NOT the MotoGP News: Mugello – Three servings of Tricolore please

Welcome to NOT The MotoGP News – our blog by Guy Anderson. Oh – and when you’re done, make sure to go follow Guy on Twitter – @SirGuyGuisborne

We’ve yet to find anyone who hates, dislikes or even merely holds a grudge against Mugello. As you know, we don’t like to go with the norm. We like to find that little bit of sand that gets in our swimming trunks and chafes. That annoyance assuages our guilt at being a mere armchair critic. Always looking over our shoulder is a disdainful Casey Stoney sneering at our attempts to understand any rider, any race, or even anything.

So we search for the tiny little thing that annoys us, and makes us feel less guilty. Like Rossi’s fans maybe. Or even Marc Marquez. Or Lorenzo going to Ducati. Or Sea-pang being sweaty and useless. Donington being Mickey Mouse; the BSB admin manager even.

Mugello? What’s not to like? We’ll tell you what – all that bloody goody two shoes “best track in the world.” All that “passion and zest for racing.” All those clichés. But most of all, the track has a dreadful little country lane to access it. There. We’ve found it. The grain of sand.

As regular readers will know, we talk bollocks, and that paragraph above was 100% pure unadulterated waffle, but stick with us as it can only get better.

The Moto3 race was awesome. Nothing less. Well one bit was wrong – still no sponsorship from BT Sport for Saltire Macca! The race though was stunning. Right from the start, we knew it was going to be sublime, and boy it was even better than that. Early doors, and Can-it, in eleventh broke the lap record. 11th! Mir, Fenati, Digi, McPhee, Binder, Can-it, Martin, Bulega all came up the front, and all slid back down the list. Like a rookie Moto3 rider in a brothel, it ended all too quickly (Can we have less brothel/hooker jokes please? – Ed).

Whatever these young guns are taking, we’d like some, we will pay for more for them, and we will sell your kidneys to afford it. F1 is bloody useless compared to this; we hope someone nails Bernie to the start line and makes him understand what racing is all about. Actually – don’t; he’ll no doubt try to buy the circuit even though he’s been ousted.

Not one second of the race became boring, but it was brilliant to watch Fenati taking lines like only Rossi used to; those unorthodox curves into apexes (apexi?) that looked so wrong yet worked so well. He may be trying to prove a point to Rossi, but we don’t care – he just looks ace.

As the unmentioned Andrea Migno took the win our hearts immediately sunk as the prospect of Moto2 coming racing over the horizon came flashing into our conscious.

We were tempted to write the whole Moto2 review in two words: Mattia Pasini!!!!!!!

But the ed said “no, do it properly.”

So here we go….. Mattia Pasini won! Polaris World Aprilia 125cc is gone. That heart surging, heartbreaking season. That young, hard riding Italian punk. That gifted tearaway. Disappointing crashes. Kicking the fuck out of his bike. It’s all gone now. Ah, for sure Pasini is no Simoncelli, and to be this daft over a season 10 years past is dafter still. But in this bunker the Ed tell us is home, we have never forgotten that season.

Hang on. Danny Kent on the grid?!?! More lives than a hooker in a (stop right now – ed)… Somehow on an Interwetten Kalex, Kent was in 12th spot on the grid. This kid has a great future selling snake oil.

Up front the usual suspects of Frankly Morbid-deli, Tim Luthi, Al Marquez and god-like Pasini set off for their own race. And soon that was the only story in Mugello. And we weren’t complaining at that sir. No sireeee. Just as that happened, Bad-ass Baldassarri chucked his bike and himself at the scenery and took out Tarka “the otter” Nakagami.

Unbelievably Morbid-deli started to drift off the leading group to leave Al Marques, Tim Luthi and God, sorry Mattia Pasini to provide the entertainment. And for once Moto2 coughed up entertainment like a cat coughing up a machine gun fire of fur balls. Pass after pass, the racing never stopped. But one winner there only ever going to be. Pasini made some of the best passes Mugello will ever see, and through sheer determination and doggedness he won by 0.052 of a second. Yep we’re biased here but, even without Pasini winning, already this race was the best Moto2 race since Fat Toni Elias was in the series.

Moto3 – amuse bouché. Moto2 – the starter. MotoGP – the main course. Well it sure as hell wasn’t going to be a salad. The steak tartar of the meal. Raw, fine, tasty and just what we needed, washed down with a big ballsy Bordeaux.

For most of the race it looked like we were watching it with a pair of pissed-stained underpants over our heads, there was that much yellow smoke drifting across the circuit.

Lorenzo got a rocket start as did Rossi, but Lorenzo made some stunning passes in the early laps. Passes that had you drawing breath sharper than standing on an upturned plug. However Mavis Viñales was on a mission. A mission to win, and he took the lead. Rossi looked very keen to get on with it in that way he always looks with a helmet on. But Lorenzo faded quicker than the memory of a Justin Bieber song……. His teammate though was making it all look pretty easy. Dovi is making Lorenzo look like an expensive mistake. Its early days still (just) for Lorenzo, and Dovi has been on the desmo for ages now. But still, he’s a bargain for Ducati. So it was a Dovi v. Mavis battle and for once Viñales didn’t win. The Italians got an Italian on a Italian bike on the top step. They also got Petrucci on the third place step. With the exception of Rossi winning, it was a pretty good day to be Italian.

The Repsols of Markie Marquez and Dani-boy struggled. Struggled so bad that Bautista passed Marquez and Pedrosa took Crutch Low out on the last lap. Not good at all. Livio Suppo will be errrrr livid.