Defending champ Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) put on a clinic earlier today in Portimão by dominating the MotoGP race in a fashion reminiscent of some of his wins last year. Building a lead of more than six seconds, Quartararo backed off and cruised home with more than five seconds in hand over second place Johann Zarco (Ducati). Aleix Espargaro (Aprilia) followed close behind Zarco to take third.
Quartararo becomes joint championship points leader with Alex Rins (Suzuki), who finished fourth today after a charge from 23rd on the grid.
The series visits the Jerez circuit next weekend. For full results of today’s race, take a look here. You can find additional details on the MotoGP site.
For those that like to watch a good competitive race, this wasn’t it. Few passes that actually mattered and the one that did matter caused mayhem and a changing of the podium.
There were 2 excellent performances (1) Quatararo that put on a master class this week, and (2) Rins who passed a lot of people to come from the back of the pack to nearly the front of the pack but was rarely seen on the screen.
Poor Vinales. For someone who claims to have World Championship talent, I’ve never seen anyone so up and down. Every week it’s “we’ve figured something out” then a day later, “there’s something we can’t figure out”. Up during practices and down during qualifying and races. Same as when he was on a Yamaha. Right now, A Aspagaro is showing him what the Aprilia is capable of and looking very good.
Yeah, Vinales is a tough one to understand. The guy is clearly capable of blazingly fast pace, but he just can’t ever seem to put it together when it counts, at least not consistently. When your bike works brilliantly on Friday and Saturday but for some reason is rubbish on Sunday with no material change in conditions, the problem probably doesn’t lie with the bike.
MotoGP Free Practice and Qualifying was quite exciting.
Really too bad what Miller did to Mir, causing them both to crash. I wonder where Mir would be in the standings if he finished 3rd-4th as he would have if Miller did not take him out. It was nice seeing Mir briefly in the lead, of course till FQ passed Mir, sucking the paint off his bike and disappearing over the horizon.
Me thinks someone from Honda communicated to MM93 that “Crashing is losing; losing is bad” and his current results are what you get from MM93 racing not to crash: fast, but not Championship-winning fast.
I don’t know about that. Crashing seems to be the Honda way this year, not particularly MM. All of their riders seem to be contributing to the family landscaping business this year.
The Honda isn’t quite right yet… It will be competitive at a few venues, but it isn’t a championship winning bike. MM’s opinion seems to be that they’ve messed up the development, and now they have some work to do to fix it. There are a lot of races this year, so unless the issue is engine related, we may see them get it sorted before the end of the season.
The Moto2 race was crazy. If you have ever ridden slicks and hit a wet patch you know how it feels like ice. I think they may need to review when a dry track becomes too wet for slicks and red flag it before something like this happens. I can’t believe that no one got seriously hurt. Congrats to the riders that stayed up by witnessing the front runners going down and rolling off the throttle on exit. Yes you won the race but I think the win was nothing to cry over.
Fabio ran away with that one, proving there is nothing wrong with the Yamaha other than top speed. He started up front and took the lead pretty early, which is what he needed to do, and then proceeded to dial up consistently fast laps. He looked like a champ, and I think we’ll see a number of performances like this from him this year.
Rins put in quite a performance. From P23 at the start to P4 at the finish line is quite a ride. Too bad for Mir. Miller got a little impatient.
Aleix is really impressing on the Aprilia. I’m surprised Maverick hasn’t started complaining yet about how his bike just doesn’t work for some reason.
And what a crazy Moto2 race! They wait for all the front runners to crash almost in unison, and then they put out the red flag. None of the front runners are allowed to restart. It cost one American a very good chance at his first podium, gives another American his first win, and hands Vietti, who was suffering during this race, a huge points lead as all of his challengers were out of the race.
The only two interesting things that happened today were both crashes: Miller bowling-balling Mir in the MotoGP race, and, much more astonishingly, that group-choreography crash of eleven riders at the exact same wet spot on the track in the Moto2 race, which resulted in an American winning a race in the intermediate class for the first time since Kocinski won one back in 1990.
The way the three leading riders went down simultaneously, followed by the next, much larger group following suit, that entire episode of carnage should have been accompanied by Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The capper was when the one skidding bike clobbered the resting one in the gravel trap, resulting in a fiery explosion that sent all the track workers and downed riders scurrying for the barriers.
