Three-time MotoGP champion Jorge Lorenzo has turned his first laps with Ducati in post-season testing at Valencia.
Less than 36 hours after winning on his Yamaha farewell on Sunday, Lorenzo was the first rider out when pit exit opened at 10am on Tuesday.
The Spaniard conferred with Ducati's test rider Casey Stoner after that initial five-lap run, and took his total to 26 laps after two-and-a-half hours.
Ducati has its 2017 bike at Valencia, but Lorenzo is set to work with the '16 model for most of, if not all, of Tuesday.
Like many manufacturers, Ducati is running the now-banned winglets, to provide an accurate benchmark with data from the race weekend.
At 12:30pm, Lorenzo was ninth fastest with a best time of 1m32.488s, 1.538 seconds off the early pace set by his former Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi.
He was also fastest through the speed trap, at 322.4km/h, 3.6km/h faster than Avintia Ducati's Hector Barbera.
Maverick Vinales was second at the time on his first run with Yamaha (pictured below), one spot ahead of new Suzuki recruit Andrea Iannone.
New KTM pair Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith were 14th and 23rd, while Tech3 Yamaha's Jonas Folger was the best of the rookies in 17th.
WO weeks ago, Jorge Lorenzo got into a tense dispute with Valentino Rossi over the Spaniard’s opinion that Rossi’s pass at Misano was “too aggressive” and that other riders in MotoGP race cleaner.
Well, not much has changed.
At this week’s riders press conference ahead of the Grand Prix of Aragon, Lorenzo was asked if he had changed his mind.
“No, actually I think stronger,” Lorenzo said.
Rossi snatched the lead from Lorenzo on the second lap of the San Marino GP with a block pass at a tight hairpin, arrowing his bike to the apex of the corner.
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When he turned into the corner Lorenzo spotted the No. 46 Yamaha on the piece of tarmac he wanted at the last moment, picking his bike up in avoidance.
Lorenzo spoke out after the race — eliciting a chortle from Rossi that triggered a spat that went on for a minute or so — but he had yet to see video of the exchange.
Now he has had a chance to rewatch the pass it has only reinforced his opinion.
“I keep stronger my opinion,” he said.
“Because on the bike I couldn’t see his line, and on the video I could see how his line was. I still believe in that opinion.”
Rossi later told the press that his opinion on the pass was also unchanged — as was his tense relationship with his soon to be ex-teammate.
“It was a beautiful, great overtake. I liked it a lot,” Rossi said, reported motorsport
“I think, after the last race of last year, my relationship with Jorge has remained the same. We’ve always had our own ideas.”
THE TIMES AT 12. Iannone, Dovizioso and Hernandez lead the way, Jorge 4th and Rossi 9th. Stoner completes only a few laps.
Ducati's domination at the Red Bull Ring continues on day two of testing. Just like yesterday, the two Andreas lead the way, but this morning their positions are reversed, with Iannone ahead of Dovizioso. Both have been able to duck under 1’23”, something only achieved by Dovi yesterday (1’23”764).
Iannone improved by a few thousandths of a second on his team-mate's time, setting a best of 1’23”719, while Dovi is just 0.079 of a second behind, slightly slower than his best of yesterday afternoon. Completing the Ducati trio is Yonny Hernandez on the Aspar GP14, 0”677 behind the factory bikes.
The Desmosedicis are maintaining the lead, but the Yamaha is closing in. Jorge Lorenzo lies fourth, 0”699 from the front, practically halving yesterday's gap of more than 1”4 seconds. Behind him are the Suzukis, with Maverick Vinales in line with yesterday's times (just over a tenth quicker) and Aleix Espargarò making good progress.
Seventh for Eugene Laverty ahead of Cal Crutchlow. The Honda rider has also halved the gap compared to yesterday and is now 0”809 from Iannone's time. Valentino Rossi is 0.015 of a second behind the Brit, having improved on his time by half a second (setting a 1’24”543 this morning).
The two Pramac Ducatis place behind the Doctor, not so far off the pace in reality, with Redding 10th and Petrucci 11th. Compared to yesterday, times are much closer and, excluding the two Andreas, just half a second separates the third and 14th placed rider (Miller).
Casey Stoner is 13th (behind Barbera) but has completed only 10 laps. Pirro lies 15th.
The KTMs are not doing too badly: Kallio is 16th, less than two seconds back, while Luthi is not far behind him in 18th. Aprilia has once again chosen not to have transponders on the bikes.
