2024 Round 14: Gran Premio Pramac dell’Emilia-Romagna - Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli

After a long drought of one week, we are back in action!

Instead of sunny, beautiful Kazakhstan we return to the World Circuit Marco Simoncelli for an additional unplanned round.

Certainly this will be a dry race I would think? Checking the long range forecast, it appears Saturday and Sunday will be dry while sandwiched by rain. So perhaps this can change?

This will obviously be a Ducati Cup, but the question now is will the GP24's restore the pecking order or will Marc spoil the party again? I would think with the Misano testing, the 24's should be in a pretty good spot to dominate. But MM also did spend the test working on the 23, so I don't know what he is aiming at entirely. I would however love to see a battle between Marc, Pecco, and Jorge somehow. I do think Jorge is going to have a lot of pressure this weekend to try and recover from his poor choice of switching bikes last round. I don't know, this is usually when Pecco starts heating up, but at the same time, I feel either he or Jorge could throw this race away entirely.

Potential X Factor: Valentino running his mouth about 2015, yet again. We know MM derives motivation every time Valentino has negative things to say about him via the media. As I have said elsewhere, he never did know when to shut the .... up when it comes to MM. So I fully expect Marc to be chomping at the bit Sunday assuming he has no qualifying woes.

Anyway, the KTM's! Pedro and Brad should make a strong showing again. I think Pedro might take a step forward from the prior race here which would bode well for the GP.

Can Aprilia recover from their disastrous showing at the San Marino GP or are their woes going to continue? I could potentially see Aleix making a step forward but I suspect Mav will be a disaster yet again.

Does anyone know if there are wildcard entries for the weekend? A cursory glance yielded no results on my end. Perhaps Stefan Bradl again?

Let's ....... go!

After a full race weekend and a test at Misano, I am expecting a bit more from KTM and Yamaha. If MM can qualify in the first 2 rows then he will be a podium contender. Though I still think the smart money will be on a GP24.

I feel like running at the same track twice in a row will benefit Marc to help him find a good set up. I am also thinking Pedro could have a fantastic race.

My spider senses are telling me to look out for the Beast. I believe Frankie had a good test so who knows if he'll throw a spanner into the works.

JPSLotus said:

I do think Jorge is going to have a lot of pressure this weekend to try and recover from his poor choice of switching bikes last round.

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100% agree with this. Does he rise to the occasion or throw it away?

Jorge can't handle the pressure, it'll be a win for Pecco if it's a dry race, or MM if there's any rain.

I think that unless something unusual happens, then it'll be a battle between Bagnaia and Martin. But, last race shows that it takes very little 'unusual' to upend that.

It would be nice to see Acosta get some 'revenge', but most of the field will be wanting to improve results from last time out.

Double tripple races are coming next. No more waiting, action packed 6 of the 7 weekends. Hopefully it rains every race, so Marc wins more races.

Also the race on Sunday is at 13pm Utc, an hour earlier because of F1.

Let's hope the Grand Prix being sponsored by Pramac is a sign of good things to come.

I still don't see Marc launching a late-season championship bid so I'd love to see Jörg win it all.

JFM01 said:

Let's hope the Grand Prix being sponsored by Pramac is a sign of good things to come.

I still don't see Marc launching a late-season championship bid so I'd love to see Jörg win it all.

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I think Jorge can close out this championship. He still has speed. ..... up, but this season, pure consistent. Pecco is due a cluster .... race, drops points. Marc needs too much to go his way to contend. Bastianini is the man to take points away from contenders. Where the trio fall around him is where it's at.

Championship wise where we are;
Martin 312 points
Bagnaia 305 points, needs to average 1 more point than Martin per round
M Marquez 259 points, needs to average 7.5 more points than Martin per round
Bastainini 250 points, needs to average 8.5 more points than Martin per round
And of course you have to beat the other riders, not just Martin

I'll guess for world champion this year its;
Martin 45%
Bagnaia 40%
M Marquez 10%
Bastainini 5%
Martin and Bagnaia its about the DNF's, M Marquez needs both of them to trip up and Bastainini would need to find something that illudes him on top of Martin and Bagnaia tripping over each other

There are still 7 rounds to go, several of which will be low grip tracks, and a good chance that some of these could be rain races.

