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I’m Watching… MotoGP

I watch racing so you don’t have to. Missed any MotoGP lately? Allow me to briefly recap.

[I’ve changed the format of these posts to do one championship at a time, makes it less scattergun, you can pick the ones you’re interested in, and helps me find things in the archive – and yes I am still miles behind, I’ve got loads of these in draft for different series]

MotoGP
Indianapolis, Indiana, USA
29 August 2010

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I’m glad MotoGP visits the US twice but both Indianapolis visits prior to this one were pretty unspectacular, the weather intervened with the one and the other was just plain boring. Unfortunately this year’s race was also uninspiring. This is a real shame because the local crowd is enthusiastic, if looking a little lost in the massive stands of Indy. I maintain this date is not helped by having an IndyCar race the previous night in Chicago, much of the local IndyCar media might be expected to cover this race too and they weren’t all able to do so. Got to hurt publicity, etc.

The first half of the race was reasonably good. Pedrosa put in a storming ride to dominate the field, a really excellent performance involving passing three or four other riders – including an impressive Ben Spies (pictured) – in the early running before disappearing into the distance in the second half of the race. For me that was the extent of the action, there were a few changes among the lower positions but after the wholesale change of riders at that end of the grid for this season I don’t really care for any of them. Bring back Vermuelen, Toseland and co, I say.

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MotoGP
Misano, Italy
5 September 2010

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Again this race featured some great early battling before settling down into a Pedrosa benefit. It is great to see the guy on an upswing in form and taking the fight to Lorenzo because somebody had to, yet #99 still finished 2nd so his points advantage over Dani is remains massive. Rossi finished an amazing 3rd given his injuries, a stellar performance in the circumstances and he must’ve been hurting. That was about it for this race! We’re all hoping the new-for-2011 rules will bring back the great races seen in the top flight of motorcycle racing just a few short years ago, some series can get away with a long string of boring races but I don’t think MotoGP can for much longer, it is renowned for action and right now we aren’t getting it.

Both Indy and Misano races were held under a cloud following the death in Indy of the 13-year old Peter Lenz in the USGPRU support race warm-up, and an in Misano a Moto2 accident involving 19-year old Shoya Tomizawa which led to his eventual passing and was announced just as the main race came to an end. They were both accidents that even the best safety precautions would have struggled to prevent but that doesn’t make them any less sad or tragic. My thoughts are with their families and colleagues.

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MotoGP
Motorland Aragon, Alcaniz, Spain
19 September 2010

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A new venue for MotoGP, this recently constructed circuit in Northern Spain is a Tilke creation with some quite interesting sections, including elevation changes and tight and fairly narrow twisty bits by Tilke’s standards – it is a good design. Unfortunately it all looks a bit bland simply because there is no scenery to speak of, it is a yellow/orange dustbowl.

Lorenzo and Stoner battled hard on the opening lap, with Casey coming off best. He soon disappeared into a handy lead over Pedrosa who’d also passed #99. Pedrosa then made an error and had to recover, this could’ve sunk him but he battled back hard – helped in no small part by his Honda engine on the very long back straight, that engine is the class of the field this year. It still needed to be ridden though and Dani did so brilliantly to recover up to 2nd place and only a second down on Stoner at times, until he had to give best and the Aussie duly took the win.

A tip of the hat to Nicky Hayden for finishing an improved 3rd in spectacular style by sending it up the inside of Lorenzo on the very final lap. They’d been fighting closely for some time, as had Dovisiozo and Spies which went the American’s way when Dovi crashed out, again on the last lap.

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MotoGP
Twin-Ring Motegi, Japan
3 October 2010

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This round was originally scheduled for April but was postponed due to the volcanic ash cloud over Europe, preventing travel. Drama immediately! No Pedrosa for this race because he crashed badly in free practice with a stuck throttle – he’s flown home to Spain. Lorenzo had his worse qualifying session of the year and starts all the way down in 4th, the first man on the second row – how will he possibly cope? It was really good to see Edwards returning to the front end of the grid in 5th alongside his team-mate Spies 6th.