"It felt like I was riding on eggs. In these conditions I am not competitive, there is no such thing as the perfect rider" Jorge Lorenzo’s mood is like the sky over Assen: grey. The world champion was never able to get going this weekend and the rain only worsened the situation. Starting from the 10thspot on the grid is his worst qualifying since 2008.
“On the dry I could stay in the top 6. In the wet, in FP4, I didn’t do too badly but I tended to lose the front in all the right-handers – he explains – We decided to make a change, moving the weight forward, but by doing that, not only did I not solve the problem, but I also lost grip at the rear.”
It could not have gone worse.
“It felt like I was riding on eggs – he continues – I tried to stay on the track to gain some confidence and I was able to improve a bit, but not enough. Valentino was smart to put on a new tyre, but he would have been faster than me anyway.”
As if that was not enough, in the morning session Jorge also fell.
“A lot of us did. I was using the medium compound tyre but it was too hard for those temperatures –he says – When the throttle opened, the rear pushed on the front, closing it up.”
The race will be anything but easy.
“I need to have confidence in the tyres to be fast. When there is no grip I am unable to be competitive – is his analysis – The Yamaha is not an easy bike when the grip is poor and I am the one that has the most problems. It is partly my fault and today I was far from the leaders.”
Jorge hopes for a good start.
“I am usually good and I could even find myself in the front group – he hopes – Unfortunately, there is no such thing as the perfect rider. It is not I, it is not Marquez and not even Valentino. Fortunately, 90% of the races are held in normal conditions, where I am fast, but I need to try to be fast all the time. I need to understand my problems and work to resolve them. Without a miracle, it will be difficult to ride a wet race. I need to improve by at least a second.”
Some indirect help could come from Rossi.
“As always, we share data. He is very fast and it will be interesting to compare the data to see how I can improve.”
Although Valentino Rossi started on pole for the Italian Grand Prix at Mugello, it was his teammate and current world champion, Jorge Lorenzo who claimed victory.
Rossi stayed behind Lorenzo in the early going and looked ready to make a pass into the lead, but suffered a mechanical issue as smoke billowed from his bike, leaving the Italian no choice but to retire from the race.
Lorenzo then had Marc Marquez to contend with as Marquez had made his way into second place. In the closing laps, Marquez was able to pass Lorenzo a couple of times, and was leading at the last corner but Lorenzo produced a better drive down the straight and took victory at the line.
Andrea Iannone got the final podium position, finishing in third place after initially losing a number of places at the beginning of the race after a bad start.
Dani Pedrosa made great improvements during the race to finish fourth while the second Ducati of Andrea Dovizioso worked hard to improve from his 13th qualifying position to finish fifth.
After six races in the 2016 MotoGP season, it is current world champion Lorenzo who leads the way from Marc Marquez and Rossi in the championship standings.
Sunday was a dramatic day from start to finish after a thrilling Moto3 race that was won by Brad Binder and a restarted Moto2 race that was won by Johann Zarco.
Italian MotoGP Final Classification
1 Jorge LORENZO Movistar Yamaha MotoGP 41'36.535
2 Marc MARQUEZ Repsol Honda Team +0.019
3 Andrea IANNONE Ducati Team +4.742
4 Dani PEDROSA Repsol Honda Team +4.910
5 Andrea DOVIZIOSO Ducati Team +6.256
6 Maverick VIÑALES Team SUZUKI ECSTAR +8.670
7 Bradley SMITH Monster Yamaha Tech 3 +13.340
8 Danilo PETRUCCI OCTO Pramac Yakhnich +14.598
9 Aleix ESPARGARO Team SUZUKI ECSTAR +18.643
10 Michele PIRRO Ducati Team +22.298
11 Cal CRUTCHLOW LCR Honda +27.936
12 Hector BARBERA Avintia Racing +35.712
13 Eugene LAVERTY Aspar Team MotoGP +38.032
14 Stefan BRADL Aprilia Racing Team Gresini +40.094
LE Mans is starting to look like one of those MotoGP weekends where Jorge Lorenzo is utterly untouchable.
The 29-year-old set a new lap record on his way to pole position for the French Grand Prix, his first in MotoGP at the Le Mans circuit.
Nobody got within even half a second of Yamaha’s reigning world champion.
The cherry on top? The pole position moves him to 63 for his career — one greater than his teammate and arch rival Valentino Rossi.
