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MotoGP race report, Catalunya
Small success
(09/06/2008)
The circuit: Technically brilliant but boring.
The winner: Technically brilliant but boring.
The race: Technically brilliant but boring.
I told you to tape it.
After the Italian success last week in Italy the red meat loving Spanish were hoping to send their drugged bull smashing through the 'curious' Italian greasebags to gain victory at Catalunya and level the score.
But even before the very laziest ....... Spaniard could start his/her first siesta of the race day their bone-idle country was at a serious disadvantage with their golden hope and local loon Jorge Lorenzo ruled out of proceedings.
It all happened on Saturday in qualifying when an already injured Lorenzo hurled himself into the gravel to try to defy the odds and injure a still fully functional part of his body. He did, sort of, by knocking his golden noggin' against the earth's crust harder than gravediggers heart. Medics, many of whom weren't sleeping after a hard day sat around eating olives, rushed to the visibly shaken Spaniard. Reports suggest that Lorenzo's golden touch-down had caused him to believe he was back in the Chinese race and that silver was his favourite colour. It was that serious. And after a quick lay down and a 20 minute rest the rapid response medics rushed Lorenzo to the local hospital where doctors confirmed concussion and excessive milling.
There's a saying, it goes: “You can teach a fast rider to stop falling off but you can't teach a slow rider to be fast”. Who the hell started that saying? Some say it was Doohan - it certainly wouldn't have been Anthony West. No one really knows the exact origins but sadly every halfwit and his special-school dog are the first to start banding it around in these situations.
I personally hope someone has visited the agonising Lorenzo in his sick bed and said “hey Jorge, cheer up because you can teach a fast rider to stop falling off but not a slow one to go fast” and suffered a golden punch up their bracket.
We have a saying at MGPN, we say “you can teach a smart reader some made up facts but you can't teach a quarter-witted non-reader to stop being an utter .....” Catchy eh?
Physically tiny Dani Pedrosa was struggle to fill the hole in a drinking straw but it was down to him, and him alone, to fill the hole in the Spaniard's hearts that had been left as Lorenzo left. If he was only armed with his personality it would be like trying to plug the cosmos with a split lentil. But 'personality' is not Dani's strong point…in fact it's his weakest point falling even behind his ability sing medicinal lullabies to badgers. Thumbelina's strong point is the speed of his riding and today was 'his' day.
F1 fans aside not many people enjoy a flag-to-flag victory more than Dani Pedrosa. No unnecessary excitement or reason to feel the slightest exhilaration is the kind of victory that Thumbelina dreams of…or would if he dreamt of anything other than looking at sheets of grey paper..
And because today was his day that's exactly what we all got. He was, in short (as we say), brilliant. Thumbelina was in a league of his own today – a one 'man' league where adrenalin and moments of daringness are outlawed.
From the lights Thumbelina hit the front. By the end of the lap he'd comfortably bridged the pack. By the next lap half the crowd had dosed off and the other half were well on their way. It had been a long day for the Spaniards – many of them had been awake since 11am.
And so Dani won. He never, ever looked like he wouldn't.
There was however a race for second. It was easy to overlook Dani leading the race – but you could even overlook his bike as he, like the French in a conflict, was so not a part of the action at any time.
The battle for second started with a group of Stoner, Dovizioso, Edwards, De Puniet and farmhand Hayden. Predictable the pack lost it dead-wood. Hayden's rolls of blubber was too hard on his Michelins and he drifted away unnoticed from the pack like himself from MotoGP in 2010. Meanwhile Randy de Tumblet got the message from his pitboard that he'd been doing far too well for far too long and duly crashed out faster than Alain Prost could in the warm-up lap of a wet race.
As all this was happening the in-form yellow star Valentino Rossi was climbing his way up the field. One by one he picked his way towards Stoner who had stopped crying for two minutes to lead the race for Mamola's heart.
Up until this point Rossi, the smell-fest that he unfortunately is, had been using the superb power of the Yamaha to simply out-drag his opponents down the main-straight but this was never going to be the Casey case. And it wasn't. Instead Valentino passed Stoner around the 'twisty bits'…something that's often been said about him in anger.
The smug and newly revived Rossi brigade churped up. “Now we'll see 'our boy' do it” they confidently claimed smugly knowing that they had the backup claim of 'he would have won if he wouldn't have started so far back' if he didn't catch Pedrosa.
