MotoGP: 2015 Round 07 - Catalunya (SPOILERS)

DAY	COND	HIGH	LOW	DESCRIPTION	PRECIP	WIND
FRI Jun 12		81°F	69°	Mostly Sunny	10%	SW 14 mph
SAT Jun 13		80°F	69°	AM Showers	40%	SE 11 mph
SUN Jun 14		81°F	69°	Mostly Sunny	20%	WSW 16 mph

• 2014 - Movistar Yamaha - 4th
• 2013 - Yamaha Factory - 1st
• 2012 - Yamaha Factory - 1st

• 2014 - Movistar Yamaha - 2nd
• 2013 - Yamaha Factory - 4th
• 2012 - Ducati Factory - 7th

• 2014 - Repsol Honda - 3rd
• 2013 - Repsol Honda - 2nd
• 2012 - Repsol Honda - 2nd

• 2014 - Repsol Honda - 1st
• 2013 - Repsol Honda - 3rd
• 2012 - N/A

levigarrett said:

I think MM wins this one.

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Willski said:

Was gonna say the same. It Marquez for me

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littlesparrows said:

is it just me, or is Jorge killin' it in press conferences? i actually laugh out loud from some of the .... he says. i don't remember him being like years before!

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Cal Crutchlow will brave the pain of his recently dislocated ankle during this weekend's Catalunya MotoGP.

Having already taken a heavy knock to the head and hand in warm-up, Crutchlow then suffered the dislocated right ankle in a fast fall after losing the front of his Honda with three laps to go at Mugello.

The Englishman was holding fifth place, ahead of satellite rival Bradley Smith at the time of the fall, which handed the Tech 3 rider a ten-point lead over Crutchlow for sixth in the championship standings.

“I had some treatment in Italy after the race with Christian, who used to be my therapist here, and he worked well with the laser to reduce the swelling on my ankle. But typical me, I didn't stop and I went straight out cycling and I've done 900km since the last race!” Crutchlow revealed.

“But if I sat and did nothing for an hour, I couldn't walk afterwards because my ankle would just seize-up because I've got blood on the joint. I don't want it drained out because I want to try and let my body heal naturally. That's why I've not been using painkillers and the swelling has gone down a lot because with the cycling the blood flow is moving out of the ankle and the joint.

“I can't twist my ankle in the ways that I need when I'm riding a MotoGP bike. I can move my foot up and down fine but I can't twist my ankle to the side and to use the rear brake will be difficult. But saying that adrenaline is the best drug in the world so I presume that I won't have a problem tomorrow.”

Turning to his injuries, Crutchlow added: “I've got no fractures but nearly all the ligaments in the ankle are broken. I won't have surgery this year because I promised Lucy that after having four surgeries last year that I wouldn't have another one done this year! I don't want the surgery anyway because I want my body to start healing more naturally. I know that when I'm 50 I won't be able to walk too well but that's part of racing a motorcycle. They will heal in the end. They will join back together.”

Crutchlow had passed a medical check after his Mugello warm-up fall, but admitted he suffered some after-effects from the knock to the head.

“I'm not stupid. I'm not one to take any risks, especially with other riders on track,” he said. “When I got up from the warm-up crash I was dizzy and my helmet was finished. But I felt ok. I never had any vision problems or headaches. I had my lunch and I felt fine, I went to the grid and I felt fine.

“Then in the warm-up lap I noticed that I couldn't see the other bikes too well. It felt like the same as the first lap of practice every weekend, where you feel sick like you are on a roller-coaster because you haven't ridden a bike at 200mph for two weeks. You feel sick or you feel an adrenaline rush.

“I felt like that for the first six laps of the race. If I had no-one in front of me I felt fine but when I had people around me I felt I couldn't ride with them because I couldn't really focus. But when I had no-one in front of me I was fine.”

However Crutchlow insists that didn't contribute to his fall in the race.