Rossi will line up two rows behind his teammate in seventh on the grid, the worst qualifying result of his season so far.
The Jerez winner opted for Michelin’s soft front tyre for the session but found himself trapped behind the Suzuki of potential new teammate Maverick Vinales when the tyre was at its best.
A typical rabbit-out-of-the-hat lap from Marc Marquez was enough to put him second fastest but, with a deficit of 0.441 of a second, even he conceded “Jorge’s rhythm is another one.”
Andrea Iannone worked hard for his third position on the grid, a crash on his second qualifying run forcing him to — literally — sprint back to the pits to hop on another Ducati for the end of the session.
“Unfortunately, with the second tyre, the bike have a problem and pump water out and touch the rear tyre, and I go down,” he explained.
The second row consists of Pol Espargaro — his best qualifying result of the season — from Ducati’s Andrea Dovizioso, with Espargaro’s Tech 3 teammate Bradley Smith in sixth.
Rossi headed the third row from, ironically, Vinales, while Cal Crutchlow and Danilo Petrucci rounded out the top 10.
Dani Pedrosa finished a disappointing 11th after crashing midway through the session, while Aleix Espargaro topped Q1 but could do no better than 12th in Q2.
Jack Miller will line up from 18th on the grid, three tenths and two spots ahead of his Marc VDS Honda teammate Tito Rabat.
Yamaha MotoGP boss Lin Jarvis believes Jorge Lorenzo is waiting to evaluate a potential offer from Ducati following Yamaha proposing a MotoGP contract extension last week.
Both Yamaha riders' contracts expire at the end of 2016, and the manufacturer put two-year extensions - negotiated over recent weeks - to Lorenzo and team-mate Valentino Rossi.
Rossi put pen to paper while in Qatar, with his new deal announced on Saturday.
Jarvis says Lorenzo has what his management accepts is "the best offer they've had in Jorge's racing career", and he is now playing the waiting game.
"From Yamaha's side, we have put our best efforts to put a very good contract on the table," Jarvis said.
"Am I confident that he will accept? You can never be confident, because we are not alone, there are other competitors and Jorge is the current world champion and one of the fastest riders in the world.
"There will be other teams and constructors looking to attract his services.
"With a bit of luck, Jorge soon will also decide to go on with us."
Jarvis said there is a deadline attached to the offer, which he would not be drawn on, and that the early deals put to both riders was driven by Lorenzo's stated ambition of having a new deal secured before this weekend's season opener.
When asked who Lorenzo could be waiting on, Jarvis said: "My guess is Ducati, because Honda already has a top, leading rider.
"Ducati has two very competitive riders but from what I understand they are looking to take a top gun, one of the top four, in order to take their programme to another level."
That Lorenzo, who is entering his ninth MotoGP season with the factory Yamaha team, would want to wait and survey all of his options does not surprise Jarvis.
"From my experience with Jorge over many years, he is always somebody that wants to try to evaluate and understand all of his possibilities before making a commitment," he added.
"He always wants to try to stand a hundred per cent behind the decision that he finally makes.
"Maybe some other people would do it in a different way, but Jorge is somebody who, normally, he wants to understand.
"He wants to know everything, he wants to have it all laid out on the table, evaluate plus and minus and then decide.
"We hope that he will choose Yamaha and make the right decision.
"We can do no more than we have done, so we are comfortable with our proposal and comfortable with our team and our package and everything we have.
"But if somebody finally chooses to do something else, it's their right to do so."
Yamaha's Jorge Lorenzo got the defence of his MotoGP title off to a winning start with victory in Qatar.
The three-time champion held off the challenge of Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso after passing the Italian on lap nine.
Spain's Marc Marquez came third on his Honda, while Italy's seven-time world champion Valentino Rossi, 37, finished fourth on his Yamaha.
Britain's Cal Crutchlow crashed his Honda on the seventh lap following a mistake on turn four.
Fellow Briton Bradley Smith, who will join Austrian manufacturer KTM in 2017, finished eighth on his Yamaha, while Scott Redding was 10th on his Ducati.
Northern Ireland's Eugene Laverty, who equalled his best MotoGP performance in qualifying, finished 12th.
Spanish rider Lorenzo, 28, was pleased that his gamble of switching to a soft tyre following an off-the-pace warm-up lap paid off.
"To choose the right tyre was very important" he said.
