Dre’s Race Review: MotoGP’s 2024 Australian Grand Prix

Still him.

Welcome back to another edition of Dre’s Race Review, and for me, it’s time for one of the blue ribbon events of the Motorsport calendar – The MotoGP Australian Grand Prix. And for 2024’s edition, we had rain on Friday, nonsense on Saturday, and one of the most freakish comebacks of the year on Sunday, as the island produced yet another thriller, and maybe one of the most statistically impressive drives of 2024. Let’s get into it.

Zero Days Since Last Nonsense

The weekend started damp. Very damp. Rain derailed Friday’s running, with the top flight down to just one timed practice session after free practice was completely rained out. It did lead to some fun pitlane shenanigans though, including Augusto Fernandez losing a game of UNO, Jack Miller eating a pie in his garage, and Loris Capirossi running Safety Car laps, only for Andrea Migno to give him a ride-through penalty via the pit board. Worth a search on social media.

The track was still damp but drying on Saturday morning after overnight rain. It was fully dry by the end of Q2, with Jorge Martin replicating his 2023 heroics by nearly matching his absurd 1:27.2 lap record. Marc Marquez scored just his fifth front-row start of the year in second place, with Maverick Vinales rounding off the front row.

The Sprint at the front was relatively straightforward, if still hair-raising. Marquez got a great start, but lost ground after his ride-height device wasn’t working properly into Turn 1, dropping him down to the midfield, and at the front, Jorge Martin took the lead and didn’t look back. Pecco Bagnaia’s pace wasn’t there and he eventually fell to fourth as Marquez cut through the field for second, and Enea Bastianini took that podium.

But the race will be remembered most for a terrifying penultimate lap crash between Marco Bezzecchi and Maverick Vinales. Vinales passes Bez, who’s struggling on his tyres late on. Mav sweeps across under braking for Doohan corner having already got his whole bike in front. Bez gets swept up by the aero rake and then loses control of his bike – ploughing into the back of Maverick’s bike at around 180 miles per hour. A scary crash, with even the debris of the broken bikes hitting Fabio Di Giannantonio from behind, and the mudguard hitting Trackhouse stand-in Lorenzo Savadori in the arm and making him go numb.

I’d have wrapped this section up by now, just one problem – Race Control deemed Bez wholly responsible for the incident, and hit him with a Long Lap Penalty for irresponsible riding. I was in shock. I’ve tried being sympathetic towards Freddie Spencer as lead steward but I’m sorry, this is a joke. This was the walking definition of a racing incident, with neither party in my opinion to blame. What makes it even more infuriating was reading the stewards report, and seeing that Spencer acknowledged that the aero of the bikes was a mitigating factor and then still hit Bez with a penalty because it was going to initially deem it as worthy of a Double Long Lap. Man. 

It’s a smack in the face of the intelligence of bike fans. It’s an admittance of guilt that you know the bikes are now more dangerous than ever in this era of racing and yet we’re using that as a weapon to punish riders who aren’t to blame. We’ve seen riders get swept under aero half a dozen times and yet this is still a punishment? Please. It’s shambolic. 

The Essence Of Marquez

Marc Marquez is something else. He finds new and exciting ways to add the drama to this goddamn sport. On Saturday, the ride-height device messes up. A couple of weeks ago in Indonesia, his bike detonated and it forced an entire brand to drop an upgrade. Today it was… a tear-off?

Yes, on the grid for the start, Marquez tears off a film from his visor, and it accidentally lands under the bike and Marc’s rear tyre. Marc doesn’t know this and when he starts the race, the bike slips on the tear-off and generates a huge amount of wheelspin. It’s Bagnaia’s recent starts on steroids. Marc is 13th by Turn 1 but due to his path being cleared by the Melbourne Loop, he’s seventh by the Miller hairpin, where he passes Enea Bastianini into sixth place. 

He then picks off Brad Binder as Bez takes his bullshit Long Lap Penalty, then Morbidelli to get into third. He struggles to deal with the GP24s of Martin and Bagnaia because the 24 version of the Duke is so powerful at the top end and passing out of the slipstream is very difficult, even by modern MotoGP standards. But Martin made a mistake at the Melbourne Loop to bunch the three of them together, Bagnaia tries a lunge knowing it might be his only chance at the win, but Martin opens the throttle at Miller corner and Marquez slides down the inside of Bagnaia for second. 

