Once the back-and-forthing of the first laps settled, Francesco Bagnaia (factory Ducati) led Jorge Martín (Pramac Ducati) by fractions of a second, but Bagnaia’s rear tire was moving around on corner exits. He said, “I’d lost the rear in the warmup lap, in the last corner. Then I lost the rear in the first lap in corner 13.”
On lap 4 Martín was past Bagnaia and a half-second clear. Another lap and Enea Bastianini was past as well. Bagnaia, though struggling, held position about three seconds back. Bastianini stayed within a fraction of a second of the leader, Martín. This surely illuminated a caution light in Martín’s head, because Bastianini’s tire conservation ability makes him a threat in the final laps.
On lap 15, Bagnaia’s ailing tire miraculously recovered. He said, “…the rear tire started to perform with 15 laps in, and [I] set the fastest lap of the race two times in a row.”
Bagnaia’s laps 15 and 16 were sensational, both in the high minute-30s. At no time in this race did any other rider break into the 30s!
There it is in race data: Bagnaia closing rapidly on the leaders. He’d had “some issues with the front locking since the start…
“I started to push, but without using too much, the front.
“I was braking 18 or 20 meters earlier than on my fastest lap and I lost the front.” The bike’s lean angle was only 23 degrees from the vertical.
He was down on lap 21 but bigger drama was saved for the last lap. Bastianini said, “…in the last lap I saw a bit of space and I went up the inside (of the leader, Martín). He had closed the line a lot and I braked more than my expectation.
“When you have the chance to win the race, you have to do it.”
Their lines intersected and contact occurred, Martín being lifted and pushed wide, nearly to the gravel. Bastianini, too, ran wide after the contact, onto the blue. They reached the finish five seconds apart, Bastianini first, Martín second, Marc Márquez third, 7.8 seconds back.
Many enjoy arguing over such events but Martín said, “I knew Enea was behind me for three or four laps already. I was confident. I came out well from turn 3 and closed the line so that he could not hold that line. He came in, I got the bike back up, and we even touched.
“I knew I had to finish the race (because of the 20 championship points for second place).”
The race stewards declined to investigate the incident.
Martín’s comment: “I don’t want to talk too much about the incident because it wouldn’t change anything.”
Here are the new championship points standings:
Martín 341
Bagnaia 317
Bastianini 282
Márquez 281
Binder 165
As several riders have noted, inaction by the race stewards sets a precedent for the future. Aleix Espargaró (factory Aprilia) said, “…I’m a little bit worried because the message they are sending to all the riders is that you can do whatever you want.”
Márquez said, “Bastianini did everything very well until he touched the blue, meaning he went over the curb and therefore (according to rule) off the track.”
The rule is that if you run off the track while making a pass, you forfeit one position.
Beyond this lie politics and office-racing, where my interest ceases.
Michelin’s MotoGP manager Piero Taramasso, speaking of the strange behavior of Bagnaia’s rear tire, said, “It’s not very usual to see a good performance at the beginning, then a ‘hole,’ and then good performance again.”
Márquez spoke years ago about the phenomenon of a tire becoming “hot and bouncy” in a race. As its temperature and pressure rise, its footprint becomes smaller, making spinning/locking more likely. If this is not stopped by “resting” the tire for a lap or two (riding more smoothly and less aggressively), a point of no return is reached and the rider crashes. But if the rider understands what’s happening and lightens up, the tire can return to its full performance. Could this be a way of thinking about Bagnaia’s tire?
Maybe not, for Bagnaia is familiar with resting a tire. He won a race this season by staying out of reach of pursuers by pushing for a lap, resting a lap, and so on.
Could there be a state in which, as the tire heats up after the race start, it could at first deliver quick laps, then fall into a kind of “teetering” on the edge of hot and bouncy? But then, without a program of deliberate tire resting, how could it recover so well that Bagnaia could lap quicker than anyone else in the race? As trackside personnel will tell you, reality can surprise the tire experts as often as it does the rest of us. Maybe there’s something wonderful to be learned here?
Big news from Yamaha is that it is testing prototype V-4s. Are V-4s somehow inherently faster than Yamaha’s inlines? Is Yamaha clinging to internal engineering traditions more precious than winning? They wouldn’t be the first to suffer from this organizational element!
Back in the late 1930s, great GP rivals Mercedes and Auto Union secretly built and tested each other’s hardware concepts to be sure they weren’t overlooking something. Honda and Yamaha did it in the 1990s: Yamaha secretly testing a “Honda Way” single-crank two-stroke V-4, and while Honda investigated a “Yamaha Way” twin-crank proto, one HRC bigwig vigorously denied its existence while another cheerfully confirmed it.
Factory Yamaha rider Fabio Quartararo found himself fifth on Sunday, two corners from the finish, but ran out of gas. He coasted to seventh. “I’m still super happy about how the race went. This is by far one of the best GPs we’ve had this year.” He rode a late version of the company’s inline-powered M1.
Márquez continues to caution those who anticipate his rapid return to MotoGP dominance. “I won two races, but with strange conditions. This weekend the grip was super good, and I was struggling more than [at the previous Misano] where it was warmer temperatures and the track was slower (race duration this time was considerably faster than two weeks ago) and I felt more comfortable. Yesterday, when I tried to restart from that base I crashed twice. That made me realize that I was not ready this weekend. I took a step back, finished the race in third, and then we will see in the next races.”
Large amounts of rider talent and equipment potential continue to mark time, largely without result. Where are Aprilia and KTM, episodically so promising? And the several riders who began their careers strongly, won a race or two, but then settled into downfield placings?
In one week the first of the five Asian GPs begins at Indonesia’s Mandalika circuit. After that comes Valencia, the season finale.