Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) seemingly rode a perfect race today at Catalunya. With the lead through the first corner, Quartararo immediately set a pace that no one could match. At the checkered flag, Quartararo had more than six seconds in hand over second place finisher Jorge Martin (Ducati). Johann Zarco (Ducati) finished third.
In a bizarre twist, Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia), after working hard to get in front of Martin and seemingly on his way to second place, mistakenly thought he had finished the race one lap early and backed off on his pace to waive at the crowd. By the time Espargaro realized his mistake, he was able to salvage only fifth place, handing precious championship points to Quartararo.
Quartararo now leads the championship by 22 points over Aleix Espargaro. For full results of today’s race, take a look here. You can find additional details on the MotoGP site.
First turns are the most exciting,terrifying and sometimes, deciding parts of a race. I have seen (and partaken in) bodies being run over, parts of bikes flying off and assorted mayhem occuring in the space of a few seconds!
Most prescient quote of the year, from ScotocS in the MotoGP qualifying-results thread…
“Nice shot of AE celebrating. He loves to celebrate.”
Bravo!
Wasn’t that comment posted *after* the race results were in? Even so, spot-on comment!
Difficult to say. It was posted on June 5th, at 1:29 p.m., the same day as the race. Depending on his location, the race may not have started yet.
Having watched the race I just want to comment on the Takaaki Nakagami incident on the first corner where other riders are now calling him a dangerous rider , after looking at the replay several times IMO it was definitely a racing incident where the front wheel slid out under braking & not like he just tried barging through the pack and wiping out other riders in the process,am sure there is not one rider in the MOTOGP paddock who has not had a racing incident which caused other riders to crash including themselves .Taka has been in MOTO GP since 2018 and I have a subscription so watch every race atleast twice and can never recall an incident where he has been overly aggressive or considered dangerous.Maybe due to the fact that he is now riding to keep his seat for 2023 he was pushing a little harder to try and maintain a good position in the field ,but definitely should not be branded dangerous by other riders.
I agree… I see no dangerous riding from Taka, but he has been making a few mistakes as of late, but most like just from trying to keep his seat in GP as most are this year.
That said, I watched the 360 degree start from Pol Espargo and Taka came flying by him as Pol begin slowing… but so did Rins… but Rins was on the outside and had much more time to apply the brakes correctly… Taka did this on the inside and just had too much lean for the amount of break needed at the first corner of lap one.
It was a mistake, yes racing but deserved of a 3 place grid or at least a long lap at the next GP IMHO…
But on we go and I’m so glad he is ok after taking a ferocious hit from that rear tire…
I thought it was a pretty boneheaded move. The first turn is not a great place to overtake. Charge like hell to get there then play it safe in the middle of a 100 mph pack.
“The first turn is not a great place to overtake.”
Tell that to Fabio, who basically won the race with his first-turn overtake of Aleix.
On the contrary. The first turn is a fantastic place to pass as many riders as possible. The riders get all bunched up and focused on each other. If you can find a line around them, you can pass handfuls of them.
Taka’s problem is his bike. That new Honda is a stinker. He should ride the old bike. He got much better results on it.
You can’t win the race in the first corner.
You can, however, LOSE the race in the first corner.
I don’t blame Taka for this one. He didn’t appear to me to be out of control. My feeling is that Pecco had to check up a little bit, because FQ and Aleix kind of squeezed him, and it was just enough of a check that Taka had to use an extra 1% of brake. At that point, it was either tuck the front and hope for the best, or literally run into Pecco’s rear tire. The end result was unfortunate for everyone. But it was a racing incident.
I thought it was a bit reckless. He got an amazing start (which perhaps got him a little overexcited), cut across the track, and was still accelerating when everyone else was braking. Even with no one to clatter into, he was never going to make that turn happen without either picking up the bike or crashing. If you are going to try a hail Mary into turn one after the start, you try to ride it around the outside.
While the move wasn’t as insidious as some make it out to be, a veteran Premier Class rider shouldn’t be making that particular mistake, IMO.
In the last 3 years #20 has been so accurate. Rarely placing a wheel wrong, and few trips to the gravel. Amazing really considering how hard/fast he has had to ride to outscore his competition.
has yamaha made a honda? a devastating weapon for one guy yet a million ineffective and conflicting combinations for the other riders?
Yes
The aero needs to go! Passing is practically impossible with all the dirty air the bikes leave behind them.
I’m not convinced it’s making that much of a difference. The passing method is still the same. Draft, exploit extra speed, out brake.
Bikes have always been aerodynamically atrocious. Is the assertion that bikes with winglets are more disturbed in the turbulent air? This is nothing like the F1 issue where the vehicle is so aerodynamically dependent that it barely works in dirty air.
Wow! What’s up with Fabio and Yamaha? 6.5 S margin of victory-impressive! As big as Fabio’s margin was, consider this: MM93 in MotoGP has one 12.5 S margin and another 11.4 S.
So sad for Aleix…please keep him away from weapons if his error spells the difference in losing the championship, though each race Fabio looks more and more like the King again. 2 words of advice for our dear Aleix, not that he needs it: “checkered flag.”