Hollywood said:

There are still 7 rounds to go, several of which will be low grip tracks, and a good chance that some of these could be rain races

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I cannot wait, bring it !!!

It seems that everyone is discussing 2015, not 2024, at the moment.

I don't have much to add. For both the sprint race and the feature race, I will predict podiums of Bagnaia, Martin, and Marquez. Potential spoilers will be Bastianini, Morbidelli, and Acosta. My predictions go to Martin and Bagnaia being first and second but in no particular order, and Marquez third. For this to happen, particularly in both races, it has to be that nothing unusual happens. The chance that something unusual will happen in at least one race is high, but I can't predict what will happen. Acosta may be in the positions 5-7 where a podium could be picked up if there are DNFs or other drama ahead of him.

I'll predict top ten finishes for FQ, after crashes or other drama in front of him, in both races. Honda riders will be arguing about the last point or two.

Just reading this, I realize that those predictions could have been the same for every race weeks until now. Excepting Morbidelli as a potential spoiler but I also think he will fight for top places. Martin has to reach the first row after qualifing session. Hope MM grabs at least 4th or 5th to put pressure on the kids early in the races.
Nevertheless, two weeks ago gp shows (again) the superiority of the GP24 and by far, let's hope the weather of track conditions could avoid this.
I think Martin and Pecco will not give us the show we want, it's been one and a half year we're waiting but we had nothing more than few seconds of battles (the word seems to strong to me to define but anyway...).

mtf20 said:

Just reading this, I realize that those predictions could have been the same for every race weeks until now. Excepting Morbidelli as a potential spoiler but I also think he will fight for top places. Martin has to reach the first row after qualifing session. Hope MM grabs at least 4th or 5th to put pressure on the kids early in the races.
Nevertheless, two weeks ago gp shows (again) the superiority of the GP24 and by far, let's hope the weather of track conditions could avoid this.
I think Martin and Pecco will not give us the show we want, it's been one and a half year we're waiting but we had nothing more than few seconds of battles (the word seems to strong to me to define but anyway...).

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Shows the strength of the GP24 + M Marquez. Not a lot of different to historical situations such as when we had 2 Honda riders + 2 Yamaha riders and it was rare for anyone else to get on the podium

AnnoyingTwit said:

It seems that everyone is discussing 2015, not 2024, at the moment.

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Funny - but that seems to be a "human nature" thing that features a lot on this forum, in that we're so frequently rhapsodizing about the past or hungrily looking forward to a future season where everything is going to come together for the best racing ever.

mikesbytes said:

Shows the strength of the GP24 + M Marquez. Not a lot of different to historical situations such as when we had 2 Honda riders + 2 Yamaha riders and it was rare for anyone else to get on the podium

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At these times, Yamaha and Honda always had the more talented riders so it was ok for me to see battles between the best machines. Now it's different because now there is a bike able to win a race without competition from others manufacturers bikes, whereas that the most talented riders of the grid aren't sitting on that GP24 (it's my opinion).

Keshav said:

Funny - but that seems to be a "human nature" thing that features a lot on this forum, in that we're so frequently rhapsodizing about the past or hungrily looking forward to a future season where everything is going to come together for the best racing ever.

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I'm not sure I would classify the discussion of Sepang 2015 as 'rhapsodising'. In fact, I might say it's the opposite

Malaysian Rhapsody?

Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?
Caught in a landslide, no escape from reality
Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see
I'm such a poor boy, I need all sympathy
Because I'm easy come, easy go
Little high, little low
Any way the wind blows doesn't really matter to me, to me

Rossi, just crashed a man
Put a foot against his head, kicked my leg, now he's dead
Mama, the 10th had just begun
But now I've gone and thrown it all away
Mama, ooh, didn't mean to make you cry
If I'm not back again this time tomorrow
Carry on, carry on as if nothing really matters
Too late, my 10th has gone
Sends shivers down my spine, body's aching all the time
Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go
Gotta leave you all behind and face the truth
Mama, ooh (any way the wind blows)
I don't wanna die
I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all

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Bagnaia was asked about the Rossi/Marquez feud in the press conference:

"Honestly, I'm out of this. I was not riding in MotoGP during those years and I want to remain outside of it because it's something that I don't care."

Props to him for not taking the bait.