“I think that looking back it wasn't the wrong decision to have raced because it had nothing to do with my crash in the race. Was it safe enough for me to race? I've seen people race in a lot worse condition to me that shouldn't have been racing but as I've sad I wouldn't take the risk with other riders. I felt that I was OK, as long as someone wasn't too close in front of me, and at no point did I try to stay close to the rider in front. I was able to keep Bradley behind and there was a gap ahead. I honestly felt ok, but with hindsight after the race I didn't feel too good.”

All of which raises the question of whether the medical checks were sufficient. Crutchlow insists they were:

“The problem is that I felt ok when they were checking my head, my eyes, my reactions, everything. I think in our sport we are correct - they know when you have concussion. Mine maybe wasn't too much concussion. Sure I hit my head. But concussion can last for weeks and I didn't feel anything other than in the first six-seven laps of the race and these last two weeks I've felt fine. I certainly don't think it was the wrong decision to let me race.”

Turning to more technical matters, Crutchlow confirmed that finding rear grip is the top priority for all of the Honda riders.

“I feel that I'm riding quite well and within my limit but honestly I think that we need to improve as a whole with Honda,” he said. “We need to find rear grip. At the moment there isn't a quick fix for it so we have to ride and do the best with what we've got.

“If you asked me, honestly I think the bike is capable of winning but whether the riders are capable of beating Lorenzo at the moment is a different matter. But there's also other bikes capable of winning now too.

“We're lacking rear grip on entry and exit and for me it's worse on the corner exit but that all starts from corner entry. If you don't enter the corner well you don't exit it well either; it's the whole thing.”

Marc Marquez felt corner exit had been improved by using modified electronics at Mugello. Crutchlow revealed he will be giving the new mapping a full evaluation this weekend.

“I tried it for a lap and a half at Mugello and turned it off. We never had time to revise it properly because I had the swingarms to test back-to-back and also the maps. I said we'll try [the mapping] here and I believe that could help us. I hope so.”

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Marc Marquez has a new exhaust among other parts, which he refused to reveal, to test during the seventh round of the MotoGP season in Barcelona.

The reigning world champion finds himself 49 points behind championship leader Valentino Rossi after he dramatically fell out of the Italian Grand Prix.

HRC has, however, been hard at work as they attempt to find a solution for the RC213V's current woes that he has claimed stem from the character of the 2015 engine.

“Here Honda bring something that can maybe help,” he revealed. “They bring a different result and something new. We will try to work well. We have to see the weather because it can help us or not. Even like that on Monday we have a test and that will be important for us. [We have] One exhaust and then we have some ideas, some different things inside. We will keep for us the other things.

“This year we arrive here in a different situation. Even like that I feel motivated and confident. On Monday we did a test in Mugello, ok with the Michelin tyres, but already we try something that was already better. Here we have some ideas. I have confidence for the race and we will try to do our work like in Mugello. We need to improve but we will try to do a great weekend in front of our fans.”

After Mugello, Marquez stated it is hard to ride the current Honda in a consistent manner when on the limit, such is its engine character. Riding on its limit is something he intends to do at his home race, however.

“The limit is a thing that you feel. But OK, if you are riding on the limit and somebody is in front of you, you want to go faster. So sometimes you ride over the limit, and that is when you crash. We need now to try to find this limit a little bit later. Then we will be faster. But anyway, we are on the way to improve and to find that, and I think we are getting closer and closer.

“But like I said in Le Mans, we had a problem that is difficult to understand and to avoid from one race to another race, so we need time, and also it is difficult to improve this problem during the races. But now we are closer and I hope this race, but maybe the next one. As soon as possible, I am the first one who wants to come back and fight for the victory.”

Yamaha title leaders Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo both dismissed the suggestion that Marquez is out of the championship battle.

"Nothing! If I knew I wouldn't tell, but I don't know," said Lorenzo, when asked if he had any advice for Marquez, having overcome a relatively poor start to the season to win the last three races.

"Every situation is different. I hope he has a lot of problems during all the season! For us it is perfect like that!" Lorenzo joked. "But for sure they [Honda and Marquez] are gonna come. They are going to find a solution because Honda is a big factory and Marc is a splendid rider. So they will arrive for sure.

"When you riding in the best category, MotoGP, and you lack something. Don't feel comfortable with something. Everything becomes difficult. So you have to just keep everything together.

