looming next Sunday.
Friday was a good news, bad news kind of day. Happy campers included the increasingly imposing Fabio Quartararo who, along with Maverick Vinales, put Yamahas in the top two spots in both sessions, with a dogged Danilo Petrucci placing his Ducati in P3 twice. Alex Rins, loving him some Assen, was in the top five all day.
Valentino Rossi improved from 12 th in the morning to 9 th in the afternoon, while Marc Marquez spent the day twiddling his thumbs at sixes and sevens, as they used to say years ago. Jorge Lorenzo, once again riding in pain after crashing during the Catalunya test two weeks ago, suffered another brutal off with about five minutes left in P1.
As the marshals helped him out of the gravel trap, his gait resembled Ray Bolger, the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz; something was clearly wrong.
Saturday brought more drama, in spades, with searing temps more like Sepang than Assen. Valentino Rossi, reduced once again to trying for Q2 by completing one fast flying lap at the end of FP3, found one, but ran through green paint in the final chicane, exceeding the track limit, scrubbing the lap, and ending up, again, in Q1. For the fourth time this year, he failed to advance to Q2 and would start 14 th on Sunday, the slowest of the four Yamahas.
His track record got splintered by Danilo Petrucci, Alex Rins, Maverick Vinales and, bigly, Fabio Quartararo, who became the youngest rider ever in MotoGP to start two consecutive races from pole and now owns the fastest lap ever at Assen and Jerez. Dude is for real. Andrea Dovizioso, second in the championship chase, was unable to get out of his own way during Q2 and would start from the middle of the fourth row, his season slipping away.
The four Spaniards snapping at his heels on Saturday, however, looked interested in extending the drought on Sunday. Alex Rins took the hole shot with Suzuki teammate Joan Mir gunning himself into second place for the first few laps; the last time two Suzukis led a MotoGP race was, probably, never.
Once Rins crashed out of the lead unassisted on Lap 3 and Mir erred his way down to fourth, things returned to normal. Rossi, thwarted in his effort to pass through to Q2 in both FP3 and Q1, was running in 11 th place, going nowhere, on Lap 5 when he apparently took Takaa Nakagami and himself out of the race; I was unable to watch a replay by the time I had to move on to other, real-world things.
Under perfect conditions at a track he loves he was just another rider. No wins in at least two years. Sure, the other four have never won a MotoGP race. With three Yamahas finishing in the top five—when has that ever happened? Marquez tightened his grip on the title, slightly disappointed at getting beaten by Vinales, but delighted to have gained ground on Dovi, Danilo Petrucci 5 th and Rins. Quartararo got himself another podium, another pole and another track record; pretty good weekend for the charismatic young Frenchman.
Vinales got one of many monkeys off his back and can look forward to getting thrashed next week. All six Ducatis managed to finish the race, worth a mention here but little else. Assen was an opportunity lost for the Suzuki team as Mir faded to eighth at the flag. Aprilia had their most successful weekend yet, garnering 10 points with Iannone finishing in P10 and Espargaro in P After eight rounds the championship is on life support, with Marquez likely to be standing on the air hose next Sunday.
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