2023 SHARK Grand Prix de France

Interesting practice sessions.

Bagnaia seems to be following the pattern of the last race and is relatively slow on the first day. Perhaps he needs input from the other Ducati riders to set his bike up, he is obviously usually the fastest on race day.

If the KTM performance is not fool’s gold I expect Binder to win because he is better than Jack over the distance of a whole race, but I do wonder if Jack does offer something to his teams in terms of set-up/development etc, ostensibly the reason KTM hired him. They of course have Dani Pedrosa as well, still capable of finishing 6th in a motogp race despite being retired for several years. I do wonder if Honda and perhaps to an extent Ducati with their current arrogant management (historically pretty much always the case with Ducati) have missed the boat in regard to this aspect. I don’t include Gigi who I gather wanted Lorenzo for pretty much this reason.

Speaking of management i really wonder how Puig keeps his job given his tenure, which has included the sacking of Dani Pedrosa for reasons which quite closely resembled settling an old score, has been disastrous. Perhaps he is Repsol’s man.

I don’t think any of the Japanese teams are being managed with any convincing leadership. Makes me wonder if they’ll stay in this MotoGP thing. Seems strange to contemplate.

Equally strange is that I seem apathetic to the circus. Yeah I’ll glance at the timesheets for practice and qualifying. Maybe. Sometimes I’ll watch a race. I’ve watched one sprint so far.

I wonder if Puig is very closely aligned with Marquez and manages the team to suit him.
I have no insight or inside knowledge.
I am fan of MM, best rider I have watched afaic, but wouldn't be surprised if the reason Puig is still there is because he backs Marquez in everything. Marquez has done the job for Honda prior to his fractured humerus. He should hold a fair bit of sway within the team.
If Marquez goes it wouldn't be surprising to see Puig gone soon after.
Just speculation on my part.
I agree Pedrosa as a test rider would have had far more value than Puig as a team manager.

Bern1 said:

I don’t think any of the Japanese teams are being managed with any convincing leadership. Makes me wonder if they’ll stay in this MotoGP thing. Seems strange to contemplate.

Equally strange is that I seem apathetic to the circus. Yeah I’ll glance at the timesheets for practice and qualifying. Maybe. Sometimes I’ll watch a race. I’ve watched one sprint so far.

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I need a rider to support to be really interested, who since Hayden and Stoner have been Lorenzo then Marquez, no Marquez for the last 3 years has caused my interest to wane somewhat, although I still always watch unless it is at 3:00 am in the morning Sydney time. I like Jack Miller, partly for reasons of patriotism, but haven't ever seen him as a contender; I would be very happy if he proved me wrong on the KTM. I do like Binder. Oliveira and Rins and wouldn't mind seeing any of them contend.

Perhaps I have entered old fogeydom, but I really don't like the current direction of the bikes with the aerodynamics and ride height devices etc. I was a big fan of F1 when it was formula Cosworth, but the aerodynamics killed F1 for me, along with the obvious superiority of golden era 500 2 -stroke GP bike racing as a motorsport.

michaelm said:

I need a rider to support to be really interested, who since Hayden and Stoner have been Lorenzo then Marquez, no Marquez for the last 3 years has caused my interest to wane somewhat, although I still always watch unless it is at 3:00 am in the morning Sydney time. I like Jack Miller, partly for reasons of patriotism, but haven't ever seen him as a contender; I would be very happy if he proved me wrong on the KTM. I do like Binder. Oliveira and Rins and wouldn't mind seeing any of them contend.

Perhaps I have entered old fogeydom, but I really don't like the current direction of the bikes with the aerodynamics and ride height devices etc. I was a big fan of F1 when it was formula Cosworth, but the aerodynamics killed F1 for me, along with the obvious superiority of golden era 500 2 -stroke GP bike racing as a motorsport.

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Don't worry Pedro Acosta is coming to save the day next year.

I watched it. It was a hard overtake to be sure. But nothing untoward imo.

To his credit, I cannot ever remember Marquez complaining about anybody else passing him.

Getting tired of moaning and soft Italians. Maybe a VR46 academy thing. Trying to work the refs?

Seems like the Stewards have painted themselves into a corner of damned if they do, and damned if they don't. Personally I do not want to see mild contact on overtakes penalized. Marc made a hard pass on Pecco but I didn't think it was egregious.

Tomorrow's race should be interesting. I wouldn't mind seeing Martin winning again. I'm liking what the KTMs are doing but c'mon Jack. Keep the rubber side down.

Bern1 said:

I don’t think any of the Japanese teams are being managed with any convincing leadership. Makes me wonder if they’ll stay in this MotoGP thing. Seems strange to contemplate.

Equally strange is that I seem apathetic to the circus. Yeah I’ll glance at the timesheets for practice and qualifying. Maybe. Sometimes I’ll watch a race. I’ve watched one sprint so far.