"It's very complicated for the ones that don't rider the bike. Difficult to understand. It is like a soccer player, one of the best in the world, but who doesn't score goals. Then one goal arrives and everything comes more easy than before. It is a similar thing.

"Now we are after six races and Marc is behind by 49 points. I was 50 points behind Marc in 2013 and in three or four races I was there, within three or four points. So everything can happen. Valentino with Nicky was 50 points in 2006, and in three races he recover everything. You just have to have one crash, two crashes, or one engine failure to lose all the points.

"It's obvious we have an advantage, our bike is working well, and for sure Marc cannot fail another time, or two more times. But for sure he can recover. It's still 12 races to the end, so it's a long championship still."

Rossi added: "It's true that 49 points are quite a lot, and nobody expect this problem at the start of the season for Marc. But we know it is very clear that if he fix the problem with the bike from tomorrow, he can recover, because he can win every Sunday. So all is open, he is not too far. So we have to stay concentrated and make the points."

Marquez himself stated: "Of course I believe, and this will be my mentality, to try to recover points until the end. But even like that, we must understand that 49 points are a lot, and also because the most important now is try to again take the feeling with the bike and be able to win the races. This is the first goal now. But of course 49 points are a lot, but it is not impossible."

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Valentino Rossi believes it is imperative that he and his Movistar Yamaha squad focus on their own issues rather than the pace and form of resurgent team-mate Jorge Lorenzo.

The nine-time world champion has pinpointed his Saturday form in particular as an area in drastic need of improvement. Although both of Rossi's 2015 victories have come from a third-row starting position, time lost in the early laps proved costly in Le Mans and Mugello.

The Italian will be hopeful of ending a qualifying run that boasts just two second row starts from six rounds in Barcelona, a track at which he has enjoyed six premier class wins.

Speaking at Catalunya on Thursday, Rossi said, “We are very worried,” when asked about Lorenzo's ominous run of results, stretching back to Jerez. “In the last races I did some good results because I always arrive on the podium but Jorge was very fast, especially from Jerez,” he continued. “He was able to recover a lot of points. What we need is to concentrate on ourselves and to improve the pace, the setting during the practice.

“It looks like we're always fast in the race but this year we suffer too much in the practice. We have to improve this. Mugello was a difficult weekend, even if I like the track. I was never strong enough. At the end I arrive on the podium in the race and it was a good result because I was never in the top three during the practice. In the race I did a bad start and lose some time in the beginning. It was a strange race because the pace was not fantastic, except Jorge.

The current championship leader by six points went on to explain the advantages in place to aid the Ducati and Suzuki entries are partly responsible for his underwhelming qualifying record in 2015.

“For me the practice is not fantastic. It's not very good for my style. The situation is the same for everybody so we have to do the maximum. A lot of time we have the Ducatis in front. This year they are very strong. With the soft tyre in the qualifying they are very difficult to beat. Also the Suzukis are fast. We have to start in the top five or six to make a good race. From the third row it's difficult, we need to improve this aspect.”

Looking back on a season in which he is yet to finish off the podium, Rossi has underlined the Spanish round in Jerez and his home round at Mugello as the least satisfying. Lorenzo's approach of starting the race in ideal shape is something he will try to replicate in Montmeló.

“For me I think that I'm not very happy about Jerez and Mugello this season. Because in Austin I finished third but I had a lot of problems with the front tyre so I cannot push. But in reality in Jerez and Mugello were the two weekends where Jorge made more difference compared to me. For example at Le Mans I struggled in the practice but the race was good.

“In the last races Jorge find always a good solution, good setting from the beginning and as able to concentrate more on improving his riding style and arrived for the race at the maximum, 100%. This is the way to do. We hope this time to be more competitive from the beginning, or closer. It is not important that we are first, but it is important to have good pace and a good feeling with the bike.

“Also we can't forget the Hondas and the Ducatis because it is true that our bike is very good this year, but I expect Marquez to come back very soon and also Pedrosa is very fast in Catalunya. The two Ducatis are also very strong.”

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