Recent comments

"Dorna and Infront are the same: without racing, they have nothing, and have to dismantle their companies and fire the hundreds of people who work for them."

Going to have to disagree with you on the Infront side David. They have football, hockey, basketball, downhill skiing and a bunch of other sports under license. Dorna is racing purely.

-jim

It would be fairly easy to calculate the time taken for such bikes to stop from the typical dry corner entry speed and then to accelerate back to that speed. Deduct that from their overall time. If they obstruct/delay another rider on re-entry double the penalty. If they collide with/take-out another rider, disqualify them.

That way a rider doesn't have to think too much, still needs his brain 'in', knows a run-off is not a no-penalty option for a late over-optimistic overtake, and isn't required to actually stop or ride around 'soft' or other obstructions to slow him/her down.

Riders/ex-riders seems to be saying that the best solution to the first corner crash-fest is to ride straight through on the first lap. The above would permit an 'open' escape road to allow that and penalise anyone who runs straight-on during the remainder of the race (and remove the need to know which is the correct piece of tarmac to ride through on!).

These chicanes get a lot of criticism - but they did provide for a brilliant piece of riding from Lowes in the WSS race (eventually).

I think Guintoli has the edge on the claim to the podium here.

I somehow doubt that Sykes or Guintoli are the sort of characters to hate each other after this - both are nice guys. However, as Sykes well knows, every point counts and their teams will be pursuing every opportunity they can.

Monza produces good racing, tension, and excitement. If its popular with the fans and teams, why push against that?

If Dorna drops it, it will be a sad day.

Here in NASCAR-land, the AMA series has visited a fair number of "roval" circuits. Policing course cuts has always been a total friggin' headache, with no one happy with any outcome, so it's probably a relief that the only one the AMA still visits is Daytona.

That is where this story takes place.

A good friend of mine is a former AMA 250 GP racer; excellent wrench, very good rider, self-financed privateer machine vs the factory stuff. He was usually a top-10 guy, and one of the highlights of his life was getting on a 250 GP podium.

One year, he is at Daytona. At that circuit, the point where you leave the oval and cut into the infield is not far from the point where the infield circuit re-joins the oval. During practice, he barrels into Turn One, realizes he's not going to make it, and stands it up. He doesn't bother turning around and taking the infield; it's just practice. He just cruises across to the point where the infield circuit re-joins the oval and gets back on the gas.

The automated timing system does not realize that he's cut the course. And the combination of a slower rider cutting that whole pesky infield thing out of his lap added up to a lap time that was almost exactly what the factory guys were turning!

Because the lap time was close to what other people - the factory riders - were doing, the manual scorers couldn't just eliminate it out of hand. So the lap time stood for a few moments. Once my friend saw what had happened, he went and straightened the situation out.

But for a brief shining moment, the official timing and scoring pylon at Day-freaking-tona had his bike number right at the top, next to Rich-friggin-Oliver.

He still giggles every time he tells that story. I smile every time I hear it.

Like a lot of people I was pretty shocked to see Marquez pull that last corner move on Lorenzo. My immediate thought was something like "Oh no, Marquez has decided to bring his Moto2 antics with him..."

But reading this article it started to dawn on me, just as Lorenzo et al may have become used to "gentelmen" style of racing, I think the same is true of viewers as well!! If I think back, there is a time when I would have been getting so excited for this kind of racing action, but now it seems a bit shocking, almost where I was wondering what's going on - wanting them to just get back in line and race nicely!

Thinking about it now, this is actually a very welcome change to the MotoGP we've been watching over the last years. Now I would actually say that I hope all the other racers raise their game to Marquez level!

Also interesting equation that Mat put together:

Stoner’s talent + Marco Simoncelli’s aggression = Marc Márquez

Perhaps Marquez will turn out to be the best thing for MotoGP since Rossi...?

I have to admit that I was not a fan of Marquez, mostly because of his many questionable moves in Moto2. But there's nothing wrong with hard racing, as long as his moves don't become questionable, I think I'm becoming a Marquez fan.

I think Lorenzo was caught between a rock and a hard place. Defending his position might have prevented Marquez from attempting the pass where he did, but would almost certainly have resulted in an overtake in the drag to the line. Lorenzo is giving away 6Kg, probably 10 bhp and a seamless shift gearbox and his only chance was to take maximum momentum onto the straight. That involves a wide sweeping line (leaving the door open) which was bound to end in contact if the person behind is a bit of a loose canon....

Shame about the end of race 2. I can see how the officials might have felt they had to abide by the letter of the rules but I wish they could have found a way to give Guintoli the place he really deserved. I'm a big fan of both riders so I'd feel bad whichever way it worked out. Perhaps I'll just look on this as karma after the way Sykes was short-changed last year at Monza...

Great ride by Laverty in race 2. But it would be nice if he showed a little emotion afterwards! The Mr. Spock of superbike racing behaves the same when he wins as when he crashes out. C'mon Eugene, live a little! ;-)

Chaz Davies crashed trying to make up ground on the leaders after starting 9th on the grid. If (when) he gets the hang of qualifying he'll win the championship.

If Hector losses his ride with Avintia Blusens, would he grab the team boss by the throat?

Had this been any other racetrack Sykes would have been on his head in a gravel runoff trap and DNF'd. And it wasn't even the first time he'd blown that exact chicane - he screwed it up in the first race in the same spot. At any other track, it's two DNFs for Sykes, not a pair of thirds.

I seem to recall Stoner complaining that paved runoff areas were a bad idea precisely for this reason - that riders would make dumb and dangerous moves since the potential consequence was so small - a penalty, maybe.

I love the races at Monza, but they have to be officiated differently than other tracks that are self-policing (i.e., you run off, you crash or lose a lot of time). And so far, that level of competence by officials has not been seen.

It is sad that two riders who were probably quite friendly may now become enemies because of what appears to be a lack of clear guidelines as to what is, and what is not, acceptable in the case of the chicanes at Monza. After Sykes took evasive action to avoid ramming Melandri and went off-track on the tarmac inside the chicane, he regained the track, took a quick look to see that Guintoli was still behind him, then got his head down to charge after Melandri and Laverty. Guintoli in contrast, appeared to slow down and cruise to the finish.

If we look at their last four laps, this is the picture:

Sykes 1m 43.151s Guintoli 1m 43.118s
1m 43.162ss 1m 42.937s
1m 42.703s 1m 43.149s
1m 42.596s 1m 43.788s

This shows that Sylvain's last lap was more than a second slower than Tom's. Had he maintained his pace, he may very well have re-passed Tom before the chequered flag. The rule is that you don't back off until the chequered flag is displayed, (and as young Marquez forgot two years ago, once the chequers are waved, you definitely cease racing).

Really meant to overtake Guinters then run wide onto the dirt & gravel on purpose and run the risk of throwing everything away! Don't talk wet!
Technically he did gain the position prior to running off track and joined back on track in the same position. Read the rules, its the same as Marquez last week, by technical rules he had a wheel in front of Lorenzo so was deemed as being in front which is the same as Tom but he had the whole bike in front of Sylvain.
Race direction would of analyzed the gap between Tom and Melandri to see if he made any gains and it is now obvious that he didn't, hence the result being overturned yet again.
So here it is, while i rate Sylvain as a good man and awesome racer, he got beat on the day.
He still leads the championship so best to just kick some arse next time out, if he can catch Tom that is...

Great track! I love it.