Wake up everyone! Apparently our hard working MotoGP stars are finally ready to put down the margaritas, roll out of bed and return back to the track to tell us how hard it is to be a rider – probably moaning about ‘mental health’ or something.
It’s been so long since the last round…what even happened? No one knows…I’m not even sure where the race was. Luckily we have Arjen with a recap…
This weekend we’re at the famous Red Bull Ring for the Styrofoam GP…which, according to Dorna, is a completely different race to the Austrian GP next weekend. Completely different so no chance of mixing them up.
The Red Bull Ring is unique in that it doesn’t have many corners – six to be precise. This is great news for Americans who only have to get their head around it having four more corners than what is the optimum. It’s also a very fast and flowing track without any fiddly chicanes or pointlessly slow sections. Indeed the circuit has an armed team of fulltime staff who patrol the perimeter and have orders to shoot on sight anyone who remotely looks like Hermann Tilke.
Such a fast track suits fast bikes. And they don’t come any faster than the bulbous beast Ducati. To prove this despite the alarming drag caused by his bottom lip hanging out even Dovizioso managed to win here last year on his Duke. So clearly all the Ducati riders are in with a shout.
Then we have the KTMs. They managed a win in the second race here last season in the hands of their sister-loving hero Miguel Oliveira. Miguel is flying at the moment and has impressed all…well except some certain moronic, self-loving journalists who seem to think Brad Binder’s doing a better job.
But it gets better (and a lot smaller) for KTM as this weekend we’ll see the fantastic return of Dani Pedrosa racing the Austrian firm for the first time ever! You know he really wants to stick it to Honda in a polite, nano-sized way.
And whilst we’re mentioning returns we go any further without giving a cheery mention to the returning miserable cyborg Cal Crutches. If he doesn’t win I’m sure we’ll find out who was to blame…and there’s a good chance it will be Takaak Nakagami on the Honda.
Speaking of Honda what about Marc Marquez? We know the grinning Spaniard can only turn around left-hand bends and this track has only one. A bad sign? Or is he better now?
Finally we have fab Fabio who’s on target to be the first French champion in anything brave since the Centralisation of Power in France by Louis XIV. This track probably won’t suit Quartararararo…so will it just be damage limitation*?
*A different kind of ‘damage limitation’ to when Cal falls off and tries to land on his head.