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I’m with you on that account. I hate to say it, but - I have talked with guys who were who were for years super-obsessive fans and I found a lot of them just lost interest. People move to new cultures, start having kids, get serious about making art, want to spend more time at the pub.

mylexicon said:

MotoGP Sprint Race Results:

1. Jorge Martin - Pramac Ducati (GP23) - 19m 59.037s
2. Brad Binder - Red Bull KTM (RC16) - +1.840s
3. Francesco Bagnaia - Ducati Lenovo (GP23) - +2.632s
4. Luca Marini - Mooney VR46 Ducati (GP22) - +3.418s
5. Marc Marquez - Repsol Honda (RC213V) - +3.541s
6. Johann Zarco - Pramac Ducati (GP22) - +4.483s
7. Marco Bezzecchi - Mooney VR46 Ducati (GP22) - +5.224s
8. Aleix Espargaro - Aprilia Racing (RS-GP23) - +6.359s
9. Maverick Viñales - Aprilia Racing (RS-GP23) - +8.336s
10. Takaaki Nakagami - LCR Honda (RC213V) - +9.439s
11. Alex Rins - LCR Honda (RC213V) - +12.388s
12. Fabio Di Giannantonio - Gresini Ducati (GP22) - +14.125s
13. Franco Morbidelli - Monster Yamaha (YZR-M1) - +15.121s
14. Joan Mir - Repsol Honda (RC213V) - +15.383s
15. Alex Marquez - Gresini Ducati (GP22) - +15.591s
16. Danilo Petrucci - Ducati Lenovo (GP23) - +19.415s
17. Lorenzo Savadori - RNF Aprilia (RS-GP22) - +26.992s
18. Fabio Quartararo - Monster Yamaha (YZR-M1) - DNF
19. Jonas Folger - Tech3 GASGAS (RC16) - DNF
20. Augusto Fernandez - Tech3 GASGAS (RC16)* - DNF
21. Jack Miller - Red Bull KTM (RC16) - DNF


Well, it was a relatively calm affair compared to prior weeks, but still somewhat entertaining. Apparently, social media is buzzing with complaints regarding a Marquez overtake on Pecco. Didn't see anythiing too bad. Maybe I'm blind or maybe RNF's press team isn't letting Portimao go, and they are expending resources attacking Marquez with sock puppet accounts.

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I thought Bagnaia rode for Ducati and not for Rossi acolytes international, but a point made by one of them (not Bagnaia himself) was that the MM pass was similar to the Bagnaia pass on Miller the previous race after which Bagnaia was made to give back the place, not completely unreasonable imo. I would tend to the side of both not being penalised myself, and certainly their mentor made a career out of similar hard but not dangerous passes, although he too was wont to complain when the same tactic was employed against him.

I had hoped the era of off track campaigns against riders was over after the conclusion of the career of the perpetrator of that strategy, but he has perhaps trained up some some successors.

MM seems to have been prophetic about Aleix Espargaro perhaps being the next guy to make a mistake and have a big crash, not that I nor even he would have wished that on him.

I don’t defend MM’s early career approach to riding at all, but unless my memory is fading before the incident for which he incurred the penalty which he agreed he deserved for quite a number of years he has been much more of a risk to himself than to other riders, apart from his egregious affront to Rossi’s dignity/thwarting of Rossi’s manifest destiny in 2015, when the riding which was illegal, deserving of a penalty and potentially dangerous was not his. Whatever complaints can be levelled against MM do not include hypocrisy, I can’t recall him ever complaining about hard passes on him by other riders as has been said.
(EDIT To be fair to Bagnaia Crashnet reports him as saying that he talked to MM post race and that while he was annoyed at the time during the race he considered that he and MM should be able to race as they did. He also said to Crash that he considered the previous race incident with Miller to be in the same category).

I have never, ever seen Marc Marquez resort to theatrics or indeed even show any annoyance at all when passed hard or beaten in a race. This is how you keep the upper hand…….assuming you have it to begin with.

100% Prosecco Bagladys fault. Not a racing incident. He gave Mavrick no place to go. Nothing better than a little kitty litter shuffle,

Bit of an anticlimatic finish after so much action. Marc with a great ride, it pains me to see him crash when he had the podium in his hands. Stewards with another howler in how they handled Binder's ""shortcut"". Bagnaia should've anticipated better his clash with Mav, but although I think the Italian was at fault, I wouldn't sanction either. Unfortunate what happened with Marini and A. Márquez, at least they avoided tragedy. 4 independent riders occupying the top 4, Augusto was amazing on that KTM.

Bezzechi rode well and deserved the win. Clearly the fastest out there.
Marquez rode well until he fell off but was holding up Martin.
Over the limit on that Honda.
No chance of a championship on that.
Pecco was a bit ambitious on that attempt to get back past Mav.
They were both pissed.

Might watch the sprint before hitting the sack.

Marvelous Marco. Happy 4 Jorge. Zimply zee best Frenchy. Fantastic Fernandez. Alright Aleix. Shoulda been better BB. .... Fabio, flimsy 4 iL.

Bashing bikes all over the place. Fascinated to see what the stewards will, or won't, come up with.