"I tried the warm-up lap with a hard tyre but I did not get the best feeling.
"It was very risky to go for the soft tyre, as our main rivals Rossi and Marquez chose the hard one.
"But it turned out well, as I made the fastest lap of 1:54.9 seconds [late in the race], which was impressive."
Jorge Lorenzo's name has been linked forever with that of Slovenian high-performance exhaust manufacturer Akrapovic. At the end of a visit the 2015 MotoGP World Champion paid to Akrapovic, he unveiled a special commemorative plaque and received the honor of having one of the company's conference rooms named after him. Jorge Lorenzo has been using Akrapovic exhaust technology on his Yamaha motorcycle for quite a long time now and his recent MotoGP crown called for a special celebration.
The occasion was even better because Lorenzo is the hundredth world champion using Akrapovic exhaust systems. The list includes all the motorsports Akrapovic is involved in, with motorcycles, cars and more being added to the roster with each passing year.
Jorge Lorenzo took the factory tour and signed autographs Lorenzo's visit at the Akrapovic headquarters was a surprise the company prepared for their employees before the end of the year. Also visiting Slovenia for the first time, Jorge Lorenzo was able to see how the Akrapovic exhausts are being developed and manufactured.
Lorenzo is also one of the important figures in Akrapovic's racing history, as he is the first rider to give Akrapovic a world title in MotoGP with his 2012 championship victory, also aboard a Yamaha motorcycle.
Jorge Lorenzo is not new to having things named after him. Back in 2013, the management of the Jerez circuit decided to change the name of the famous final corner from Ducados to Jorge Lorenzo.
"For me to receive this is so special. Even more than the world championship. A few can win the championship, but there are even less with a corner to their name.
"Jerez was the first 'pro' track where I rode at the age of 10. I also made my debut here in 125cc, eleven years ago. Jerez will always represent something special for me. The first lap I will make tomorrow with my M1 is going to be terrific," Lorenzo declared back then. The ceremony took place on the very day he turned 26.
Yamaha rider Jorge Lorenzo expects dual world champion Casey Stoner to make a handful of MotoGP wildcard appearances with Ducati next year.
Since retiring at the end of 2012, Stoner has worked with Honda as a test rider, but he split with the manufacturer last month to take up a similar role with Ducati.
Scope for the Australian to make wildcard MotoGP starts on a third factory Ducatialongside Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone has been mooted, and it is something 2015 world champion Lorenzo is expecting.
Stoner was keen to stand-in for the injured Dani Pedrosa earlier this year, but Honda opted against it.
"Surely he will be encouraged to run as a wildcard in some races; I think that is their intention," Lorenzo said in a MotoGP.com interview.
"I thought last [season] he would be out in a race, but at the end, due to circumstances, he wasn't.
"He will want to go out on Phillip Island or some other tracks, surely we will see him fighting with us, I think for victory."
Stoner won 38 MotoGP races with Ducati and Honda between 2007 and '12, however his only race since then was the Suzuka 8 Hours in July, in which he was injured in a crash.
Ducati has not won a race since Stoner left the Italian manufacturer at the end of 2010, but Lorenzo feels the 30-year-old would be strong if he returned.
"I have seen very few, if any, riders with the natural talent of Casey, to be fast right away with any bike and in all weather conditions," he said.
"It would be great news for everyone if Casey were to decide to come compete again.
"MotoGP is very difficult, many riders are fighting for victory, but having Casey back would be amazing.
Jorge Lorenzo has been told he cannot take part in MotoGP championship leader Valentino Rossi's Court of Arbitration for Sport hearing into a grid penalty imposed for the season's final race.
Rossi, who leads Lorenzo by seven points, clashed with Honda's reigning champion Marc Marquez, who came off his bike in Malaysia last week.
He was demoted to the back of the grid for Sunday's race in Spain.
Lorenzo asked to participate in the appeal but was denied by Cas.
Nine-time world champion Rossi wants the penalty at least suspended for the race in Valencia, the home track of Yamaha team-mate Lorenzo, 28.
The 36-year-old is expected to learn the outcome no later than Friday.
Lorenzo, who won the most recent of his two titles in 2012, finished second in Malaysia and is the only rider who can deny Rossi the championship.
Rossi must finish second if Lorenzo wins Sunday's race in order to secure the title.
Honda alleged Rossi's actions caused Marquez to crash, highlighting data they said showed his front brake lever received a sudden impact that locked the front tyre, but Yamaha said that was "not proven".
