Anyone still watching MotoGP?

[DrFfybes]

So, new timings, new schedule, and for some reason tomorrow morning's practice not shown on the normal channel.

Also worth noting that Portugal is on the same time zone as the UK, so if you get up early to catch it live, you'll panic that the box isn't recording, before noticing how much wrestling has changed since 'World of Sport'.

Paul

[Tedx]

Marquez on pole. But his race pace is a second a lap slower than the mob behind him. If anyone can hold them off, Marc can.

So, 3pm. Elbows out, tiger face on. Sprint race time.

[DrFfybes]

Thanks for posting the qualifying result, I was just having a quick look on TLF whilst thh BT presenters waffled for an hour instead of showing the 3rd practice session.

Saves me 30 minutes of entertainment to find out who's on pole.

[Tedx]

Sorry about that.

I'll not spoil it, but a very enjoyable sprint.

[Tedx]

No spoilers, but a fine Saturday Argentine sprint race.

[Tedx]

A head to head for the title in the final race of a loooong season tomorrow.

Sprint race just finished.

ITV2 / TNT Sports 2

[Redmires]

A head to head for the title in the final race of a loooong season tomorrow.

Sprint race just finished.

ITV2 / TNT Sports 2

Just watched the sprint race which the Humax had recorded without us being aware. The highlights were on 'series record' and picked up on today's showing. It was live on ITV ? today and it looks like the GP is live tomorrow on ITV 4 from 10:15am.

[Tedx]

Yes, the sprint was live on ITV today. I believe it was the replacement for ITV not screening the British GP earlier this year.

[DrFfybes]

The Sprint races are generally quite exciting.

Normal racing (of most flavours) now typically involves some element of tyre preservation, or in F1 having to use different ones, because softer tyres make for more excitement, but generally can't cope with something as arduous as an 80 mile race.

But the Sprint doesn't really have that problem to the same, so riders/drivers can push flat out from the start, knowing (or hoping) that the drop off in tyre performance won't be as severe. And as the races are shorter, a good start is even more important, and generally the person most capable of extracting maximum performance from their machine will come out on top.

Of course the real shock in MotoGP this year, is that with less than 6 hours before th end of a very long season, 2 of the top riders still havent announced what teams they will be riding for (if att all) next year. And next year starts on Tuesday at the test. Now there's an Employment thread I'd like to see on the "legal issues" board

[Tedx]

The Valencia test is live on TNT Sport on Tuesday.

Marc Marquez on the Gresini Ducati being the highlight of the day.

Todays GP though, is the biggest sporting event in Europe. And the BBC choose to run a headline story about the runners up places in the F1 manufacturers championship.

[DrFfybes]

The Valencia test is live on TNT Sport on Tuesday.

Marc Marquez on the Gresini Ducati being the highlight of the day.

Todays GP though, is the biggest sporting event in Europe. And the BBC choose to run a headline story about the runners up places in the F1 manufacturers championship.

Yes - I'm avoiding the BBC website until I've seen the Flintstones F1 as they do like to splash spoilers across their homepage.

The MotoGP test is on TNT4 I think, which I'm not sure means whether it can be recorded from Sky/Virgin, or if the catchup is on the rather irritating Discovery+ app which doesn't allow you to fast forwars through the hours of footage of riders drinking tea (it only allows you to jump to another point in the video).

I remember seeing the first test with MM93 on the Honda, first flying lap he comes around the last corner with the bike sideways and the tyre smoking. Cal Crutchlow turned to the other riders stood with him on the pit wall and says "We're F%%%%%d". He was pretty correct.

[Tedx]

I'll have the test on my pc via Sky Go. I'll have it on in the background while I'm working away. I quite enjoy the commentators chit chat at these events.

'So how many laps before Marquez gets up to speed on the Ducati?'

The general consensus among the TV experts was 4 or 5 tops.

If an independent team don't win the championship this year with Jorge Martin, then surely next year Team Gresini will be in there.

One of the most skint teams on the grid with a multi world champion on board who took a near 100% pay cut just to get on a secondhand Ducati....dreams are made of this!

[Tedx]

Not the race we were hoping for....but what a race.

[Tedx]

The first 2 laps of the Valencia MotoGP from various onboard cameras....

https://youtu.be/lD8_vXpYfXk?si=X-XwaN8-f9rf5Yw2

[DrFfybes]

I'll have the test on my pc via Sky Go. I'll have it on in the background while I'm working away. I quite enjoy the commentators chit chat at these events.

It's OK for you employed folk, plonked at your desk with something on in the background

However some of us are retired and have cars to clean, radiators to drain and move, leaves to clear, builders to make tea for. We don't have time to sit on our backsides all day watching telly

Fortunately it is on a recordable channel this year, although unusually they're charging 10 Euro to get in and watch it live. For the pre season Jerez tests (Moto 2/3 and WSB/GP test riders) we've always just walked in (or more usually blagged into the paddock car park claiming to be with one of the teams "el permisos es en el paddock" as the passes are handed out at the pre season tests so nobody has one to show )

Paul

[Tedx]

There's probably not too many that have any interest in MotoGP on these boards and even fewer that have ever heard of the name Marc Marquez

But there is an interesting story that's developed over the last few months that's worth sharing (i'll be brief!)

