Motorsport Matters: MotoGP Mugello & BSB Brands

When it comes to Mugello there's one man that the crowd has come to see and it's The Doctor, The GOAT, the legend that is Valentino Rossi. When he put the Yamaha on pole position for the race with his nemesis, arch rival and team-mate Jorge Lorenzo on the second row the Rossi fans were delighted and expected their hero to take his first win at the circuit since 2008. His win that year over Casey Stoner and Dani Pedrosa completed a run of winning at Mugello for seven consecutive years – five for Yamaha and two for Honda before that. Everything looked to be going well in the race and although Jorge Lorenzo had worked his way to the front of the field Rossi was following him closely and looking like he had enough in reserve to challenge later in the race. Then on lap nine of the twenty-three lap race his Yamaha engine failed and at first he lost power with coughs of smoke then finally it let go completely and started billowing smoke as he pulled off the circuit and parked it. The crowd who had been chanting his name and cheering him around every lap fell silent in shock. The Italian circuit had been filled with yellow smoke from flares in support of Rossi and their hero was out of the race in his own cloud of smoke. It was the second Yamaha engine to blow up in one day as Lorenzo's engine on his number one bike went in the morning warm up and you can be sure there will be a major investigation by the factory team.

Despite the fact that we didn't get to see Rossi challenge for the win in the MotoGP class there was still fantastic entertainment in all three classes. I also enjoyed the races from the British Superbike weekend at the Brands Hatch Indy circuit.

Moto3

For me the most enjoyable race of any weekend usually comes from Moto3. The bikes deliver close racing with fantastic slipstreaming while the riders are still young and developing therefore have no inhibitions about going elbow to elbow with another rider. The Mugello round is my favourite of the year as its layout is perfect for numerous overtaking points and a long straight where the bikes were braking over the rise at the end into turn one and going five or six wide into the corner. At one point I counted a nineteen bike train all fighting for fifteen positions that deliver points. Despite the race being a veritable free for all everything still worked in favour of championship leader Brad Binder who took his third consecutive win and now holds a 49 point lead in the standings. It was a fantastic photo finish which reflected the close racing we'd seen for forty minutes from lights to flag. The top five bikes were covered by only 0.077 seconds. His nearest rival in the standings Jorge Navarro (my tip for the win) crashed out with nine laps to go and Romano Fenati, third in the standings on the Valentino Rossi backed Sky Racing VR46 KTM, retired two laps earlier with a mechanical problem while fighting for the lead.

The hero of the race was rookie Fabio Di Giannantonio who hadn't scored a single point in the five previous races and his best finish was seventeenth at Austin and Le Mans. He started twelfth and was challenging for the podium positions for most of the race. It's certainly the year for surprise results in Moto3 with Khairul Idham Pawi taking that magnificent win in Argentina in the wet although he's only added four points to his tally since and crashed out at Mugello. Di Giannantonio didn't look out of place battling with the regular challengers and I hope it's a sign of things to come from the Gresini Honda rider whose team-mate Enea Bastianini was expected to challenge for the title but finished twelfth this weekend and is now ninth in the standings and a whopping 94 points behind Binder.

Although Fenati retired on Rossi's bike it still left his team-mates Nicolo Bulega and Andrea Migno to battle for the podium and give the home crowd something to cheer about in the first race of the day but they faded and finished eighth and tenth respectively. There were two Italians on the podium though with Aspar Mahindra rider Francesco Bagnaia beating Nico Antonelli (Ongetta-Rivacold Honda) and Fabio Quartararo (Leopard KTM) to third spot. There are eight Mahindras in the Moto3 field (ten if you include the re-badged Peugeots) and Bagnaia seems to be the only one to be able to get the bike to perform. He's now fifth in the standings with 54 points after three podiums and the next best Mahindra rider is Jorge Martin who has just 10 points. Quartararo finally looked like the competitive rider I expected to see all season and it's disappointing that I tipped him for the title and he's nowhere near that.

Moto2

It's a shame that a great Moto2 race was spoiled by a farcical mix up between Race Direction and the teams when the race had to be re-started after it was originally red flagged. The first race was stopped when Xavi Vierge crashed heavily and punctured one of the air bags that act as crash barriers. He was okay but for safety reasons they had to replace and inflate a new bag before allowing them to race.

Race Direction said the second race would be what is known as a quick re-start. All the riders and bikes were in the pits but once the barrier was repaired and Race Direction said it was time to go the pit lane opened for just sixty seconds to allow riders onto the formation lap. Unfortunately a number of riders were not ready to go in time and left pit lane after the one minute limit expired. When they formed on the grid it took Race Direction too long to single out which riders it was and tell them to leave the grid as they had to start from pit lane. The whole process took so long the had to abort the start and try again and this time the 'guilty' riders would start from the back of the grid and not pit lane. I've seen many comments calling the organisation of this rule a farce but in commentary on BT Sport Keith Huewen said that the rule has been there for a long time it's just that nobody really reacted to it well. The one thing I do believe they should have done is physically close the pit lane after that one minute was up rather than just a red light which the riders clearly ignored, possibly thinking it applied to the aborted first race and not the closure of the end of pit lane.

