2022 banter & Silly season thread for MotoGP, Moto2 and Moto3

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bottom post of the previous page:

Jorge Martin Pole at a canter and with a lap record

Bags was on the verge of the first ever 57 sec lap as Q2 was running its course, but threw it down the road and will start 8th. Aleix Espargara then threw it down the road as well, and Fabs tried his best to do the same but stayed on.... and managed his worst qualy of the season and will start 12th.

Jorge Martin was the one to do the first 57 with a 1: 57.790, half a second inside the record for Pole, from Bastianini with a 58.246, nearly half a second of Martin's brilliant lap, and MM93 made up the front row.

1>9

10>17

18>24





In Moto 2 Championship leader Ogura got his 3rd pole of the year . His 2:06.405 saw him beat Tony Arbolino by 0.083s. Aron Canet rounds out the front row of the grid in P3, with title-chasing Augusto Fernandez settling for P6.

[DoubleFart]

Friday FP2 in the F1 taking place 8 hours before Moto GP Quali messing with my head!

What day is it?

[Everso Biggyballies]

Friday FP2 in the F1 taking place 8 hours before Moto GP Quali messing with my head!

What day is it?

Yeah I think the F1 qualy on Saturday in Austin is only 2 or 3 hours before Sunday's Moto GP race warmup in Malaysia

Edit: Yeah just checked my TV guide and in my time the F1 qualy finishes at 10am Sunday and Moto GP Warm up starts at 12:55

[Everso Biggyballies]

All happening in Moto 2 ....

At one stage Ogura was leading the race today with title challenger Fernandez in 6th, having a huge fight with Dixon....giving Ogura a healthy lead into the final round at Valencia. The Dixon Fernandez duel got quite physical at one stage. Moreso when Gonzalez got involved in the dice. Dixon cleared Gonzalez leaving Fernandez and Dixon to scrap.

Then Arbolino passed Ogura for the lead.with 0.2 between them on the last lap,

Ogura makes the move, gets past but drops it in the process. Out of the race Nil points. Fernandez by now had passed Gonzalez for 5th and with Ogura crashing out 5 corners from home, Fernandez inherited 4th and with it the Moto2 Championship lead by 8.5 points.

So Arbolino won from Lopez and Jake Dixon in 3rd.

There has to be doubt over the wisdom of Ogura..... he could have settled for 2nd and taken a 12.5 point lead to Valencia, but eager for the win and the extra 5 points he has turned himself from a very healthy title chase leader into the chaser, with Fernandez now the rider with a decent advantage.

The Championship race....

Fernandez 251.5 points
Ogura 243

Gap now 8.5 points in Fernandez favour.

Back leading the title chase he lost the lead of in PI last week..


It sets up a cracking finish to the season in Valencia.




Now we have MotoGP to go through similar, with Bagnaia in a position where he could be the 2022 Moto GP Champion in about 2 hours time. Or a similar to Moto2 scenario could put the championship decider off until Valencia.

All things equal, currently with a 14 point lead Bagnaia has match point, serving for the win, and with every chance of tying it up today. Unless he succumbs to pressure and falls off.

On recent form it has been Fabio who has become the one making the errors with a couple of recent crash DNF's. Fabio is the one under pressure today and the one who must finish well and as far ahead of Bagnaia as possible. With a bike that is lacking the Ducati straight line speed and looking less comfortable on his bike than Bags, the pressure is more on Fabio...

Oh and to increase the pressure, they both qualified out of position, Fabio 12th and Bagnaia 9th. Plenty of opportunity for both to make a mistake.

Oh and Aleix Espargaro is also an outside chance of the title, albeit a very slim chance., He starts 10th.

Did I mention that it looks very overcast.....

[Everso Biggyballies]

Warm up lap for MotoGP underway

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bagnaia 9th to 2nd afterb T1.... Quartararo didnt do bad either.... 12 th up to 5th.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Jorge Martin throws it down the road leading by 1.2 secs so Bags now eads with Quartararo now 3rd. Bastianini in 2nd on the Gresini Ducati so I daresay there are likely oders in place. But it doesnt look like it atm.

so Bagnaia in this position will lead the title chase by 23 points if it stays as is

However if Bezzechi in 4th was to pass Fabio for 3rd.....

