The Marco Simoncelli MotoGP Thread

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 18 May 2013, 13:15

Qualifying results from La Sarthe: Marquez on pole, Lorenzo a fag paper behind him. Dovizioso in third (hooray!), leading a gaggle of riders all between 0.4 and 0.5 seconds of pole. Pedrosa dropped it and qualified 6th (I think), while Crutchlow had dropped the Tech3 bike in FP4 and ran a little bruised. Again. He qualified 4th. Rain never made its expected appearance.

Now, it's supposed to rain tomorrow. Dovi is wonderful in the rain, the Ducati is good in the rain. Are we about to see a special, surprise result?

RonDenisDeletraz · Post by **RonDenisDeletraz** » 19 May 2013, 08:41

CarlosFerreira wrote:Back to MotoGP... Soup's unearthed this naughty video of a certain J. Lorenzo, Esq. putting the hurt on Joan Olivé (remember him?) at the last turn in Jerez, when they were both on the Aprilia Cup, back when dinosaurs still roamed the Earth. Oh dear, have we seen that move somewhere?

I remember Olive, he kind of killed his career by not even scoring a single point in the first season of Moto2. Haven't heard anything of him since

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 19 May 2013, 11:44

Apparently it will be a wet MotoGP race in France. Scott Redding won in Moto2, his first victory.

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 19 May 2013, 12:03

Marquez just made Mark Webber look like a starting genius.

takagi_for_the_win · Post by **takagi_for_the_win** » 19 May 2013, 13:50

Have to say, Marquez rode an...exciting race

Fair play to Crutchlow, I believe that's his best result in MotoGP.

Alextrax52 · Post by **Alextrax52** » 19 May 2013, 14:24

ROTR: Yamaha Factory Racing: Lorenzo dropped quicker than the titanic and Rossi decked it when fighting with Hayden not to mention Honda showed them up again while Cruthlow's 2nd place for the satelite bike was just the icing on the cake

Moto2 ROTR has to be Pons racing for what was a shocking afternoon for them. Espergaro and Rabat crashing at the same time almost simultaneously was pure Reject Gold while Axel Pons did sod-all (again) Before crashing

Moto3 ROTR is the quality of the field because Salom Rins Vinales and Folger are so far ahead of everyone else it's unbelievable

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 19 May 2013, 14:43

Very good races all round. MotoGP started wet and dried out during the race, which seems to have not benefited the Yamahas. It's still not clear what happened to Lorenzo but he dropped liked a stone, and Rossi eventually committed a rare mistake and fell off trying to defend from Hayden. Yes, he really did.

Marquez had an interesting race. His first wet race start on a MotoGP was what you would expect (rubbish, to be honest), but he went on to recover, drop back again, and recover again to end up third. He was nowhere halfway through the race, and by the end was the fastest rider on the track. His pass on Dovi was decisive but fair, and to his credit he didn't waste it all with any last lap heroics to try and catch Crutchlow. A mature ride, I thought. Pedrosa was very good, winning from the front after a nice, clean fight with Dovi.

Crutchlow, riding with a broken something on one leg, finished second. He seems to go faster the more bruised he is. I imagine in two weeks time Hervé Poncharal will personally beat him up with a stick before the race starts.

The Ducatis were at their best, as is traditional in the wet in La Sarthe. Dovi eventually dropped to fourth after leading almost half the race and Hayden came fifth, a bit behind, remind me of the story of the tortoise and the hare. Pirro did really well and came in 8th, climbing up the order and beating Bradley Smith and Iannone, who was riding hurt. This, for me, is the real clincher: Pirro is doing a very good job of developing that bike, has made no mistakes so far in the two races he's done, and he is also proving handy. Shouldn't Ducati find space for him in the line-up right now? In a certain way, Pirro's performance has made Ben Spies the man under pressure.

In the CRT field Espargaro was the best again, de Puniet threw the bike on the floor again, and the rest were quite a bit behind again. Same old, same old.

