Winners
Pecco Bagnaia
If there’s one thing all the other riders in MotoGP enjoy it’s seeing Bagnaia throw away the lead – whether that’s in a race or in a championship. And after the sprint race it looked like the beard-shod Italian had gone all Ibiza again wobbling around near the back…and critically losing the championship lead to Jorge Martin.
Fingers were pointed at Pecco’s nerve – or lack of it. Not by us at MGPN of course – we knew he was made of stronger stuff and we certainly hadn’t already started to pen an article titled ‘Brittle Bagnaia loses the championship like we knew he would’.
The Ducati rider proved us correct in the main race by working his way up from a poor qualifying position into second place. Or it would have been second place if he’d not had the role-reversed delight of seeing his upstart rival Jorge Martin picking gravel out of his ear at the side of the track.
Pecco was winning. And won. And took charge of the championship once again.
British Superbikes
For UK viewers the sparrow-friendly time zone of the Indonesian GP meant it was all over before the bacon had even hit the pan. This freed us all up to have fun with the annoying family, bodge some DIY projects or, in the best case, watch the finale of the British Superbike Championship.
For those not in know the BSB is the pinnacle of UK motorcycling racing. And like every motorcycle series currently on the planet it’s dominated by the outright speed of the Ducati bikes. But, thanks to dodgy weather, dubious safety standards, and twisting-narrow tracks it hasn’t all been plain sailing for the Ducati riders.
However it all came to a head at the weekend when sparring teammates Glenn Irwin and Tommy Bridewell hit the sub-zero temperatures of Brands Hatch in a three race weekend.
Into the final race and Bridewell was leading Irwin by 5.5 points…meaning Tommy needed to just finish behind his teammate to take the championship. With this in mind we witnessed a semi-passive Glenn Irwin attempting to ‘team ride’ none-team-mate riders in between himself and his rival to increase the score deficit– the only way he could win the championship. And it was working! By pushing Bridewell wide on certain bends Irwin was able to slot Yamaha hero Kyle Ryde between the pairing…
But just as Irwin had one hand on the trophy Bridewell, on the last lap, was able to muscle his way into second place using the grunt of the Ducati and the grunt of his inner-neanderthal. Tommy held the position and won the championship by half a point.
It’s hard to state how utterly thrilling this race and the entire championship has been – but if you imagine what MotoGP is like – then the opposite of that.
Fabio Quartarararo
Another podium for Fabio despite being hindered with a bike that really shouldn’t be anywhere near a podium. Luckily Yamaha still have Franco Morbidelli, who finished last, to show them exactly how to get a bike nowhere near the podium.
Losers
Jorge Martin
After his splendid sprint race victory, his sixth win in seven races, the ‘Martinator’ took the lead in the MotoGP championship. The Spaniard looked unstoppable despite his stupid nickname.
Then the Bagnaia-effect hit him. Whilst leading the main race, about a month ahead of his rivals, Jorge did a ‘Pecco’ and fell off whilst leading. For no reason. He was instantly out of the race and instantly handed the championship lead back to Bagnaia.
With so many twists and turns and unforced errors it’s great to know that whoever wins this year’s MotoGP world champion will be every bit as least deserving as last year.
Brad Binder fans
Brad Binder has one of the largest and most fanatical sets of fans outside of the Marquez/Rossi goon universe. Brad Smith, on the other hand, doesn’t.
Many of Binder’s online fans have comfortably crossed over into the ‘moronic’ phase of their involvement where everything must be about the South African and his brilliance. Brad wins – it’s because he’s the best. Brad doesn’t win – it’s because his bike is terrible. Brad falls off – it’s because the stewards hate Nelson Mandella. You get the idea. The kind of online buffoons that make drinking hotdog water seem compelling.
But you can understand why – South Africa has very little to be proud of unless stealing flatscreen TVs whilst protesting and carjacking is your thing.
In the sprint race Brad was knocked off by Aleix Asparagus who, recovering from the customary Aprilia terrible start, dared to venture off line to pass the KTM rider. The Spaniard lost control and both fell down in a steaming, race-ending heap.
But no penalty was given to Aleix as the stewards, rightly, deemed the move a racing incident not helped by the shitty coloured shitty circuit.
The Binderettes were furious. “Once again Dorna show they hate South Africa” and “if it would have been Marquez taken out it would have been different” they yelled nonsensically at each other.
So, still red in face and twitching, the enraged fans sat down the next day to watch the main race on their stolen TVs mumbling inaudible words as they chewed on their rancid biltong. But this race didn’t quite go to plan either.
This time it was a South African causing unpopular trouble…a sentence written more than once throughout history. Twice Brad hit opposition riders. He first punted off Luca Marini into the gravel ending his race. He then had a crack at the terminally unlucky Miguel Oliveria. In both cases the KTM rider was deemed to be at fault and awarded a long lap penalty – which could have robbed him from a podium.
So, given his fans were livid at the injustice that a penalty was not handed out to Aleix Asparagus for ruining Brad’s sprint race, were they happy safe in the knowledge that the rules were now being upheld correctly? Of course not. They just raged more.
In Binder’s defence, however, he apologised and accepted blame for both incidents. Furthermore despite two long lap penalties, on the off-road long-lap loop, Brad finished in 6th place beating his teammate Jack Miller.
The track
The Indonesian circuit is, alas, a bit rubbish. Imagine taking the great location of Phillip Island and then building a terrible track there. The layout is basically a square with a few wiggles on it. And the tarmac, oddly, is brown.
The biggest issue though is that no one, apart from MotoGP, ever goes there. This leaves the track dirtier than a vegan’s armpit with a thin racing line where all the rubber is put down. Vear off this narrow line and the brown surface gets bonus brown streaks as the hapless riders slide off at full speed.
The net outcome of this track is poor racing and lots of bone-chipping crashes.