Thankfully once the race was underway again they delivered another great Moto2 race. In previous seasons Moto2 has been the dull class in comparison to the other two but last season and so far this year it has delivered as much entertainment as Moto3 and MotoGP. Sam Lowes was leading from Thomas Luthi and Takaaki Nakagami when the race was red flagged and looking good for the win but couldn't get the same performance out of his bike and tyres in the second race.

His main title rival Alex Rins was fifth and less than a second behind when the first race was stopped but then he was one of the riders who missed the sixty second pit lane closure limit along with team-mate Edgar Pons, Nakagami, his team-mate Ratthapark Wilairot, Simone Corsi, Federico Fuligni, Xavier Simeon and Julian Simon. All those riders started from the back of the grid for the re-start and Rins managed to fight his way through to seventh by the end with Nakagami ninth and Corsi in twelfth the only others to make it into the points.

Lowes wasn't involved in a battle for the win in the second race (I refer to it as this although really the re-started race was the only one to count towards any results as all the first race effectively did was decide the grid for the shortened race). There was a fantastic fight between reigning champion Johann Zarco on the Ajo Motorsport Kalex and Lorenzo Baldassarri (the only Lorenzo being cheered and not jeered this weekend) on the Forward Team Kalex. Before Mugello the Italian had scored just one podium finish in Australia last season and after dislocating both shoulders in Qatar and missing the opening race he's been recovering his fitness ever since. After three consecutive finishes outside the points it was great to see him delivering on his potential which saw him finish ninth in last year's standings largely thanks to three top five finishes in the last three races. In the end though it was the champion that reigned supreme with a win by 0.03 seconds.

If the fight for the win was good then so was the scrap for third. Lowes eventually pipped Luthi for the last step on the podium with the impressive Malaysian Hafizh Syahrin fifth and Axel Pons sixth. It was the Spanish rider's highest finish in any world championship race in his seventh season in Moto2 preceded by a year in 250cc. He is the son of Sito Pons who not only won the 250cc title twice in the 1980s but also runs Rins' team Paginas Amarillas HP 40 as Pons Racing. Danny Kent finished fourteenth and I'm sure he'll be as disappointed as anyone with his results after winning the Moto3 title last season.

MotoGP

So we've already covered the demise of Rossi and quite probably the departure of a large part of the Mugello crowd after just nine laps. We also lost Alvaro Bautista (Gresini Aprilia), Loris Baz (Avintia Ducati) and Jack Miller (Marc VDS Honda) at turn one although I haven't seen a replay to see whose fault it was. The other retirement was Scott Redding which was also disappointing as he was having a really good race up in seventh spot. At least there was some good British news though as Bradley Smith finished sixth for Tech 3 Yamaha after getting up to third place at the start. Cal Crutchlow (LCR Honda) could only manage eleventh and Eugene Laverty (Aspar Ducati) was thirteenth, his lowest finish of the season.

The main entertainment remained at the head of the field though as Marc Marquez took up the challenge presented by Rossi's engine failure to go after Lorenzo for the win. With Rossi's main rivals first and second it gave the home crowd very little to cheer about but if 'Sophie's Choice' is between the pair then I'd prefer a Marquez win and cheered him on accordingly. I've said for a while that Lorenzo can win from the front when he can put a string of laps together but is never up for a good fight. I was proven wrong at Mugello as both Spanish riders followed in the footsteps of Moto3 and Moto2 to deliver a thrilling finish. They exchanged the lead on the last lap and coming out of the last turn Marquez held the lead. Although there's enough straight to slipstream for a win in Moto3 in MotoGP it's usually the rider who exits the final turn in the lead who wins. Marquez has said all season though how the Hondas downfall is its exit speed from corners and Lorenzo took advantage of that, blasting past at the line to win by 0.019 seconds which is the shortest margin of the day. It shows what a great circuit Mugello is when the winning margins were 0.019, 0.030 and 0.038 seconds.

Lorenzo now leads Marquez in the standings by just ten points but Rossi's second retirement in four races leaves him 37 points behind his team-mate. Andrea Iannone (Ducati Corse) took a popular third place in front of Dani Pedrosa (Repsol Honda) with Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati Corse) fifth and Maverick Vinales (Suzuki) sixth.

British Superbikes

There was some great racing across all the races at the BSB meet at Brands Hatch as they used the Indy circuit. Leon Haslam snatched a great victory from his JG Speedfit Kawasaki team-mate James Ellison on the line following the MotoGP boys with a gap of just 0.057 seconds. It didn't look like he'd make the win after starting the last lap in third but he muscled past Bennetts Suzuki rider Tommy Bridewell early in the lap and got fantastic drive out of Clearways to mug Ellison for the win. Bridewell remained third in front of Oulton Park winner Richard Cooper (Buildbase BMW) and pole sitter Luke Mossey (Quattro Plant Kawasaki) who was in great form this weekend. In race two it was the first win of the season for Shane Byrne who became the fifth different race winner in six races. Cooper was second followed by Haslam, Bridewell and Honda Racing rider Dan Linfoot.

Haslam now leads Byrne by just three points (93 to 90) with Christian Iddon third on 86 without winning a race this season. Cooper has 74, Michael Laverty 66, Jason O'Halloran 62 and James Ellison 60.