Craziest series of crashes I’ve ever seen. The way they all went down simultaneously, it looked like they were shot by snipers.
That was pretty crazy… A relatively dry entry into the turn with a soaking wet exit. The crashes seemed so well choreographed that I probably watched a dozen times. I can’t recall ever seeing anything like that.
I thought there were more interesting things than just that.
1. Mixed up qualifying. Some big riders starting from the back and Rins in particular had a heroic ride to get to 4th. 6th would’ve still been good, had the Miller/Mir crash not happened.
2. Honda infighting. I think Marquez fought he hardest against Pol and his own brother. It cost all of them at times, as well as holding up the progress of those who were trying to move forward. Maybe the young lions are sensing weakness in the old one.
3. Fabio. I have to believe some guys are losing sleep after seeing the “old” Fabio return.
You found a rain-ruined qualifying, a processional victory, and a fraternal battle for sixth place, sixteen seconds back of the leaders, more interesting than the craziest series of crashes we’ve ever seen?
Okay.
As for Fabio, no one is losing any sleep over seeing the return of the old Fabio, other than perhaps Franco Morbidelli. Rain or shine, Fabio is certainly making the other Yamaha riders look bad. For Frankie in particular, that’s a problem. As for the rest of the paddock, they know that there are only precious few Yamaha tracks on the schedule, with Portimao being one, and next week in Jerez being another. As soon as the circus moves on to the Ducati/Honda tracks (Mugello, Spielberg, Sachsenring, etc.), they know that the recent hangdog-looking Fabio who struggles valiantly on his underpowered bike to salvage an eighth-place finish will be back.
Still, Fabio will remain in the championship fight, all season long. The lack of any consistent front-running dominance from the other players virtually assures this.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but the guy I’d fear the most right now is Alex Rins. If he can continue to avoid his usual penchant for tossing big opportunities down the road, he appears to be the one guy with the most consistent speed, week in, week out. Seemingly for the first time in his MotoGP career, he’s quietly going about the business of keeping his leathers clean and accumulating big bushels of points. Mix in a couple/few wins over the course of this very long season, and that’s all it’s going to take to win the title this year.
The other semi-consistent threat is Aleix Espargaro.
Right about now, Hitler and Stalin must be pelting each other with snowballs.
Yeah how about that Runs? He has always shown obvious talent and speed but also the ability to bin it a lot as you mention. Long season but if he continues to move away from his Sir Crash A Lot days he’s a threat. And in would love to see A. Espargaro take the championship this year after all his effort to develop the Aprilia.
Rins…. sheesh 😬
It was not a processional victory, it was the fallen champion rising like he Phoenix. The Yamaha’s were down and out in a way we haven’t seen in years. Not sure why Franco can’t ride it but Fabio’s performance shows that they have the potential to be up front again.
I don’t find big crashes interesting. I tune in to watch racing.
It was the definition of a processional victory. He took the lead immediately, opened up a wide gap, was never challenged in the least, and cruised to a five-second-plus victory.
They don’t come much more processional than that.
As for, “I don’t tune in to see big crashes,” well, neither do I, but something tells me you didn’t see what happened in the Moto2 race. That wasn’t a big crash. That was something we have literally never seen before, involving the leading eleven riders.
Moto3 @ LeMans, 2017
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCe5Lzfhs7g
I saw the Moto2 crash. It was an unfortunate failure in safety protocol as well as a failure on the organizations part to not make the necessary adjustments to allow as many of the fallen riders to join the restart as possible. I think the most interesting thing about it will be how it’s perceived at the end of season’s points are counted.
@Dave it is unfortunate that Race Direction isn’t more proactive with the red flag. I get it – it messes up TV schedules to red flag a race which has financial and customer satisfaction consequences, which would result in a roasting if a red flag was thrown out there unnecessarily. But waiting for a rider or riders to crash to determine it is unsafe isn’t acceptable, IMO.
I also agree with you that it was totally unfair not to let the front runners rejoin the race. That was a ridiculous decision that resulted in a huge gift to Vietti.
VJL- very nicely put.
+1
I mean VLJ (danggit!)