Traditional English weather of grey clouds and spitting rain didn’t stop the British making their way to the Northamptonshire circuit as over 73,000 people roared as nine-time world champion Valentino Rossi started from fourth on the grid to then lead from the second lap to the chequered flag of a wet race.
Going into the twelfth round of the championship, Rossi and teammate Jorge Lorenzo led the championship tied on 211 points. After completing the warm-up lap of what was declared a dry race, every rider returned to the pits immediately to change to their wet-tyred bike so incurred a 30-minute delay and the grid was reset.
Although defending world champion Marc Marquez had won pole position yesterday, it was Lorenzo who charged from the front row of the grid to the first corner, leading the first lap with Marquez on his heels. Rossi maintained fourth place but swiftly climbed to second within the first lap before lunging at the Spaniard on the second lap and stealing the lead.
With the rain coming down harder, Lorenzo quickly lost second place to Marquez and the front pair soon pulled away with a seven second gap to the chasing pack. British rider Cal Crutchlow got a great start from eighth place on his LCR Honda, overtaking Bradley Smith and Dani Pedrosa to eventually take third place from Lorenzo.
The Yamaha factory rider immediately hit back as LCR teammate and rookie Jack Miller, who had a magnificent start to climb up to fifth place, went into the corner too deep sending him straight into Crutchlow’s Honda RC213v and finishing his race there. Crutchlow attempted to carry on, entering the pits briefly and returning to the track only to crash a second time and retire to the pits for good.
With Pramac rider Yonny Hernandez being the first to retire by crashing in the first corner, teammate Danilo Petrucci made his way from 18th position on the grid through the pack to battle with the front runners on his satellite Ducati.
Finding himself incredibly in fourth place after the two LCR Honda’s vacated, Petrucci and compatriot Andrea Dovizioso simultaneously swooped on Movistar Yamaha rider Lorenzo on lap seven to then battle for the last podium position. Repsol Honda’s Pedrosa dropped Lorenzo further back by taking fifth place but the Movistar Yamaha rider soon found the pace to re-pass his compatriot.
On lap twelve, second-place Marquez - barely 0.1 seconds behind Rossi - highsided at turn 1, waving his arms in the air clearly having no idea what caused it, but promoted the two Italians behind to secure podium positions. Lorenzo passed Pedrosa for fourth place and began the chase for the two Ducati’s closing the gap to 1.619 secs but unable to challenge for the last spot and valuable championship points, having to settle with fourth place.
With Crutchlow out of the race, Scott Redding and Bradley Smith were left to fight for the British contingent, crossing the line in fifth and sixth places respectively, with fifth being the best result for Redding this season.
In Moto2 Johann Zarco took victory while defending world champion Tito Rabat and fellow Spaniard Alex Rins fought for the other two positions on the podium, with Rins taking second 2.2 seconds ahead. Englishman Sam Lowes fell from the front row of the grid to ninth position but battled with Tomas Luthi and Anthony West to cross the line in seventh place.
In Moto3, leading the championship standings by 45 points going into the British round, Wiltshire born Danny Kent led from the early in the race, taking the win and extending his lead to 50 points.
The next race will take place at Rossi’s home round of Misano in San Marino on Sunday 12 September. BT Sport 2 exclusively broadcasts all the action.
Silverstone MotoGP 2015 – An Epic Race and One in Which Melling Almost Becomes a Footnote in MotoGP Racing History
Being a professional writer I am, of course, far from shy when it comes to plagiarism. If Shakespeare ripped ideas off from every source he could lay his hands on then literary theft must be acceptable practice for a humble Moto Journalist like me.
In this case I refer to my friend Gordon Howell and the strapline for his company Pole Position Travel: “Nothing Beats Being There.”
There are few occasions in motorcycling history where Gordon’s words were more appropriate than this year’s MotoGP race at Silverstone. Truly, not the best TV coverage in the world could compare with the high drama of this dark, wet afternoon in England.
Marc Marquez contributed to the MotoGP drama at Silverstone by demolishing the lap record in near perfect conditions during Saturday’s qualifying.
The drama began with Saturday’s qualifying which was fascinating. The weather was definitively perfect with conditions bone dry and warm, but not hot.
Marquez was in storming form, only 0.234 seconds over the impossible two minute barrier for the super-fast 3.66-mile circuit.