Dovisiozo got a good start initially but Stoner came breezing by in the first sequence of corners, then just rode away from the field. Lorenzo passed Rossi for 3rd and Capirossi got from 10th to 6th in the early running, well done Loris. Spies dropped to 8th before clashing with Hayden and both wound up fighting for last, at least until they caught the usual tailenders.

Simoncelli put a good pass on Edwards for 5th, he’s having an impressive season. Meanwhile, the race nearer the front came alive – what a brilliant battle between Lorenzo and Rossi! Vale pushed and harried him until he was able to make the move, and while he does have a newer engine with a later development step he is still carrying that injury. They passed an repassed each other for several laps, and these people are supposed to be teammates!

Back in the field Colin Edwards pulled himself together to attack Simoncelli again, couldn’t quite do it but never gave up and fought all the way, a great comeback after finishing only 12th in Aragon, his 100th start. His team-mate Spies who’d fallen to the back had fought his way through the field into the top eight, while Hayden got up to 12th. After the frenetic action in the middle of the race things were pretty quiet in the top half dozen for a long while, until 3 to go when Lorenzo suddenly launched attack after attack on Rossi for 3rd. He wasn’t able to pull it off. Stoner made it two races in a row, Dovi 2nd and Rossi claimed the final podium spot from Lorenzo. Everyone else was half a minute behind.

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After these races the top of the standings were:

297 Lorenzo
228 Pedrosa
180 Stoner
159 Dovisiozo
156 Rossi

With no Pedrosa and a commanding lead Lorenzo was now aiming to claim the title at the next round, which was Sepang last week. I’m sure you’ve probably seen the outcome already. Then the circus moves on to Phillip Island this week and then heads back to Portugal and Spain to close the season. I’ll recap all four together in roughly a month from now, and I hope this summary has been useful!

All photos courtesy of PicApp.

TMR Game – Week 38

Welcome to Week 38 of the Too Much Racing Game!

Quick-Start

Racing this week:

DTM – Hockenheim;
NASCAR Sprint Cup – Charlotte;

Usual restrictions apply, pick up to 7 drivers in any individual race up to a maximum of 10 drivers.

The cutoff is Saturday 16th October at 4.59am BST (British Summer Time = GMT+1), that’s 11.59pm Friday night US EDT.

For the full results from Week 37, read on. Continue reading “TMR Game – Week 38”

TMR Game – Week 37

Welcome to Week 37 of the Too Much Racing Game!

Quick-Start

Racing this week:

Formula 1 – Japanese GP, Suzuka;
NASCAR Sprint Cup – California Speedway, Fontana;

Usual restrictions apply, pick up to 7 drivers in any individual race up to a maximum of 10 drivers.

The cutoff is Saturday 9th October at 4.59am BST (British Summer Time = GMT+1), that’s 11.59pm Friday night US EDT.

For the full results from Week 36, read on. Continue reading “TMR Game – Week 37”

I’m Watching… #6

I watch too much racing. Here are the races I watched in the few weeks before going away to Belgium, back in August. Sorry I’m late with this post!

American Le Mans Series
Mid-Ohio 2010

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What a great race! The GT race was the undoubted highlight, multiple lead changes among several cars throughout the 2 hours and 45 minutes. Just as it looked like someone had settled in for the win there would be a twist and another car would be leading, great stuff. Ferrari, Porsche, Corvette, BMW – no matter what it was it seemed to take a turn at leading. The GT2 class in the ALMS is arguably the best GT class anywhere in the world at the moment. The class battle was won by the Risi Ferrari team of Melo and Bruni.

The Prototype field was sparse and on a clear track probably would have been terrible, but on a narrow track with a large GT entry it became a fascinating test of who could work through the slower classes more effectively. Even with so few cars there was a good level of passing and strategy and it too was a good race. Dyson eventually won to take it’s first outright ALMS victory and beat the Highcroft entry by just half a second after 2hrs 45 minutes! Intersport’s Lola led much of the running but lost out with a poorly-timed driver change under yellow, dropping them to third. I get the Fields confused but one of them was very irate on the team radio when he realised the outcome of that decision – that frustation surely became insignificant when the car retired from the race with mechanical failure.

GTC was quite entertaining and LMPC seemed to be a case of nursing the cars home from what I recall. There was some good racing but I’m not a fan of spec series in endurance racing and particularly ACO/IMSA-sanctioned endurance racing. Open these classes up to competition – under heavy restriction if necessary – and I may well become a fan.