My reject of the race goes to Bradl. It's not working for him, somehow. The limitations of last year remains apparent, but he seems to be overdriving to compensate. Could it be that Marquez's presence has changed the game and he's feeling the pressure? 3 falls out of 4 races is simply not good enough.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 19 May 2013, 14:50

Just a final thought: after today, Pedrosa has as many top class victories as Lorenzo and Wayne Rainey (24), one less than Kevin Schwantz. Rainey and Lorenzo are, of course, two-times world Champions, and Schwantz also won one rider's Championship. The next riders down the list of more races won with no Championships to their name are Max Biaggi and Randy Mamola, on 13 victories each - almost half of what Pedrosa has.

If Pedrosa does not pull it through this year, he seriously risks going down in history as the most successful loser of all time.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 20 May 2013, 12:52

CarlosFerreira wrote: I imagine in two weeks time Hervé Poncharal will personally beat him up with a stick before the race starts.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 21 May 2013, 19:27

Confirmed: Randy de Puniet off to Japan to crash the new Suzuki MotoGP prototype:

Randy de Puniet will test Suzuki's new MotoGP machine for the first time, at Motegi in Japan this week.

The Frenchman has long been linked as a test rider for the factory's planned 2014 return and, speaking to the official MotoGP website on Sunday at Le Mans, declared:

“We leave tomorrow to Japan to test with Suzuki at Motegi... That will be a good experience and I hope to do a great job.”

Soup is commenting that Davide Brivio will probably own/run/lord over the Suzuki MotoGP entry. It will be fascinating to see which CRT they'll be taking over.

F1000X · Post by **F1000X** » 22 May 2013, 09:18

CarlosFerreira wrote:Confirmed: Randy de Puniet off to Japan to crash the new Suzuki MotoGP prototype:

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 28 May 2013, 08:05

Honda has been testing its new production-racer machine, which will be offered to potential buyers as a new entrant to whatever may come to substitute the CRT class. This is not the Fireblade-on-acid that Pirro (last year) and Staring have been lugging around, but a full-blown racing bike.

As you can see from the photo, it has two wheels and is capable of moving under its own power.

Crash explains that it will have neither pneumatic valves or a seamless gearbox, but has no details on what the actual engine is.

I also don't understand what class will these babies be in: they cannot be under Claiming Rules (as Yamaha's assertion with regards to their engine lease plan confirms), so a new class is effectively being created. I am not against it, in principle, and if someone can pull this sort of stunt off, that's MotoGP. Let's see how this turns out.

Aerospeed · Post by **Aerospeed** » 28 May 2013, 11:58

So it's basically a customer MotoGP bike? That sounds like a good idea. Wonder if it can work in F1 as well.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 28 May 2013, 13:58

JeremyMcClean wrote:So it's basically a customer MotoGP bike? That sounds like a good idea. Wonder if it can work in F1 as well.

I think that's the idea. You should be able to pop into Honda and buy one of those babies for a bit more money than a CRT, but come out with a proper racing bike, something which would run rings around a SuperBike any day of the week. Could work if a) the spec isn't too far off what the big boys in the factory machines have and b) the electronics are up to scratch. The price of electronics should actually be coming down by now, and there will be a compulsory, ready-made suite by Magnetti-Marelli next year. All off the box, plug-and-play sort of thing. You buy them at the start, and crash at your leisure.

Yamaha, funny enough, seems to be more interested in the F1 model: they'll offer you a lower spec engine (maybe the transmission as well? Would make sense, I guess) and off you go to bolt it onto your custom-made chassis - think Suter, Kalex, ART, maybe even PBM. I see the resurgence of Bimota...

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 28 May 2013, 14:43

It's what MotoGP has needed all along. Decent bikes at cut down prices to allow smaller teams to go racing.