Edit.... Bastianini takes the lead from Bags! So the gap now down to 18 points. But Bezzechi is closing in on Fabio.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Crikey.... Bags takes the lead but Bas wont let him go... meanwhile Fabio is now within just over a second of them, still with Bezzechi in close attendance.

Lots of talking at Ducati.


Bezzechi has a bad lap and losing out to Fabio. Maybe his tyres are over it. Gap now Bags t> Bas is just over a second, so maybe words have been said.

3 laps to go.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Looks like it will go to Valencia.... with Fabio needing to win with Bagnaia out of the points

Last lap and Bas is much closer to Bagnaia again. Crikey, side by side but Bags hangs on

[Everso Biggyballies]

Bags wins from Bas and Fabs, and has a 23 point lead. So its down to Valencia and Bagnaia on the brink of the title. He just needs to finish 14th or higher there even if Fabio wins.

Another great race.

[DoubleFart]

Enjoyed that! Very tense with the Bags/Bas fight. Bags was definitely pushing harder than he'd had liked, and I was wondering if a fall was around the next corner.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Enjoyed that! Very tense with the Bags/Bas fight. Bags was definitely pushing harder than he'd had liked, and I was wondering if a fall was around the next corner.

In my mind I had predicted pre race either Bags or Fabs would drop it. Didnt work out that way. But yeah Bas was fighting hard.

In the post race interview Bas was a bit evasive as to whether he had anything left to take on Bagnaia on the last lap, and answered more with a 'we put on a good show' type answer. He certainly made Bagnaia work for it though.

Be interesting to hear Bagnaia's take on it.

Fabio in the pre podium room with his hand in the bag of ice again.

[Vassago]

Alex Rins won at Valencia in Suzuki's last MotoGP race. Binder and Martin completed the podium ahead of Quartararo who had his best ride for a while but nowhere near enough to prevent Bagnaia (who finished 9th in very conservative effort) to win the title.

Ai Ogura crashed out of 2nd place in Moto2 but he was riding on edge after the Sepang error. Pedro Acosta won the race ahead of Augusto Fernandez who claimed the title. However I see Ogura as a clear favorite next season and he probably has learned all the required lessons a fortnight ago.

Izan Guevara won Moto3 race ahead of Deniz Oncu. Sergio Garcia finished 3rd in a lonely ride in what was the least exciting race of the weekend.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Interesting article on Nepotism within Dorna by Mat Oxley in Motorsport Mag today. The number of Ezpeletas, their partners, and relatives running every department near on is quite scary. At Valencia, MotoGP announced the appointment of a new MotoGP safety officer, following the retirement of former MotoGP world champion Franco Uncini..... you guessed it.... Uncini's replacement is another Ezpeleta.....

MotoGP nepotism: it’s a family affair


MotoGP’s new safety officer and likely new permanent steward are the nephew and his partner of the Dorna CEO, whose children already play leading roles in the championship. There’s a simple word for running a business like this…

Fifty years ago, in the early 1970s, too many riders were getting killed, too many riders and families were bankrupting themselves trying to make it, while the fat-cat race promoters got rich beyond their wildest dreams.

Now too many riders are getting killed, too many riders and families are bankrupting themselves trying to make it, while Dorna bosses get rich beyond their wildest dreams.

It wasn’t always like this.

From the early 1980s circuit safety standards started improving, along with grand prix prize money, with the biggest increases going to riders nearer the back of the grid, who didn’t earn the hefty salaries of the front-runners.

So the world championship got to the point where privateers could just about make GP racing pay and have a good chance of making it to the end of their careers in one piece.

Between 1989 and September 2010 there were two deaths in MotoGP. In May 1993 Nobuyuki Wakai died during the Spanish GP at Jerez, where a fan walked out on front of him in pit lane. Wakai crashed into the pit wall and died from head injuries. In April 2003 Daijiro Kato died after sustaining multiple injuries in a high-speed crash during the Japanese GP at Suzuka. That’s two deaths in 21 years.

In the 12 years since September 2010 there have been four deaths in GP racing: Shoya Tomizawa at the 2010 San Marino GP, Marco Simoncelli at the 2011 Malaysian GP, Luis Salom during the 2016 Catalan GP and Jason Dupasquier at last year’s Italian GP.

