NOT the MotoGP News: Spain is great – the Aragon GP

 In News, NOT The MotoGP News

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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

“I can see the red tail lights heading for Spain,
Oh it looks like Danilo…..”

Spain is great, yes? Great weather, wonderful cities, fantastic islands, a long history with influences from Africa like the Moors, culture such as throwing a donkey off a church tower….. oh hang on. Anyway it really is great especially for MotoGP fans; all those riders, an old name like Derbi and all those circuits to visit to watch lunatic Spanish fans support an Italian.

But Ciudad del Motor de Aragón is weird. Its like the interloper track that turned up late trying to grab some glory from all the other tracks in Spain. Firstly its miles from the beach! Secondly it looks like its on the moon; I mean have you seen so little vegetation? And thirdly it was designed by a German with some British help.

Oh well, it has an “already iconic” rock face for all the photographers to use as a back drop for some pretty pics. Good stuff. We think.

This was the first round for Brad Binned-her to win the World Championship. Of course he did it. What? You didn’t know? Well you do now. There you go – we’re a news service now too. You don’t have to use more than one hand to count the number of likeable South Africans in the world, but he is on the top of that list. And that smile! And those teeth…..

The race was as ever crazy and as eventful as an England Manager’s short-lived career. Bagnia started from 21st for some bizarre reason. Loi was caught out with an illegal gearbox and demoted to the back of the grid. Lap 1 saw Bulega and Cornfield off. Maria Harerra was off the next lap but re-joined to finish. French nutter with a Spanish name, Quartararo was right of the pace as was Pecco Bagnia. Hmmmm…..

As usual and as we like it, Moto3 was a freight train of potential leaders and potential winners. This weekend Navarro overcame his back luck and missed chances by getting up there and staying there as did Enea Bastardsurnametospell and worse still to spell, Giannantonio who must be a sign-writers worst nightmare. Who cares? They fight like hell and rider like gods.

Aragon is the child of Silverstone with its open wide track and Misano with the exact opposite, which mean in Moto3 we got great racing and a fair whack of slipstreaming if that really is a word. As tight as a duck’s bum in a storm, the finish was between Navarro, Binnder-her, Bastardsurnametospell and Giannantonio. Brad had to take second spot to win the WC and he did from Navarro who won by a gnat’s cock hair width.

Top racing from a top series.

And Moto2…… you know what we think of it. But hang on! For two thirds of the race it was almost as good as Moto3. Impish munchkin Sam Lowes started from pole, lost a place for half a lap, and regained the lead to bugger off for the race. Lorenzo Bad-ass looks like the most improved, best to watch, boy-do-we-want-to-race-like-him, rider in the pack. Alex Rins the painter and decorator from Tilbury Docks is recovering from falling off a stepladder whilst doing a ceiling but rode like he was picking up his dole money before going down the pub. Started 13th, finished 6th. Sponsored by Dulux next year?

The litany of rubbish that Danny “the hair” Kent is suffering from never amazes to cease me….. (that sounds about right – Ed). This time someone from another team overinflated his rear tyre, so he ended up being screwed again. For some weird reason he’s signed for the hapless Kiefer team again but changed his crew chief, suspension, and frame. Maybe just changing teams would have helped. Or maybe no one else would have him?

Anyway the race continued, and Alex Marquez, faster brother of super fast Marc (yeah, right – Ed), must have lost those pics of Marc van der Stratten because this weekend, he rode it like he stole it. Yep the more annoying Marquez boy went a lot quicker than his team mate. Talking of which, Morbidelli had a proper race with anybody and everybody again. Bad-ass and him are the class acts at the moment.

All in all the last third reverted to type – they all got strung out much too far for any decent fights for places. Lowes regained his composure and Zarco didn’t basically.

….. and did anyone else spot Marc van der Stratten’s sunglasses?

Lets get one thing straight; Danilo Petrucci may be everybody’s idea of an old school racer, and all around former porn star lookalike, but the medical profession connected with the decision to let him race was wrong.

Marc Marquez had made the rest of the field look pretty stupid in qualifying, but come the race it was septuagenarian Valentino Rossi who looked the best out there for the first few laps. And so too did the king of bling, Jorge Lorenzo. At last he found his confidence after having a long hard look at himself in the mirror. During which time, he no doubt found someone to love all over again. Which might not be so bad after all if it means leaves everyone else alone.

Marquez looked bored, so decided to pretend to fall off to slip back down to sixth, and then show everybody how good he really is, by riding like no one else can. So no ninth winner as Dovi let everyone down by using tyres from that scrap dealer. You know the one; “nearly new tyres for sale”. Yep Dani did too. We realise cutting costs is important, but getting Aldi to be the tyre supplier is taking things a bit too far.

Vinales looked absolutely ace for a few laps, and then……….he didn’t. Anyway, he’s been the best to watch all season. They may have more engines (Vinales hit 208mph on the back straight) but the Suzuki is ace.

Meanwhile Marquez just carved back to the front passing anywhere and everywhere, and for the whole race Marquez’s style looked more like Lorenzo’s. There we’ve said it, and we mean it. And whilst Lorenzo caught and passed Rossi, he had the worst helmet paint job this side of stupidity. What the actual fuck? A nice guy we’re sure, rides brilliantly, but has the taste of a Russian hooker in a cheap brothel. He’s not the only one though eh Andrea?

Bourbon sipping, wild chicken hunting American good boy Nick Hayden made the trip back to MotoGP for one race to replace shackle dragging wunderkid Jack Millar and the ol’ fella did good. In fact better than his teammate for the weekend Tito who is having a nightmare of season.

So Marquez moved another step towards denying Rossi a tenth title. In the meantime Rossi gave an interview to John McPhee’s possible new sponsors (yep – BitSpurt) and said he was still upset about last year because he surrounds himself with idiot yes men. Actually we didn’t see Uccio this weekend, but did see a lot of Rossi’s bodyguard/head of merchandising/acolyte/sycophant in the garage. We bet the technicians love that.

Next up is Motegi in Japan. Inscrutable.

 

Photo source: motogp.com

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