Winners
Pecco Bagnaia
A highly deserved first win. Despite a Marc Marquez onslaught Bagnaia soaked up the pressure better than Uccio’s tea towel.
His victory has elevated him to second position in the standings and the top Ducati rider.
Marc Marquez
After Silverstone the knives were out for Marc. His previous ‘aggressive’ style had been reduced to just being dangerous and unnecessary. The yellow brigade were also out and going absolutely ballistic with a full-on deflection mode furiously claiming Marquez was hazardous to everyone within a 5km radius. And they had a point.
The haters, however, went suspiciously quiet after the race. Aragon was always set to be a strong race for the Repsol-backed anti-Christ given its anticlockwise nature which helps Marc’s flabby duff shoulder.
Marquez didn’t quite win but he put up a great fight with Pecco pulling off some audacious moves like the old days…despite the knowledge that his shoulder never has the strength to lift up a toilet seat let alone a potential lowside.
Valentino Rossi
At first glance coming second-to-last and over half a minute behind the race winner may not appear all that impressive. But the Italian chalked up a couple of decent personal victories.
Firstly ‘The Dentist’ won the bragging rights in the ‘Rossi family battle’ by beating his mongrel half-brother Luca into last place. That showed him. So once again it was the elderly rider who sat at the high seat at dinner eating his pasta from elevated position whilst his father quietly shook his head wondering where it all went wrong.
But more importantly than that Rossi claimed after the race that he hypnotised the race winner Francesco Bagnaia into making the correct tyre choice. No seriously he did.
Like the previous weekend Rossi spent all practice and qualifying following Bagnaia as close as he could. He sat in his pit box waiting patiently until Pecco drifted by then jumped out and clung to his coattails. Sceptics may have thought Rossi was simply continuously trying to get a tow from the Ducati rider to up his position on the timesheets. How wrong we were! Instead the Italian veteran was honing his extrasensory perception skills sending messages like ‘I made you what you are’ and ‘wait for me I’m out of your slipstream again’.
Race day and Valentino claimed he used these skills to guide Bagnaia into making the correct tyre choice before the race (once again I’d like to point out that I’m not making this up). And what better person to give the upcoming Ducati rider advice than the rider currently last in the full-time rider standings.
Another great victory for the yellow fans to brag about.
Losers
Jake Dixon
This was Jake’s second bite of the MotoGP cherry…and sadly he once again ended up choking on the stone.
Dixon really needed a strong performance to put himself in the shop window for any of next season’s MotoGP rides. Things started okay with the Englishman slowly working his way onto the pace of the second slowest rider.
Race day and a great start saw him pass his teammate and ‘Greatest of a Specific Timeframe’ Valentino Rossi and fend him off for a lap. Pretty impressive. But then poor Jake fell off…dropping his bike and any slim hope he had of somehow being hired by Yamaha to ride their MotoGP machine in 2022.
Iker Lecuona
The youngest full time MotoGP rider was brought into KTM’s satellite team to learn the ropes and hopefully progress into a top rate MotoGP rider. He was given a two-year contract to reduce any pressure to perform in his first season and risk falling and injuring himself.
One and a half years into that contract and the fruits of KTM’s endeavour seem to be coming into fruition as Iker is now riding better than ever before and regularly troubling the top ten. He also looks an especially capable wet weather rider.
So, what do KTM do as their young star starts to deliver on the promise they had in him? Sack him and replace him with a different young rider. Madness.
Lecuona, who’s full name sounds like a flat packed furniture product, looks set to join the World Superbike home for retired riders – despite his young age. Worse still it looks like he’ll be riding a Honda…
Johann Zarco
For reasons I’m not quite sure Johann decided to ride from his home in Les Misérables, France to the Aragon circuit on a 1981 Ducati 900SS. The journey was over 950km. Anyone who has owned a pre-2004 Ducati knows that they may look good (or not in the case of a 2003 Multistrada) but they’re actually a heap of junk that’s more problematic than a rescue dog with a handgun. Annoying, noisy and likely to breakdown – and that’s just the owners, the bike’s are even worse.
So poor Zarco arrived at Aragon looking as fresh and lively as Geronimo the alpaca – and of course with an inferior haircut.
But upon arrival it would seem that was the least of his worries as given his pace it appeared that the chuckling Frenchman was also in fact racing his 900ss with the Primark branded MotoGP fairing gaffer taped to it. It’s the only plausible explanation for his lack of speed all weekend.
Johann finished the weekend by finishing 17th in the race…only beating the born-again Vinales and the Rossi family outing.