Boy Wonder set a new lap record, breaking the old time of two minutes and a mere 0.691 seconds which he set back in 2013. However, young Marc was still not a happy racer.
“It was a good qualifying session but when I did the first lap I noticed that if I put together the perfect lap, maybe I could get very close to one minute 59 seconds.
“But I was right on the limit a couple of times, and especially in the last sector I was missing a little something under braking.
“In the end what counts is that we took pole position. You can always improve, but it was a very good lap.”
It certainly was and Marquez looked ultra-comfortable on Silverstone’s high-speed corners.
Lorenzo, another contender for the “Mr. Race Smoothly of the Year” award, was as elegant as ever and only 0.288 seconds behind Marquez whilst Dani Pedrosa was also on the pace in third, half a second slower than his Repsol teammate. Rossi trailed a mammoth 0.713 seconds behind the Pole sitter.
Now a momentary digression. Silverstone is a truly great circuit but it was built on an old WWII airbase and still retains two traits from its heritage. First, it is blisteringly fast. There is no circuit in the world which has so many high speed corners because the course effectively runs round the perimeter of the airfield.
Secondly it is as flat as a pancake and when it rains, water stays on the surface. In heavy rain, which is all too common during English summers, it takes a very special rider to pitch a motorcycle into a corner at 175 mph – a very, very special rider indeed.
If Saturday qualifying was blessed with the most benign weather, you could taste the nascent rain in the air from first thing on Sunday morning.
Moto 2 ran in the dry but the sky darkened like the prelude to Wagner’s “Ring Cycle” as the MotoGP grid formed. To the west, we expected to see the Valkyries ride in through the ever-blackening clouds.
Race Control declared the race to be dry, which it was as the crews left the grid – but only barely so. As the wall of MotoGP noise cascaded down into the grandstands, it was carried on a cloud of ever denser rain.
As the weather turned just prior to the MotoGP race, drama intensified as the entire grid came back to the pits for machines prepped for the wet tarmac.
This was high drama and truly nothing did beat being there.
After the formation lap, rider after rider streamed into the pit lane to change bikes from dry to wet set-up. One lap had convinced the whole field, even those who normally would have no hope of a decent result and might therefore be willing to take a chance on tires, that it would have been suicide to venture out on slicks.
Now, the whole field was in pit lane and the starting lights were on. If just one rider had gone on to the grid then the race would have had to be started and the whole of pit lane would have been a chaotic, not to say extremely dangerous, melee as riders began the race from outside their garages.
Fortunately, no one broke ranks and so Race Direction made the good call to restart the whole race and declare it “Wet” from the outset. As the rain increased in intensity there was a collective sigh of relief that at least every rider would have the protection of full wet tires.
When the red lights did go out, the rain was now marching down the track in grey sheets and this would be a race decided not only by being the bravest of the brave but the winner would have to demonstrate motorcycle racers’ art at the highest level. This MotoGP race could only be won with finesse, discipline and delicacy.
Jorge Lorenzo, arguably the most balletic of all the GP riders, led but could not maintain his advantage in conditions which were becoming more horrendous by the minute. He blamed misting of his HJC helmet – allegedly the second time that this has happened in 2015.
Rossi is the master of pressure and, despite the conditions, eased past Lorenzo as did Marquez. Could the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) hold off the most talented rider of the current generation? It had fans on the edge of their seats.
Valentino Rossi getting ahead of his primary title rival in 2015, teammate Jorge Lorenzo, at Silverstone.
This being Silverstone, Cal Crutchlow had to walk on to center stage. He passed Lorenzo for third position and of course the partisan crowd went crazy. Crutchlow, he of the truly ginormous cojones, in front of his home crowd, riding in the wet. We weren’t quite seeing Cal on the podium spraying champagne – but the vision was there.
Then, Crutchlow was in the gravel – taken out by his 20-year-old team mate Jack Miller. Cal is a seriously bad loser and so his reaction was surprisingly generous. He said: “I wasn’t angry with Jack though – it was a racing incident and I’ve done it before and I’m sure I’ll do it again. I was more angry at Aleix [Espargaro] when he did it to me than I was with Jack, even though I felt like I could have got a good result today.
“It’s easy to say, but I had a great feeling when I got taken out, and I had a great feeling on the bike this morning.
“Feeling that good is a rarity, but there are some races where you feel untouchable, and that was one of them. At the time, I was cruising around wondering why they were going so slow, even though we were all right at the limit. I felt like I had a little in the tank and thought that I could have gone with the other guys – and that was always the plan.”