Amusingly though the yellow clad, car-owning Rossi fans were about to be smacked around the face by a 2ounze prime rump steak as Thumbelina simply continued to ride faster than everyone – including Rossi. Even if Valentino would have started 10 seconds ahead of Pedrosa he probably wouldn't have won today. It was a victory for the boring, small people – a bus driver's delight.
So with Rossi now in second and with less hope of catching Pedrosa than he would catching a tax-break was it all over? Thankfully not! Stoner wasn't beaten…although technically he actually was.
For once the tears had momentary dried up and Stoner was fired up. He was ready to race and the whinging Aussie stuck with Rossi as if he were carrying the 2009 Bridgestone contracts. Two thirds in, and much to the utter horror and confusion of the Rossi brigade, Stoner retook second from the Italian…but it wasn't to be.
Rossi has had lots of experience of making his rivals look small. Sete Gibernau physically lost over 20cm in the 2004 season alone and this time the crush was about to be put on Stoner. With two laps remaining Rossi made the re-re-pass on the sour faced Aussie and rode his little pesto-heart out. By the time the main straight had come around Rossi had gone and Stoner was beaten. That wiped the smile of Casey's face…
Andrea 'my bike's silver not white' Dovizioso finished a respectable fourth on the first of the Slow White Hondas (SWH) with the Tech 3 pairing of Edwards and Toseland finishing up next.
Losers
Us
Well at least all of us who thought the race might be worth watching.
Lifestock
In celebration of the mighty little one's victory many animals were inhumanly slaughtered – often using the power of gravity.
Lorenzo
Injured and dented the loonbag had the pleasure of seeing his hated rival Pedrosa claim all the glory that he so desperately wanted. He'd have cried if it didn't tarnish so much.
The usual crowd
Just check out the losers from the previous races – it was them lot again.
Also credited with the 'can you spare a penny for an poor ex-racer' begging line that's currently being adopted by Gobert
'Their boy' now that he's winning again as their last 'boy', Tiger Woods, isn't doing as well as they needed.
It wasn't Rossi's fault he'd started so far back. It was something else.
I love MotoGPnews
Small success
(09/06/2008)
The circuit: Technically brilliant but boring.
The winner: Technically brilliant but boring.
The race: Technically brilliant but boring.
I told you to tape it.
After the Italian success last week in Italy the red meat loving Spanish were hoping to send their drugged bull smashing through the 'curious' Italian greasebags to gain victory at Catalunya and level the score.
But even before the very laziest ....... Spaniard could start his/her first siesta of the race day their bone-idle country was at a serious disadvantage with their golden hope and local loon Jorge Lorenzo ruled out of proceedings.
It all happened on Saturday in qualifying when an already injured Lorenzo hurled himself into the gravel to try to defy the odds and injure a still fully functional part of his body. He did, sort of, by knocking his golden noggin' against the earth's crust harder than gravediggers heart. Medics, many of whom weren't sleeping after a hard day sat around eating olives, rushed to the visibly shaken Spaniard. Reports suggest that Lorenzo's golden touch-down had caused him to believe he was back in the Chinese race and that silver was his favourite colour. It was that serious. And after a quick lay down and a 20 minute rest the rapid response medics rushed Lorenzo to the local hospital where doctors confirmed concussion and excessive milling.
There's a saying, it goes: “You can teach a fast rider to stop falling off but you can't teach a slow rider to be fast”. Who the hell started that saying? Some say it was Doohan - it certainly wouldn't have been Anthony West. No one really knows the exact origins but sadly every halfwit and his special-school dog are the first to start banding it around in these situations.
I personally hope someone has visited the agonising Lorenzo in his sick bed and said “hey Jorge, cheer up because you can teach a fast rider to stop falling off but not a slow one to go fast” and suffered a golden punch up their bracket.
We have a saying at MGPN, we say “you can teach a smart reader some made up facts but you can't teach a quarter-witted non-reader to stop being an utter .....” Catchy eh?
Physically tiny Dani Pedrosa was struggle to fill the hole in a drinking straw but it was down to him, and him alone, to fill the hole in the Spaniard's hearts that had been left as Lorenzo left. If he was only armed with his personality it would be like trying to plug the cosmos with a split lentil. But 'personality' is not Dani's strong point…in fact it's his weakest point falling even behind his ability sing medicinal lullabies to badgers. Thumbelina's strong point is the speed of his riding and today was 'his' day.
