Marc Marquez now appears to be going for
all of the records, including Lorenzo's "highest highside":
While this crash was bad, it initially reminded me a lot of his crash in Thailand in 2019, it wasn't until I saw how far he was thrown into the air that I had to pause and make sure if that wasn't Pedrosa on that bike!
This race should have been stopped if Michelin brought **** tires, and everyone complained about the same thing on this track even Suzuki--I'm giving Mandalik the benefit of the doubt because during testing things were seemingly fine. The rainy race saved Michelin a ton of bad PR, because this should have required a thorough investigation. Dorna claims it is looking after riders safety after the strings of on track deaths, but it will allow for them to ride on what were seemingly dangerous tires well outside the specs they had during testing.
I'm not sure who to blame more, HRC for not telling him to not push on a green track with surface issues with tons kinks that weekend after the 3rd crash in qualy or Michelin for this ****** tire compound they brought. It was an off throttle high side, so the electronics and bad tires mixed with bad track conditions are more the culprit than him pushing on that lap, but still it was a one-off race with limited data where it was likely to rain. They kept repeating how grippy is was in the rain which makes it seem like they were told to repeat that line until the heat was off of them and they host the race next year in the largest motorcycle market in the World and hope that story sticks.
Again, I'm conflicted.
Either way, it goes without saying that I think Marc's riding style is what makes this sport so captivating in the GP class when he is healthy, he still is an a class of his own when he is: as seen in 2019. But at the same time it's not lost on me that his injuries are catching up to him. I still think of him as that rookie who at 20 set the World on fire winning the championship in the peak of the Alien era, or the 26 year old unstopable conquerer chasing down Rossi's record and making it seem inevitable and a foregone conclusion rather than impressive, but the truth is he will be 30 next year and with all the injuries, specifically brain related, he needs to have better risk-management tactics. Seeing red and pulling a Argentina or Jerez (ideally without the crash) worked when he was defying physics as much as he was beating records, and for the fans we all wanted it to continue but age and injuries catches up to everyone and cruel fate ensures that time waits for no man.
I might be wrong on the minutia but it must be something else to know that with Rossi's retirement if you added the entire grid's championships and race wins in GP, it probably doesn't even compare to Marc's first 2-3 seasons in GP class. I might be wrong, but he won just about everything in '13 and most of a lot of '14 in addition to the championships those years. He has a team that need him to succeed, no other rider will deliver the success he has and this year's HRC needs lots of work (perhaps more than any in recent History since they adapted for it other riders) now that the front end feel is off for him and he can't ride it like he could the other bikes. I was seriously shocked to see him drop a left hand turn this weekend.
Even if the vision thing is temporary he needs to be able to keep in mind what he said when the season began 'their are many races, but only one body.' The season is long, and now that the Yamaha seems inconsistent again no one has the bike to be a consistent threat even if he isn't fully healed. He proved that last year, he just needs to stay healthy enough to ride and score points without all of these gaps in his season.
Check the official 2023 MotoGP™ calendar, all the dates, circuits and countries from the MotoGP, Moto2, Moto3 and MotoE World Championships here.
www.motogp.com
So many countries, the logistics must be something else to behold.
Seriously, there are almost too many races; last season I was at wits end trying to find the time to keep up with them given the time difference and such.
I can't even imagine what it's like when dealing with the Supply Chain and Logistics of all the personnel, teams, equipment etc... which is why I think Moto-E is a fun spectacle, but it will never be the way to curb the carbon footprint in motorsports; whereas requiring the freight and all other vehicles to be EV and relying on X amount of renewable energy for continental races where possible: it may be hard if not impossible to not fly from Argentina to Texas if it were only done by truck using EV based vehicle transport.
That is where the glut of the carbon cutting should be done, the bikes really are a rounding error in that equation when you take all that into consideration. That's not even mentioning how DORNA could mandate that track renewal would be dependent on how much renewable each track creates and utilizes if they're really serious about this intitiatve.
And since most races are in the EU (and to a less extent TX which has some of the a largest wind-farms in N. America) it could be a way to get the developing World to start taking things seriously if they want to stay on the calendar. I'd love to see Qatar with all it's dirty oil money having to pour it right back into solar, batteries and other forms of renewabe fuels just to stay on the lineup.
I can't say I enjoyed the race without Marc, not to take anything from Olivera (or Risman?) but it wasn't enjoyable because this may be what ensures that this is the 3rd year in a row where another rider will win a championship without having to challenge an even remotely helathy Marc Marquez.
And that's a net negative for everyone who just enjoys the racing.