Motorcycles are packages. Q’s bike is fast enough and he and his team have made it into a winning package. Would his bike benefit from a Ducati engine? That’s hard to say. They make more power. People always seem eager to point that out. But do they make better power? Maybe Q’s bike has a nice throttle response that the Ducatis don’t have. He certainly seems to have some advantage somewhere.
People still buy the YZ250 because of the quality of the power that it’s thirty year old engine makes. Even though it’s kick start, has no counter balancer and makes less power than a KTM. RM250s are hard to come by because it is a known stellar package for some riders. The newest one you can buy is 15 years old.
The only reason anyone buys 2T dirt bikes anymore is because they’re lighter, therefore less fatiguing for woods riding and less expensive to maintain. No 2T has better/broader power than an equivalent 4T. Achieve equal weight and the 2T dies forever.
RM250s are hard to find because they’re all clapped out/worn out and the few good ones left are being kept by the few owners who loved them enough to preserve them.
I find the power delivery of the 2Ts actually makes them more fatiguing for woods and hard(ish) enduro riding (unless you’re just riding around at a recreational pace). 2Ts are popular in those use cases (around here anyway) because they are difficult to stall, don’t overheat as easily at slower speeds, and because the center of mass seems a bit lower. Weight wise, I only ever notice the difference between my 300 2T and 350 4T on very slow sections, and then just barely.
Sorry Dave. I have no taste for Kool-aid. Two strokes dominate neary every series that the rules don’t heavily handicap them. They are simply a better racing ICE engine in every way.
All but KTM and some triala based manufacturers have forsaken the because the do not grenade catastrophicly and die.
They are harder to master in some venues. But give them a level playing field and the four strokess immediately become obsolete.
Go ahead and fact check me. Find a series that four strokes don’t benefit from handicapping and still dominate.
Question: can a 2-stroke ever be equivalent to a 4-stroke? All else being equal in the bike – weight, suspension, gas and oxygen volume, rider – won’t the laws of physics dictate that there will be a difference? Just wondering.
But the rules don’t handicap them. Their flaws do. The rules have been fair.
Fact check you? You won’t acknowledge facts. What handicap do they have? Displacement? We’ve been over that. It’s a farce.
And to answer your question in a context you can’t refute, trials. Toni Bou dominates trials on a Montesa Cota 4RT with a 249cc 4 stroke engine.
Toni Bou dominates period. Honda has the deepest pockets, so he rides one of those.
How about Hard Enduro? You have to really comb through the results to find a four stroke and the first four stroke finisher likely didn’t finish the event.
How about GP? Remember when it was 500GP? It was dominated by four strokes long ago. Then two stroke development rendered them obsolete.
Two strokes harder to ride woods? What? Nothing make a fast rider slow in the woods than a 450 motocross bike. There are some older guys who like their big bore kited 250 four strokes. But I’m and old guy. So are most of my riding buddies. 99% of us ride two strokes in the woods. Why? Because they are a LOT easier to go fast on. I used to alway keep a four stroke around for decades as a kind of side show. I have an electric for that now. Four strokes are a failed experiment.
Then GP allowed 4T again and 2T was obsolete from the 1st official practice, handicaps (weight, wheelbase, lack of development time) and all. 2T=Vanquished.
It took Doug Henry just a couple of injury riddled years to win the MX National Championship on one of the first 4T mx bikes with most of the same handicaps.
4T isn’t an experiment, it’s the standard. 2T is superior if you need to push your bike up unrideable scree and drag it over boulders, I guess
Different circuits favor different kinds of bikes. QuabFart certainly had the right stuff that weekend. The first-turn crash certainly didn’t hurt him.
Mick the eccentric observes: “People still buy the YZ250 because of the quality of the power that it’s thirty year old engine makes. Even though it’s kick start, has no counter balancer and makes less power than a KTM. RM250s are hard to come by because it is a known stellar package for some riders. The newest one you can buy is 15 years old.”
A true connoissuer of 2-strokes and ultra lightweight motorcycles, he keeps company with the likes of Colin Chapman of Lotus automobiles whose design philosophy was “simplify, then add lightness”.
An interesting race for sure, including plenty of crashes and Aleix Espargaro’s unfortunate brain fart, but there was no racing going on at all for P1. Sure, Quartararo gave a master class and is now a true phenom, but as far as entertainment value, the race didn’t have nearly enough to make it engaging. Winning by 5 or 6 seconds will do that. I know, perhaps I’m being overly critical, but I’m calling it like it is. Or was.
Hold up. I think this is the first MotoGP picture I’ve seen where I don’t see a single face diaper??!! Well, give it a couple weeks I guess….
About third row back, right in the middle of the photo, guy wearing a black one.
LOL I thought you meant the guy with the beard at first.
Drat, well like I say in a couple weeks they probably all will be again.
This proves that “fast” and “speed” are two different things.
Fabio Quartararo gave a master class today, on a track where the competitors have proven to be very very fast and he ram away from them. Amazing.
it’s not the tool, it’s the tradesman.
His tools are extremely sharp. Can’t carve wood with a soup spoon in this game.
Didn’t that guy in the prison escape movie use a soup spoon to tunnel his way out of his cell, and surely use it to somehow re-attached the girlie poster from the wrong side?
Sure, but he had years to do it. Fab’s only had 20-something laps.
Nah, it was a geologists hammer/pick. I have a large one and a small one, for fossil hunting.