And it’s worse than that. During the last five years five riders have died in Road to MotoGP events and WSSP300 races at World Superbike rounds: Andreas Pérez in a 2018 Moto3 junior world championship race, Afridza Munandar in a 2019 Asian Talent Cup event, Hugo Millán in a 2021 European Talent Cup Moto3 race, Spaniard Dean Berta Viñales in a 2021 WSSP300 round and Victor Steeman in another WSSP300 race earlier this year.

Last month in the Australian GP Moto2 race another rider came close to losing his life in the same manner. Jorge Navarro crashed and was hit by the rider immediately behind. The Spaniard broke his left femur in the accident and severed the femoral artery, which can cause such massive blood loss that it can lead to death in just a few minutes.

Nonetheless the race was not red-flagged. Navarro was unable to move and stayed by the side of the track for several minutes, in the firing line of any rider who had the same accident, while he waited for a medical team to stretcher him away. Luckily, the 26-year-old Spaniard’s fracture was not a compound fracture – in which the broken bone pierces the skin – so he ‘only’ suffered internal bleeding, which slowed the blood loss. This probably saved his life.

All of these accidents (with the exception of Salom) were essentially the same – a rider falls in the middle of a tightly packed group and is struck by following motorcycles who are too close to take avoiding action. This is the result of technical regulations written to create close, more exciting racing, with the idea of growing the sport to a bigger audience and, of course, making more money.

In other words, top-level motorcycle racing finds itself in a very tricky position, with death rates rocketing, despite decades of tireless work by Dorna, IRTA, the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme) and others to improve circuit safety and riding gear. And neither super-safe circuits or super-trick riding gear can save anyone when they are struck by several hundred kilos of rider and machine travelling at high speed.

Therefore there’s not much that can be done about these accidents, except breaking up the packs, which means making the racing less close and therefore less exciting and most likely less profitable.

This is a huge problem, but there are other things going on within the upper echelons of MotoGP that are also very worrying, from safety and other points of view.

Today at Valencia, MotoGP announced the appointment of a new MotoGP safety officer, following the retirement of 67-year-old former MotoGP world champion Franco Uncini.

The new safety officer is Tomé Alfonso Ezpeleta, who was in charge of the Losail and Aragon MotoGP venues and is now preparing the Kazakhstan Grand Prix.

If his name sounds familiar it’s because it is. This Ezpeleta is the nephew of Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, whose son Carlos plays a leading role in MotoGP Race Direction and whose daughter Ana is director of Dorna’s talent promotion, which runs the numerous Road to MotoGP championships around the world.

And it goes further, while nephew Ezpeleta become MotoGP’s safety officer his partner Tamara Matko is set to become a permanent member of the FIM MotoGP Stewards Panel, presiding over rider conduct during race weekends and therefore handing out penalties and sanctions.

There is a word for this kind of operation: nepotism. And, funnily enough, the root of the word is the Italian word for nephew – nipote – which was used to describe the ancient habit of popes bestowing privileges on their ‘nephews’ (who, purely from a historical point of interest and certainly not applicable to the Ezpeletas, were usually their illegitimate sons).

Nepotism isn’t a healthy way to run a business. Never has been. Even more than 2000 years ago philosophers Aristotle and Confucius condemned the practice of giving unfair favouritism towards relatives.

The Ezpeleta family now bestrides MotoGP: from the commercial side of running the championship (which is Dorna’s primary job), to playing a major role in the actual running of the races and now to overseeing the safety of the riders and punishing riders.

To call these final parts of the Ezpeleta family’s rule of MotoGP a conflict of interest would be an understatement, because you cannot have the same family overseeing the commercial aspects of the sport, as well as safety and rider contact aspects, which is why they are both jobs awarded by the FIM (Fédération Internationale de Motocyclisme), not Dorna.

However, the fact the sport’s governing body gave nephew Ezpeleta his new job and looks set to give his partner a job, begs further questions regarding the uncomfortably close relationship between the various bodies that run MotoGP.

Motorcycling is a wonderful sport and its world championships should not be a family fiefdom.

https://www.motorsportmagazine.com/arti ... ily-affair