“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.” – Captain Jean-Luc Picard
Welcome back to another double-header edition of Dre’s Race Review! Given the unique time differences of the weekend, we’re going with MotoGP first, because let’s be frank, you’re not reading about Mexico at 2am on a Monday morning.
MotoGP touched down in Sepang for the final leg of its Aussie/Asian Flyaway tour, and with it, Marc Marquez effectively sealed his 10th World Championship by taking the win and his first Match Point for Qatar… which may or may not be happening in what could be a defining moment for the sport. Forgive me as I start another DRR about not the bikes directly, but shit needs to be addressed. Let’s talk about it.
Up The Workers?
There’s been a dark shadow hanging over Sepang this weekend, and I’m not just talking about the Sprint where the heavens opened at the end. There’s been heavy back-and-forth discussions about whether or not the sport races in Qatar next weekend on November 8th. Why? Well, there’s mumblings the United States are set to launch another offensive against Iran right around their mid-term elections on Tuesday. Both the US and UK have advised against travelling to the Middle East and there’s talk that other Middle Eastern countries, like Qatar, may get caught in the crossfire. The risk isn’t the event itself being targeted for attack, it’s the potential risk of airspace being closed as a side-effect of the war, and being stuck in the Middle East. If that happens, the Portuguese and Valencia GP’s aren’t happening.
Politically, regular readers know where I stand on this – I’d rather we not race in Qatar. It’s an country with horrendous human rights records, fresh off a World Cup were “workers” were unpaid, many died building their stadiums and you could face prison if you’re anything other than heterosexual. For MotoGP, it’s slightly more complicated. The series gets some of its biggest sanctioning fees from the state, as well as the Airways being a partner of the sport itself. Pulling the event means the MotoGP Group are liable for the bill and no-one wants to lose this very expensive game of “chicken”. This is alongside Qatar putting down a huge amount of money as an insurance policy and “assurances” towards the sport in case the worst happens.
In a genuine surprise, the riders have (largely) banded up as a near-unified front against the sport. Jack Miller himself admitted after the race he is heading back home to Toowoomba, and that 19 out of the 22 riders don’t want to race there due to safety concerns. They’ve written multiple letters and had meetings with Carlos Ezepelta of MSEG to express their concerns, including an evacuation plan and guarantees on safety. But the sport has bit back, upping the pressure. Both the riders and the IRTA (The team’s association) knows that missing a race risks sporting and financial penalties. The riders tried a final push on Friday via letter, but the sport threatened being removed for the rest of the season if they skipped Qatar without good reason.
And in the time it’s taken me to write this post race, Yamaha have officially withdrawn from the race, citing internal policy about flying to the Middle East in the current climate. MotoGP’s formally expressed their disappointment over the decision and said that penalties will be coming. Neil Morrison of the Paddock Pass Podcast has also confirmed that everyone else is still going as of Sunday night in Malaysia.
What do I think? As I said at the top of the piece. This is a defining moment for MotoGP. The sport has always had power struggles, between the series itself, its manufacturers who were at loggerheads until they signed their recent commercial agreement earlier in the year, and the riders themselves, who don’t really get a say in the matter. Forget all the bollocks chatting about missing press conferences or pre-race ceremonies, this is where you’d think the riders would draw their line in the sand.
But I knew deep down that was never going to happen. There’s too much at stake. You’d need all 22 riders in agreement that this was the right thing to do. I’m not naming them to shame them, but if you’re Marco Bezzecchi and even more so Ai Ogura, where missing a race means mathematical elimination from the Championship, are you prepared to boycott this race to take that stand? What if Marc Marquez withdrew and it was a golden chance to take up to 37 points off him? Still going home? For what it’s worth, Marquez is one of the 19 who doesn’t want to go, and is only landing in Qatar on Friday morning, the last possible moment. Pramac will be racing with their Moto2 team with Izan Guevara just 3.5 points behind Manuel Gonzalez in the World Championship. Understandable given the once in a lifetime opportunity.
Worth a mention too, that DAZN will be the only regional broadcaster in Qatar. Everyone else, including the UK’s TNT Sports, are covering the race from home.
And that saddens me. I want the riders to have a voice, I want them to have a union, unions are awesome. But it feels like years of the series sitting on its hands, and generally telling said riders to kick rocks has demotivated them to the point where they feel like it’s not worth bothering. And if racing in a possible warzone isn’t a big enough incentive to team up, what is?
But it also concerns me greatly that the series is fighting this hard to defend its position. A lot of people are just anti-war, period. Many more see not racing in the Middle East as a matter of common sense and safety. The empathetic thing for the series to do even if you insist the race goes ahead, is at least waive off any chance of sanctions if teams want to withdraw for more than understandable reasons.
Threatening the teams to take on the risk feels like a power grab in a series that has had many of them over the years. And with Liberty Media now in charge, a new chance to establish themselves as the Alpha Dog. But this begs the question, who is actually in charge? MotoGP, or the governing body at the FIM? The latter has largely stayed quiet on this issue, and the group alone doesn’t have the authority to sanction teams with sporting penalties. It feels more like union busting, than anything else.