I watched this live on the ALMS website with video streaming complete with Radio Le Mans commentary – all sportscar races should be available this way.

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IndyCar Series
Mid-Ohio 2010

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For an open-wheel race at Mid-Ohio this wasn’t too bad. I’ve seen some pretty dire ones over the years and this was among the better ones. You can hardly complain about a race when the top two finish half a second apart, the second major race at this venue in two days to achieve that feat, as Dario Franchitti managed to hold off a challenging Will Power all the way to the end. Justin Wilson was involved in a crash which was a shame as he was doing fairly well. The Andretti suite of cars were all generally quite slow for some reason, they seem to be getting worse on road courses.

The race was led for a large chunk by Alex Tagliani who’d switched to a different strategy to the rest of the field, he stopped early and was helped when a yellow followed not long after. Having started outside the top ten, the strategy worked and he wound up 4th. Tony Kanaan tried something similar but couldn’t make it work and had to make an extra stop.

I watched this live on the IndyCar website which seemed to be having a rare good day with a decent quality stream throughout.

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MotoGP
Brno 2010

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Pedrosa took the lead after his now customary good start, this time from pole – that was until Lorenzo from the outside of the front row jumped both Pedrosa and Spies, knocking Dani to 3rd. A couple of laps later Pedrosa got his way past Spies and set about chasing Jorge. Dovisioso had a scary fall when he dropped it in front of a chasing pack of bikes who somehow missed both rider and bike lying on the track, luckily he was able to pick it up and continue but had to pit the bike as it had apparently been too damaged in the fall.

The Finn, Kallio, ran into the gravel just seconds after the BBC team praised his good performance – the curse of the commentator. Stoner took 3rd from Spies in a fairly straightforward move and that was pretty much it for the remaining 13 laps, though there was a nice battle for 8th in the closing stages – when Bautista fell at the very last corner. Lorenzo had the legs of Pedrosa and held him back to take yet another win.

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GP2 Series
Silverstone 2009

Feature – Romain Grosjean took an immediate lead off the start as most of the field had to avoid the stalled 4th-placed qualifier Jerome d’Ambrosio. There were a couple of spinners on lap one, Chandhok picked his way through the opening lap melee to move from 11th to 6th. It all settled into a rythym for several laps until Grosjean seemed to slow a little and allowed Valerio to challenge. Grosjean had speed on the straights but was slow through the corners and Valerio eventually made the pass into the Abbey chicane when Grosjean left the door wide open. This became the story the cameras followed as Grosjean did his best to fight off car after car.

Lucas di Grassi moved alongside Grosjean through Maggotts/Becketts and they tried to make it side-by-side through the sequence, but Grosjean couldn’t hold on and took to the grass. After the stops, Grosjean found himself heading a train of cars in 6th with Chandhok leading the chase. This became 5th with attrition and that was his position at the flag. Near the end, di Grassi and Perez raced a struggling Hulkenberg who seemed to have his own tyre troubles (the Perez battle was superb, he switched from side to side trying different lines through almost every corner as he tried to pass). Valerio held the lead to the end to take his first GP2 win, di Grassi 2nd and Hulkenberg 3rd with Perez a very close 4th – Perez was largely unseen but came from the very back with an early pitstop to almost reach the podium.

Sprint – After an extra formation lap for stalled cars, Maldonado took the lead from Zuber at the start with Chandhok 3rd. Di Grassi’s car wouldn’t move off the start but he eventually got going in 24th, but spun while setting fastest laps trying to catch the field. On the 3rd lap Petrov put a great move on Fillipi at Stowe, flying past him. Parente was making up lots of places. There was a long stint with no action until half distance when Razia tried to pass Clos for 13th but the cars collided, Razia retired on the spot and Clos had to pit for new tyres. A few laps later Fillipi seemed to lose pace completely, everyone started passing him. Drama at the end as Mortara’s engine blew and Clos spun into the middle of the track on the oil, causing a Safety Car with 3 laps to go, race over. Positions at the top remained unchanged as Maldonado won from Zuber and Chandhok.

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That’s all for now, I’ll be back soon with more racing I’ve been watching.