Then we got 12 laps of intense tension as Marquez is never more than three-tenths behind Martin, hassling the Championship leader and trying to make a move. Turn 1 is out of the question, Marquez just doesn’t have the power down the main straight. He’s incredible at the Melbourne Loop, Stoner corner and the final bend but can’t do anything with it. All while gapping Bagnaia behind by a good four-tenths a lap. 

Marquez pulls the pin with 4 laps to go, using the traction he gets out of the Miller hairpin to catch Martin on the exit and take the lead. Martin immediately countered with a sweep at Doohan, only for Marquez to take a late lunge into Miller again! It’s a block pass but with no contact and absolutely a fair pass. Marquez gets in front and stays there, even pulling out a second on Martin by race end. Game over. Marquez won his 62nd MotoGP top-class race and is now just two behind Angel Nieto on the all-time wins list. 

I was blown away. Marc Marquez hung with the fastest rider in the world right now and beat him in a straight dogfight. On last year’s bike. That just got downgraded due to its flywheel not working. After entering Lap 1 in 13th place. He broke the oldest lap record in bike racing during the race, a lap that would have been good enough for third on the grid with a 27.7. He clutched out two 28.0s on the final two laps to win it on 26-lap old tyres.

And then the killer stat drop from Dorna – This race was 51 seconds faster than last year’s race. FIFTY-ONE. There’s some mitigation here; Martin’s pace faded badly at the end of the race, it was on a Saturday in tricker conditions before a resurfacing for this year’s race. But Marquez did that on the same bike that Johann Zarco won with last year. At an average of 1.8 seconds a lap faster. It was an astonishing pace from Marquez that no one could live with, on a bike that we all know is roughly .3 a lap slower. 

Man, next year is going to be fun. 

The Lightning Round

(CW: Death) So at what point does it become a genuine concern that animals keep being harmed on the island? Because it IS kinda sad seeing Jack Miller kill a rabbit and a bird throughout the weekend…

Positives from Fabio Quartararo’s weekend? “We had enough fuel to finish the race”. Mhmm.

David Alonso continued his brilliance with another stunning ride in Moto3. Rode the hard tyre, stayed in range, got to the front and took off in the end as Holgado, Fernandez and Stefano Nepa beefed it out for second. Win #11 for Alonso this season, tying the record for wins in a lightweight class season dating back to 1997 and some kid called Valentino Rossi. Wonder what happened to him. Also, a shoutout to Alonso for recreating his celebration with the bandages. This kid is immense.

No Moto2 title celebration for Ai Ogura this time, but man we got a great fight between Aron Canet and Fermin Aldeguer for the win, even if I feel like Fermin’s pass on Canet for the win was a tad illegal. A dive at the final hairpin, front wheel on Canet’s knee and running him off the track. I’d argue it’s up there with Bastianini’s dive at Misano 2, but we know Spencer’s not touching that with a bargepole. PS: That’s Aron Canet’s EIGHTEENTH second-place finish in Moto2.

Congrats across the pond to Toprak Razgatioglu for his second World Superbike Championship. The man is a phenom and ran riot on the field this year. Yes, it sucks that Alvaro Bautista was nerfed via Scott Redding’s bitching about size mattering, but you can only beat who they put in front of you, and Superbikes made its bed when it decided that BoP was the way to govern the Championship. The fact that Toprak is just the third man in history to win the title for two different manufacturers says it all – It’s also BMW’s first-ever World Championship on two wheels, a remarkable achievement.

Lots of history made up and down the World Superbike paddock – Congrats to Ana Carrasco on becoming the first Women’s WCR Champion too, go watch the decider if you haven’t already, it’s a whopper! Shoutout to Adrian Huertas for winning the World Supersport title before he heads over to Moto2, and Aldi Satya Mahendra for becoming Indonesia’s first-ever biking World Champion by taking the Supersport 300 crown. (I miss covering World Superbikes, honestly, but time is a cruel mistress)

Dre’s Race Rating – 9/10 (Outstanding): Philip Island delivers, again. It just keeps coming back with drama, excitement and great racing again and again. And I massively enjoyed this one. It was intense, there was action, it peaked at the end, and the sheer performance of Martin and Marquez was astonishing to watch. Go watch this one, it’s another race-of-the-year candidate, like SS2 Goku and Majin Vegeta fighting each other in Dragonball. See you in Thailand.