F1 fans aside not many people enjoy a flag-to-flag victory more than Dani Pedrosa. No unnecessary excitement or reason to feel the slightest exhilaration is the kind of victory that Thumbelina dreams of…or would if he dreamt of anything other than looking at sheets of grey paper..
And because today was his day that's exactly what we all got. He was, in short (as we say), brilliant. Thumbelina was in a league of his own today – a one 'man' league where adrenalin and moments of daringness are outlawed.
From the lights Thumbelina hit the front. By the end of the lap he'd comfortably bridged the pack. By the next lap half the crowd had dosed off and the other half were well on their way. It had been a long day for the Spaniards – many of them had been awake since 11am.
And so Dani won. He never, ever looked like he wouldn't.
There was however a race for second. It was easy to overlook Dani leading the race – but you could even overlook his bike as he, like the French in a conflict, was so not a part of the action at any time.
The battle for second started with a group of Stoner, Dovizioso, Edwards, De Puniet and farmhand Hayden. Predictable the pack lost it dead-wood. Hayden's rolls of blubber was too hard on his Michelins and he drifted away unnoticed from the pack like himself from MotoGP in 2010. Meanwhile Randy de Tumblet got the message from his pitboard that he'd been doing far too well for far too long and duly crashed out faster than Alain Prost could in the warm-up lap of a wet race.
As all this was happening the in-form yellow star Valentino Rossi was climbing his way up the field. One by one he picked his way towards Stoner who had stopped crying for two minutes to lead the race for Mamola's heart.
Up until this point Rossi, the smell-fest that he unfortunately is, had been using the superb power of the Yamaha to simply out-drag his opponents down the main-straight but this was never going to be the Casey case. And it wasn't. Instead Valentino passed Stoner around the 'twisty bits'…something that's often been said about him in anger.
The smug and newly revived Rossi brigade churped up. “Now we'll see 'our boy' do it” they confidently claimed smugly knowing that they had the backup claim of 'he would have won if he wouldn't have started so far back' if he didn't catch Pedrosa.
Amusingly though the yellow clad, car-owning Rossi fans were about to be smacked around the face by a 2ounze prime rump steak as Thumbelina simply continued to ride faster than everyone – including Rossi. Even if Valentino would have started 10 seconds ahead of Pedrosa he probably wouldn't have won today. It was a victory for the boring, small people – a bus driver's delight.
So with Rossi now in second and with less hope of catching Pedrosa than he would catching a tax-break was it all over? Thankfully not! Stoner wasn't beaten…although technically he actually was.
For once the tears had momentary dried up and Stoner was fired up. He was ready to race and the whinging Aussie stuck with Rossi as if he were carrying the 2009 Bridgestone contracts. Two thirds in, and much to the utter horror and confusion of the Rossi brigade, Stoner retook second from the Italian…but it wasn't to be.
Rossi has had lots of experience of making his rivals look small. Sete Gibernau physically lost over 20cm in the 2004 season alone and this time the crush was about to be put on Stoner. With two laps remaining Rossi made the re-re-pass on the sour faced Aussie and rode his little pesto-heart out. By the time the main straight had come around Rossi had gone and Stoner was beaten. That wiped the smile of Casey's face…
Andrea 'my bike's silver not white' Dovizioso finished a respectable fourth on the first of the Slow White Hondas (SWH) with the Tech 3 pairing of Edwards and Toseland finishing up next.
Losers
Us
Well at least all of us who thought the race might be worth watching.
Lifestock
In celebration of the mighty little one's victory many animals were inhumanly slaughtered – often using the power of gravity.
Lorenzo
Injured and dented the loonbag had the pleasure of seeing his hated rival Pedrosa claim all the glory that he so desperately wanted. He'd have cried if it didn't tarnish so much.
The usual crowd
Just check out the losers from the previous races – it was them lot again.
Also credited with the 'can you spare a penny for an poor ex-racer' begging line that's currently being adopted by Gobert
'Their boy' now that he's winning again as their last 'boy', Tiger Woods, isn't doing as well as they needed.
It wasn't Rossi's fault he'd started so far back. It was something else.
I love MotoGPnews
