Winners
Cal Crutches
Let’s consider what the jaw-friendly Englishman has achieved. So far he’s been comfortably sharper than the ashamed out-going Dovizioso who he replaced – which some may argue wasn’t a particularly high bar. He’s also been faster than his teammate Darryn ‘difficult second album’ Binder – again not a huge hurdle to stumble over.
But at Phillip Island Crutches was also easily faster than the factory rider Morbidelli in practice, qualifying and the race. And in the race Yamaha’s top rider Quartararararo struggled to keep pace with the leading bunch causing him to first run wide, then crash.
So it seems the Yamaha bike is becoming a tricky machine to get right…and who’s Yamaha’s chief tester? Oh…well played Cal!
Alex Rins
The shock of Suzuki pulling out of MotoGP caused Alex Rins and teammate Joan Mir to fall off continuously for the following ten races with the shimmy shakes. But now that the trembling has more or less subsided the Spaniard is back to his very best.
It was the classic Rins race – start average then work his way up stealthily through the field. We don’t usually notice Alex until just before the half-distance mark – then we start to wonder what lap he’ll fall off on.
Thankfully there was no crash for Alex in the race today – a sentence I’ve probably not typed since Spring. His last lap tactics to pass Bagnaia for the lead and then fend off a feisty Marc Marquez showed us exactly what we’ll be losing to the awful Honda next year. A great ride.
Seagulls
Ask a hundred sane people what was their favourite bird then probably most wouldn’t know or care. Those that did, however, would probably pick something majestical like a golden eagle or maybe cute like a penguin. No one though would ever pick a seagull.
Seagulls are the inbred chavs of the avian world. Here’s why:
- They hang around in gangs
- They’ll steal your chips
- They make an absolute racket knowing you can’t get to them
- They’ll knowingly crap on you at any given moment
- They ‘laugh’ at you
So there’s nothing more rewarding than watching the Australian GP and witnessing one of these cocky little, flu-spreading bastards cop 160kg of racing machine up their egg-chute. But, alas, none of the smug feathered yobs took one for the team this year.
Phillip Island
A great track in a daft location. How we’ve missed Phillip Island. And, against the run of play this season, it delivered us a truly exciting MotoGP race.
[Soapbox mode on] This Dorna. This is what we want. Not races in Saudi Arabia or Turkistan. We want races on real racetracks. [Soapbox mode off]
Losers
Fabio Quartarararo
After the German GP at the Sausagering Quartarararo was a staggering 91 points ahead of Bagnaia…yet eight depressing races later and the outgoing-Yamaha rider finds his croissant 14 points behind of the Italian.
Has the Frenchman finally buckled to national peer-pressure and waved the white flag? Maybe. Just like the Russian army Fabio looks like being beaten because of inferior equipment that’s not been updated for cost-saving reasons.
Time zones
Whoever thought time zones were a good idea? Having to get up at the crack of sparrows to watch the Japanese race is one thing, but the race in Phillip Island takes it too far. How do you even watch a race at such a stupid time?
- Stay up
Don’t go to bed and hope the Moto3 and Moto2 races are exciting enough to keep you awake. - Get up
Despite it being a Saturday night, do you get an early night and try to get up early to watch the race? Doing this obviously then results in jetlag-by-proxy and a groggy Sunday afternoon. - Watch later
Wake up at the normal time and dodge all social media like its monkey pox knowing that some annoying sack will have posted the results and that’ll be the first thing you see. Then it’s just a case of watching it on replay on BT Sports to find they’ve plastered the result all over the opening page.
So, no matter what, time zones suck.
Jack Miller
The Aussie non-legend was given a legendary honour of having a corner at Phillip Island named after him – and quite fittingly they chose the corner that statistically causes the most unforced crashes.
So it seemed almost sealed in fate that Miller would end up being the first MotoGP rider to christen his own corner…and so he did. But the worst part was that the crash, in this rare case, was nothing to do with him.
Instead it was Ralf Schumarquez proving he’s got all the natural crashing skills of his brother but a lot less of the natural ability. In the opening laps the LCR Honda reject rider was having a great race and thus became frightened and confused entering Miller’s own corner. The silly Spaniard lost all control of his arms and legs (known medically as butterfication) and piled full speed into an innocent yet-Australian Jack Miller. You could hear the frustrated sound of beer cans bouncing off the TVs and Shelias throughout the land.
Team Suzuki staff
Rins’ impressive win was a bitter-sweet kick in the groin for the hardworking Suzuki staff. Let’s hope they’re all on a win bonus.
Marquez Haters
Australia was the race that the haters had been dreading for the past few months. They’d all been hoping that when Marc went for his ‘last chance’ surgery that it would all go hideously wrong and the resulting complications would cause gangrene.
But it was not to be. But the haters still had hope. Crossing their fingers so tightly that their knuckles creaked the bitter subset hoped that when Marc took his next fall his shoulder would crumble like chalk and leave his flushing arm as useless as trophy cleaning products at Bradley Smith’s house.
But again it was not to be. Marquez has predictably fallen off since his operation – but each time he’s got back up uninjured.
And so the worst fears became reality. A fit and healthy Marc Marquez, despite being only a few races back from his operation, was firing on all cylinders in Australia and looking like his old self. His second place finish was actually worth a win to the non-haters as we finally saw the Marquez of old racing again.
Franco Morbidelli
Another very disappointing race for Franco.
Luckily for the Ozzy officials Morbidelli fell off before the end of the race meaning the podium celebrations and press conferences didn’t have to be delayed waiting for the Italian to finish.