Essentially, Marc is a 6 time MotoGP (premier class) world champion. All won with the factory Repsol Honda team (i.e. the biggest manfacturer and probably the richest team out there). It is reported that he was on 16 million Euros salary a year from Honda (and he has individual sponsors on top of that). But when you saw Marquez ride a bike, you knew he was a cut above the rest. He's just such an immense talent. Unfortuately, because of his skill, Honda got lazy in developing their bike. They knew Marquez could ride through any problems and this was evident when you saw that the other Honda riders were consistently in the bottom 25% at the finish.

But then something happened. The other manufacturers (except Yamaha) caught up and leapt ahead of Honda. As a result Marc had to push harder and harder to keep up and, inevitably, the bike started throwing him off, with some very nasty broken bones and subsequent operations and recoveries. The other Honda riders couldn't (or wouldn't) push any more and ended up further and further back.

Marquez decided that he couldn't take any more and when he discovered the latest bike wasn't much better than the last, he broke his contract in year 3 out of 4 and left the team that he had done everything with.

His brother, Alex, is also in MotoGP and rides for a 3rd/4th string private outfit who rent secondhand Ducatis from the factory. The bike is maybe secondhand, but it is still miles better than the Honda. So Marc made a decision to leave Honda and took a paycut of almost......16 million Euros (i.e. I've read in several places that he is being paid nothing by Gresini Ducati)

Gresini will have secondhand bikes (although they will be last years Championship winning bikes). But the team has no money (although that might change now!) and the crew and backup are minimal compared to the factory team. It really is a tiny operation compared to most of the rest and every year they have a battle to secure funding just to get them to the end of the season.

So Marc had his first outing for Gresini at the end of season test back in November. The first time he walked though the door and got on the Ducati...and he was timed at 4th. Now Ithink he was holding back and these test don't often tell you very much, but he was very fast, lap after lap. And the cheesy grin he had on his face when he took his helmet off told a thousand words.

The factory Ducati Team are barely hiding their anger. This is a real threat to their dominance. And it could possibly the first non factory team to win the world champion since....errrrr.....possibly a Mr V Rossi in 2001 (I think). A looong time anyway. 'They are free to sign anyone' said one of the factory bignobs....not thinking for a minute they could sign the 6 time world champion.

It's quite an unbelievable story really. In F1 terms, you're looking at Max Verstappen walking out on Red Bull and joining, I dunno, Haas or something.

For zero money.

And in secondhand car with no team around him.

Sorry for the ramble. I felt the need to share

[Redmires]

Nice summary. It will be good to have him back in the game. It's hard to believe that the Japanese bikes are no longer in contention. Who would have thought that four or five years ago. It's reminiscent of the Brit bike industry resting on it's laurels in the 60's, not taking the Japanese threat seriously. I'd like to see Acosta be a rookie sensation as well.

[DrFfybes]

Essentially, Marc is a 6 time MotoGP (premier class) world champion. All won with the factory Repsol Honda team (i.e. the biggest manfacturer and probably the richest team out there). It is reported that he was on 16 million Euros salary a year from Honda (and he has individual sponsors on top of that). But when you saw Marquez ride a bike, you knew he was a cut above the rest. He's just such an immense talent. Unfortuately, because of his skill, Honda got lazy in developing their bike. They knew Marquez could ride through any problems and this was evident when you saw that the other Honda riders were consistently in the bottom 25% at the finish.

A similar story when Casey Stoner road for Ducati - ISTR Kevin Schwantz or similar saying "The worst thing Ducati did was hire Casey, because they didn't know how bad their bike was until he left". It took them 10 years to get back to the top.

In 2009 we went to our first overseas GP in Estoril. Ignoring the atrocious weather and complete lack of any effort on the part of the local authorities to organise anything (60,000 people and no extra buses, people camping along the roadside, etc) the weekend was memorable for the 125 race being red flagged due to rain, then Marc crashing on the formation lap for the 9 lap restart. They just got the bike repaired in time for him to restart at the back of the grid, and he won.

The other really scary/impressive to watch race was Moto2 when he was penalised and sent to the back of the grid and it was wet. He rode though the pack like they were novices, gaps just appeared as he got to them. Snippet here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k6llrYTfTw

I think next year will be interesting, especially when it comes to contract times for 2025

Paul

[Tedx]

Yes, Stoner on the satellite Honda. Win or straw bales. Goes to Ducati 'hey we have a world championship winning bike'.

Errrr...no you don't. You have a freak of nature that can ride your extremely fast 20,000rpm hunk of junk.

I still recall that 1st Qatar GP and Stoner came on to the main straight at the end of the first lap and just blew everyone else away. Then battled the thing around the bendy bits before hitting the straight again.

Stoner is a supreme talent. Marquez is an extreme talent. Go team Gresini.

[DrFfybes]

Heh, I raced against Casey Stoner, Cal Crutchlow, Kev Coughlin, and a couple of others who went on to greater things.

Someone put the Bemsee programs online and I found my old entry and results sheets. Brands hatch, 9 laps, Stoner started 2 rows ahead of me and lapped me on the last lap. I was on a 250, he was doing Aprilia Superteens on a 125.

I sort of decided about then that if I wanted to be humiliated by teenagers in leather there were nightclubs in Brighton where I could do it a lot cheaper.
And the bruises probably wouldn't last as long either.

Paul