Month: April 2016

The MotoGP Championship just got more interesting as Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi found the ultimate pace to control the race from start to finish on a track that traditionally has favored Yamaha but Spanish riders as well. Jorge Lorenzo’s turf was no more his this time around after he could not match Rossi’s pace and lost almost 3 seconds riding at his best to try and catch the Italian from the start.  Honda’s Dani Pedrosa made a very good start to run fourth and for a few laps 3rd as he passed his team mate Marc Marquez finishing 4th in the end followed by the Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Viñales in the Suzukis. Marquez tried to put pressure on Lorenzo for second place but he too could not match the Yamaha and eventually ran a lonely race to finish 3rd which keeps him firm in the lead of the championship 17 points clear of Lorenzo in second.  Andrea Iannone finished 7th in his Ducati overcoming his poor qualifying that saw him start 11th while his team mate, Andrea Dovizioso fell victim of his bad luck again, when he had a technical issue and had to retire his bike….

Pol Espargaro, Eugene Laverty and Hector Barbera completed the top 10 as the pack heads to France for the Circuit of Le Mans race on May 8th, a circuit that Rossi is very familiar with and that could see him come closer to the lead if Lorenzo and Marquez aren’t able to respond.

Jorge Lorenzo confirmed what until two weeks ago was pure gossip in the Paddock, he will be going to Ducati in 2017. This will represent a unique opportunity for Ducati bringing a 3 time World Champion and one with such a smooth riding style that could match perfectly with the Italian machine.  That puts on the line the current two Ducati riders who have done such a splendid job reaching many podium finishes and fighting it all in different racetracks. Dovisiozo seems to have been completely unlucky these two last races after his 2nd place at Qatar when he was taken out by his team mate in Argentina and abandoned the race in Austin after Pedrosa lost control of his Honda and swept the Ducati out of contention too. Iannone on the other hand lost his front in Qatar and fell out of the race while challenging for 2nd place and made that critical mistake in Argentina after real fight with Rossi over the final lap. Circuit Of The Americas offered a better result for him reaching the podium in third place keeping his cool in another tire-chaotic race.

Yamaha certainly opens up a huge opportunity for another rider and that might just be rising Suzuki star, Maveick Viñales….

Marquez conquers his 4th in a row at COTA and heads the Championship standings towards European races. Here are the results:

Alex Rins on bike No. 40 won the race in the Moto2 category followed by No. 22 Sam Lowes and NO. 5 Johann Zarco. These are the results from the race:

First Place:  Romano FENATI (HONDA)

Second Place: Jorge NAVARRO (HONDA)

Third Place: Brad BINDER (KTM)

Repsol Honda Team dominated the Qualifying session at COTA with Marc Marquez pacing the opposition one more time.  America has been good to the Spaniard who is after his 4th win at the Austin Track and has dominated the practice sessions and set a pole time of 2’03.188 on the new Michelin rubber. In the practice sessions, Yamaha did not seem to have the pace to challenge Marquez, but a 2’03.257 was a solid response from Lorenzo who wants to reset his championship hopes after his fall in Argentina. Rossi qualified third with a 2’03.644 but looked really relaxed and pointed out that the tire choice to go the distance come race day will define the outcome of the race.  Riders have to select their tire compounds and this might turn out to be a disaster of mean the win for any of them.

Andrea Iannone from the Ducat Team was the only other rider to go below the 2’04 frontier with a 2’03.913 but the Italian does have a penalty of 3 places on the grid which will see him launch 7th behind his teammate who starts 6th with a 2’04.339. Maverick Viñales will start 4th in the Suzuki and Cal Crutchlow will start 5th with the LCR Honda.

Dani Pedrosa has not been able to match the pace of the front runners, he got a third place finish in Argentina after coming back from a terrible start when he was forced out at turn one by a Ducati and ended up in 15th spot, benefited in the end by the falls of Lorenzo, Viñales and both Ducatis. He will start in P8 a little over a second off the pace ahead of the 2nd Suzuki of Aleix Espargaro who moved from Qualification 1 to the lead group and managed to find better pace towards this second session.

Scott Redding, Bradley Smith and Loris Baz complete the top 12.

Marquez has done a fantastic job on the first day of racing at Circuit Of The Americas dominating both practice sessions. The first session he topped the times with a 2’04.953 followed by Lorenzo in the Yamaha with a time of 2’05.208 and Ducati’s Andrea Iannone with a 2’05.570. On the second practice Marquez managed reduce his previous time by .9 seconds to a 2’04.034, 7 tenths of a second clear of Iannone’s second fastest time of 2’04.740 and Maverick Viñales’ time of 2’04.895 in the Suzuki. Scott Redding showed great pace in the OCTO Pramac Yakhnich Ducati to finish fourth fastest ahead of the two Yamahas of Lorenzo an Rossi that were 9 tenths of a second off the pace of Marquez and less than 9 hundreds of a second apart from each other.

Conditions at the track were fantastic, the weather a bit cloudy at times but pretty consistent whatsoever, a great number of fans showed up for this event and a lot more are expected to show up tomorrow for qualifying day and for Sunday’s race.

Circuit Of The Americas is ready for action after today’s official press conference with Ducati’s Andrea Iannone, ASPAR Ducati’s Eugene Laverty, Yamaha’s Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, Honda’s Marc Marquez and new star Suzuki’s Maverick Viñales.  Coming from a very difficult weekend in Argentina, the rider’s expressed their appreciation to being at COTA ready to turn the page (like Iannone, Lorenzo and Viñales) and others with the aim of keeping up their momentum (like Laverty, Rossi and Marquez).

While Rossi just signed a deal with Yamaha for another 2 seasons (2017-2018), Lorenzo is being rumored to be bound Ducati next year, something that he did not want to make a comment on at the press conference. Ducati certainly seem to be improving a lot and Iannone was nothing but sorry about what happened in Argentina after he eliminated the chances of a double podium for the team. He described that having just passed Rossi he felt he needed to try and take a tighter line into the corner because Rossi could try to regain the position but he lost the front and unfortunately collected his team mate.  He was rather unlucky, he made a mistake just as Viñales and Lorenzo did, all falling victims of the damp lines that the track still had after the rain that hit the track some time before the race.

Iannone is an excellent rider, as well as Dovizioso and the Ducati has the potential and showed excellent pace last year, they may be on the brink of first win with the likes of Marquez and the Yamahas of Rossi and Lorenzo trying to get the best of the tires that Michelin will present tomorrow…