Knowing Cal, this was an amazingly relaxed reaction. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to be reading that Crutchlow was about to appear in court on a “Grievous Bodily Harm” charge so the Australian rookie really has got off lightly – even if Race Control gave him a one point penalty.
LCR team owner Lucio Cecchinello was less forgiving to the young Australian and “spoke to him…” – and you can be sure that they weren’t discussing the quality of champagne supplied to the podium by Dorna.
Disaster looming for LCR Honda’s Cal Crutchlow and Jack Miller.
Meanwhile, Danilo Petrucci was having a fabulous ride on the Pramac Ducati. Danilo is an ex-motocross rider of some considerable quality and likes riding in the wet. As he chased down Marquez and Lorenzo, the impossible began to have a glimmer of credibility. A satellite rider on a Ducati winning MotoGP? Surely not.
In fact, the hot money was all on Marquez. Mile after mile he stalked Rossi. We were all waiting for the last four laps when Marc eased past and went on to win. Except he didn’t. With eight laps left, Marc got a tiny bit too much power to the rear wheel and down he went.
Meanwhile Rossi continued like a racing automaton. For the fans, it would have been a better spectacle to see him and Marc battling it out all the way to the line but for the purist, there could be nothing finer to than to watch a master of the art of motorcycle racing at his very best.
Even in this field of Moto Gods, none were as methodical and delicate as Rossi. He placed his Yamaha on precisely the same line, lap after lap after lap, and braked and accelerated with the same nano particle accuracy.
Elegant, disciplined and, as it appeared from the outside, effortless, I would have walked the 150 miles from our house to Silverstone and stood unprotected in the torrential rain to see such a demonstration of the motorcycle racer’s skill. Truly, nothing could beat being there.
The methodical and delicate Moto God Valentino Rossi celebrates a well-earned win at Silverstone.
Half the grandstands emptied after MotoGP which was a shame because there was a second demonstration of high art in motorcycle racing in the Moto3 race. Every year, some up and coming rider is tipped as the next Rossi, Marquez or whatever and they rarely live up to their hype. Perhaps Danny Kent is different.
The 21-year-old Englishman now leads the Moto3 Championship by a not inconsiderable 70 points and the way he won at Silverstone, with metronomic competence, had very strong Rossi overtones. There was no drama or heroics, simply lap after lap of ruthless efficiency giving an eight-second cushion at the end of the race.
It was a very impressive performance and explains why he has had offers to skip Moto2 and go straight to MotoGP for 2016. Added to his ability on the bike, Danny is polite, articulate, PR savvy and hard working. MotoGP podiums are a long way distant but I do think that he is a rider to watch.
Danny Kent emphasized the fact that he’s a rider to watch after a masterful performance in Moto3.
And now we come to the most important part of the whole weekend – how MotoUSA’s fat, bald, old wrinkly avoided embarrassment which would have been so life destroyingly shameful that ritual suicide on Silverstone’s starting grid would not have expunged the stigma.
The Circuit of Wales, the rights holder of the British round of MotoGP but who, somewhat confusingly, are holding the event at Silverstone until their track is built, organized a parade of classic GP bikes on the Saturday evening before Sunday’s racing. I was lucky enough to be invited to ride in this.
Our Seeley was on its best behavior and I set off with a happy heart behind the pace car. Everything was going wonderfully and I was enjoying every inch of Silverstone’s 3.66 miles of immaculate tarmac.
Melling’s life is about to get very exciting…
Then I eased the bike into the right hander at the end of the F1 Pits’ Straight and got into the Mummy and Daddy of all slides. It’s not only Danilo Petrucci who was grateful for skills which come from being an off-road racer. I used to be a half decent enduro rider and so caught the full lock slide and stayed, only just, in the saddle. Trying to work out what had happened I looked down and, to my horror, saw that the right hand expansion chamber was dragging on the ground. Our lovely, atomic clock reliable Seeley had chosen this time, and this place, to fracture an exhaust bracket.
To be honest, I took Cal’s attitude. Yes, I was mortified that the exhaust had broken but so grateful that the wonderful Seeley chassis had let me save the slide and ride back to the paddock intact. Truly, nothing does beat being there!
My thanks to Silverstone and Pole Position for their hospitality and for getting us a pair of the best seats at the circuit.