To borrow a line from an old legend: “This Is The Races.” What happens next, remains to be seen. But it will be felt.
Killshot
As for the racing itself, a lot of the weekend was going to boil down to the wrist of Jorge Martin. After breaking it just six days earlier in Australia, he was declared fit to race. I know, that sounds crazy, but I’ll say what I always tell people – You can’t replicate the forces involved in riding a 320 horsepower, 225mph motorcycle in a Doctor’s office. It’s why Dr. Charte was watching the Aprilia garage like a hawk. Martin tried to race on it but it was clear he couldn’t manage more than a lap in a row without experiencing pain. He nearly lost it on his second flying lap in practice, and then stopped running for the day. On Saturday morning, it was clear he couldn’t continue, and he withdrew from the weekend, aiming to get fit for… *checks notes* Qatar. Funny that. Raul Fernandez also withdrew, experiencing continued pain from the two broken fingers he suffered in Mandalika.
If you felt the air get sucked out of the room, yeah, I hear you. That effectively ended this Championship. And Marc Marquez made it very clear he was going for all 37 points. His brother Alex beat him in qualifying by just under a tenth of a second to take pole position and he kept it through the early portion of the Sprint. But there was always going to be some degree of intrigue, sadly it for negative reasons because the track surface was sub-optimal. Sepang was due to resurface a large portion of their track, but because elements of that (The Bitumen) are made in the Middle East, they’ve been forced to delay it as a side-effect of the war (Again.) Also, F1 just raced on it a month ago, and likely didn’t help, with the series planning down the straights to try and mitigate the bumps. As a result, loose stones were being kicked up everywhere. Jack Miller said it was fucked, while Fabio di Giannantonio said he needed a chest protector to deal with it. Unideal.
One more twist – The White Flag comes out on Lap 2 of the Sprint due to spots of rain in the paddock. 60% chance of it going in and no-one on the grid was preparing for a wet race, as proven by Jack Miller, who wanted to gamble immediately for a wet bike… and the team wasn’t ready. Welp. Game over.
Alex Marquez then crashed from the lead going down at Turn 14, leaving Pedro Acosta at the front of the queue, with Marc Marquez and Ai Ogura fighting for second. Marquez got up to P2, but didn’t have an answer for Acosta at the front of the field, with Acosta taking the Sprint win, and Marco Bezzecchi passing Ogura on the final lap for third. And to make matters even wilder, the heavens opened mere seconds after they all crossed the finish line. If that Sprint was one lap longer, chaos would have ensued.
Sunday was a much more straightforward affair. Marc Marquez held the lead after his brother squared him up into Turn 1, and it was formation flying with the brothers ahead of Acosta, Bez and Ogura.
As the laps wore on, Marc was just starting to stretch his lead as Acosta finally found a way around Alex to take P2, but by then, the gap was north of a second, and Marc never let up in terms of pace. The gap became two, then three, and eventually four seconds as the race for the win settled down. It was Bezzecchi who came under late pressure from Ogura, who at one point lost a piece of his front aero as he left it too late to back out of a move on Bez at Turn 1. He eventually got through, with Bez making another error on the penultimate lap, running wide at Turn 14 to let KTM’s Enea Bastianini through. It’s Bezzecchi’s worst race result of the year in a race he actually finished, and with it, a Marquez double win in Qatar would be the 8-point gain he needs to eliminate Bez from title contention.
And it’s telling about how the reflective moods were in the garage. Ducati, jubilant. They know they have the riders title almost in the bag, and they’ve taken control of the manufacturers race as well, now leading by eight points. Aprilia, the moment Bez arrived in the garage, shoved the cameras out of the way. Massimo Rivola was livid at Ogura’s move, and vented his spleen to the media, saying that Marquez needed to worry more about team orders at home, a thinly veiled jab at Alex. Oooo, sassy. To me, it represents the petty act of a team who knows their goose is probably cooked. It’s going to be a long winter for Noale if their Winter post-mortem reveals only a team’s title to their name.
As for Marc, wow. Talk about an exclamation point to essentially bring it home. He’s now won 7 out of the 13 Grand Prix’ he’s entered since coming back. He’s been the leading Ducati in every single one of those GP weekends. Five of those seven wins have been double victories. He’s scored 75% of all the available points. When Martin was leading the standings at Germany, the half-way point in the season, he’d done so on 51%. This isn’t a comeback. It’s a beating. Qatar of all things, may also be a Marquez coronation for beating Valentino Rossi to 10 World Championships. Scary thought in a different sense.
The Verdict: 4/10 (Meh) – Not much to see here. I love Sepang as a track and every Motorsport series should race around it, but I’m counting the days until I don’t have to see these shitty bikes anymore. Too much downforce, too hard to follow, not enough action. See you in Qatar… probably?
