Winners
Aleix Espargaro
No one likes hard work. Especially a Spaniard. Why do something when you can get the EU to pay a Polish person to do it for you? But Aleix Espargaro is the exception to that otherwise unbroken rule.
Aleix first joined Aprilia’s MotoGP project way back when Loris Capirossi was in short trousers – i.e. 2017. Since then he’s slaved away developing the bike for many years taking the Aprilia from a poor handling, under-powered machine into an new version of a poor handling, under-powered machine.
But in 2021 the bike looked better – better because the engineers had superglued the wing from a Cessna Skyhawk onto the front and it looked awesome. For reasons unknown to the Aprilia staff the bike also had improved performance which was a brilliant, if slightly mystifying, bonus.
Fast forward to 2022 and the Aprilia RS-GP looks even better and it’s largely due to Espargaro’s continual hard work and dedication to the project.
Most normal folk with any sense of pride would have given up on the Aprilia years ago. But not Aleix. The loveable Spaniard stuck with the Italian firm believing that one day they could achieve the impossible and not be terrible.
And he was right. All that hard work paid off in the land of the corned beef sandwich. The Spaniard’s victory was fully deserved and completely down to his and Aprilia’s brilliance. Fastest in the practices, pole position, fastest race lap and a splendid win.
What’s not to love about that?
Aleix Espargaro
284 GP starts. 200 MotoGP races. And that was Espargaro’s first win. There’s a lesson to us all in there…although I have no idea what it is.
Aleix Espargaro
The elder Asparagus’s win also thrusted him to the top of the rider’s championship.
Sit back and let that sink in for a bit.
Since 2020 the world has gone crazy most of it in an unpredicted terrible way. But even the unpredicted events before this were surely a lot more predictable than an Aprilia rider leading the MotoGP world championship?
Aleix Espargaro
At his heart Aleix is a family man. And if you’ve ever seen photos of his wife on Instagram you’d know why.
Losers
Aprilia
After many years of building terrible MotoGP bikes it looks like the Italian firm has successfully played the percentage game and finally ended up with a pretty decent motorcycle.
Their reward? No more concessions.
Aprilia will now have to follow the same rules as all the other teams – limiting the number of engines per season, the amount of testing time and number of times they can pad out the canteen offerings with ‘budget friendly’ baked potatoes.
Thankfully these rules won’t kick in until the end of the season so the mighty scooter firm will need to work extra-hard to gain more of an advantage. Or not bother.
Factory Ducati
Due to a comical mix up with who ‘owned parts of the aircraft’ in Kenya the Ducati boys were all rushing around on Friday trying to get their equipment sorted. It was ‘all hands on deck’ as the team put down their recreational ravioli and worked through the night to get things sorted.
Maybe they should have not put themselves out so much?
In qualifying Bagnaia embarrassingly failed to get out of Q1 whereas Jack Miller made it to Q2 but fell off whilst on a slow down lap – possibly distracted by a cloud that looked like his favourite pet shoe. Worst still Miller was given a three-place grid penalty for holding up a furious Fabio later in the session to which the Australian blamed it on having to wear new leathers – a unique but less-than-solid defence.
In the race Miller disappeared backwards and was never seen by the TV cameras again. Bagnaia faired better working his way up to fifth…but you can’t help but think the top gnocchi at Ducati may be regretting signing the Italian for another two years so hastily.
Casa de Marquez
With Marc feeling all lightheaded and having to stay at home it was once again the turn of younger brother Alex to uphold the family’s honour…
To which he failed. Rather badly.
Remember in 2020 when the brothers were both factory Repsol Honda riders? MotoGP looked to be set for years more of Marquez family domination… Well in 2023 there’s a growing chance that neither will be on the grid.
Yamaha
Yamaha have proven that not only have they a slow bike they’ve also got an unreliable bike too. Maybe the cost-saving idea of employing those Royal Enfield engineers wasn’t so clever?
The aging process
At San Marino in 2016 Aleix Espargaro, riding for Suzuki, held up Valentino Rossi in free practice 2. At the time Rossi blew his gizzard valve and gave the Spaniard the middle finger and used some terrible language usually reserved for irate Scotsmen who’ve just lost 50p. But over time everyone realised that this little spat didn’t mean anything as it was only a pointless FP2 misunderstand and the world forgot about the incident. All except a bitter yellow minority that is.
For this vocal but ultimately meaningless demographic Aleix was added to the ‘hate list’ where he would never be removed.
For everyone else the Argentina GP was a nailbiter as we all willed on the Asparagus to take his and Aprilia’s first victory. The last few laps weren’t good…
After two failed attempts to overtake Jorge Martin the Aprilia rider made it work and took the lead with only a handful of laps to go. He just needed to hang on. Aleix had been the fastest rider all weekend so surely he would simply ride away?
No, excited and scared about leading his first race ever in his life, the Spaniard’s balloon knot seemed to tense up and his riding began to suffer. Jorge Martin remained within striking distance until the very last lap. As we simultaneously willed Espargaro on we also simultaneously aged about 30 years. By the end many fans found themselves owning a Toyota Prius and a selection of beige cardigans.
Gamblers
What the hell is going on? Race three and no rider has managed to be on the podium twice so far. We could have just cloned a bunch of Miguel Oliveiras and let them all ride around randomly finishing in different orders each race.
It’s brilliant for the neutral fans. But terrible for seasoned gamblers. What’s the point in having a form book if it makes less sense than people who knowingly install windchimes?
But it’s not just Aleix Espargaro’s win that goes against the form book and all known common sense. We have Darryn Binder scoring points in his second race. Luca Marina qualifying on the front row. Title favourite Bagnaia being awful. Bastianini winning and being Ducati top rider. Marc Marquez falling off and his eye falling out again…actually maybe scrap that last one.
The point is nothing is ever as it seems. Gamblers may as well take a punt on Bradley Smith returning to replace Marc Marquez and pulling off an historic win and then speaking in a deep, manly voice.
Jorge Lorenzo
Remember Jorge? Probably not. No one really does as it’s not really that important anymore. However last year he posted this on twitter:
🤣🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣😂🤣🤣🤣🤣….!!!!!!!!
0 victories in 18 years really!!?? I knew your manager is a beast but the fact that you are still in motogp can be just magic… 🧙♂️✨
🤣🤣🤣😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤷♂️🤷♂️
At least Cal and Jack won a few races… https://t.co/BMzQBoMuQB pic.twitter.com/uUrClfF4fO
— Jorge Lorenzo (@lorenzo99) March 8, 2021
Who’s laughing now?