I have to say I like the idea of Yamaha's engine better, because that looks like a much better spec, and it gives the team the freedom to build their own chassis and customise it at will, potentially turning it into a good package. And that's what we need. We need a couple of teams to get in amongst the big boys under their own steam and shake the order up a bit. When it's a satellite bike the top brass take a walk down to their garage and tell them to be a bit slower next time. With an independent team with just an engine supply, I suspect it would be a bit different.

Plus it gets more chassis builders into the sport and that can only be a good thing!

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 31 May 2013, 19:26

AndreaModa wrote:It's what MotoGP has needed all along. Decent bikes at cut down prices to allow smaller teams to go racing.

I have to say I like the idea of Yamaha's engine better, because that looks like a much better spec, and it gives the team the freedom to build their own chassis and customise it at will, potentially turning it into a good package. And that's what we need. We need a couple of teams to get in amongst the big boys under their own steam and shake the order up a bit. When it's a satellite bike the top brass take a walk down to their garage and tell them to be a bit slower next time. With an independent team with just an engine supply, I suspect it would be a bit different.

Plus it gets more chassis builders into the sport and that can only be a good thing!

I definitely agree with this.

Meanwhile, the Circus is in Mugello. Marquez topped FP1 and Lorenzo FP2. The second session was apparently very interesting, with Lorenzo and Rossi pretenting it was 2008-2009 again.

Also in FP2, Marquez had A BIG ONE, losing the bike on the brakes into Turn 1. That's the fastest straight in the Championship, where riders routinely push 210mph. Into the wall the bike went (he apparently jumped off. At 180mph...). Bradley Smith also had a BIG highside, and currently is the proud owner of 9 fingers. Ouch.

Mugello is a killer. Unprotected walls in the place where the riders do 210mph? Have we forgotten Daijiro Kato already? I really hope nobody else gets hurt.

AndreaModa · Post by **AndreaModa** » 31 May 2013, 19:53

Remember Nakano's massive crash on the Mugello straight a few years back? That has to be one of the biggest crashes I've seen live on TV:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KVYCYUpQfE

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 31 May 2013, 20:26

I saw FP2 on the telly, and while Marquez' crash looked scary, we only really got to see the aftermath. There were never a replay showing how it started.

So Bradley lost a finger? They didn't mention his injuries during the broadcast. Poor guy :cry:

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 31 May 2013, 21:07

http://www.motorcyclenews.com/MCN/sport ... walk-away/

The 22-year-old landed heavily on his left side and he lost most of the skin off his left little finger when his hand got trapped underneath his Monster Yamaha Tech 3 YZR-M1 machine.

Smith suffered a small break in his left scaphoid bone and the little finger was so badly damaged that while he has been passed fit to ride tomorrow (Saturday), he will undergo a skin graft on Monday in San Marino.

go_Rubens · Post by **go_Rubens** » 31 May 2013, 21:15

When will Mugello get remodeled to be safer? God, this is sad, what happens here!

Smith lost a finger? I wouldn't have imagined... But it's better to lose a finger than a life. He's lucky that he came out of it like he did.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 31 May 2013, 23:18

CarlosFerreira wrote: Unprotected walls in the place where the riders do 210mph? Have we forgotten Daijiro Kato already? I really hope nobody else gets hurt.

I don't understand why Mugello is lacking so called 'safer barriers'.
And Katoh didn't crash into a concrete wall like the one Marquez almost flew into today. Katoh was thrown into one of those blue 'safer barriers' Suzuka had/has, as far as I remember.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 01 Jun 2013, 07:03

Jocke1 wrote:
CarlosFerreira wrote: Unprotected walls in the place where the riders do 210mph? Have we forgotten Daijiro Kato already? I really hope nobody else gets hurt.

I don't understand why Mugello is lacking so called 'safer barriers'.
And Katoh didn't crash into a concrete wall like the one Marquez almost flew into today. Katoh was thrown into one of those blue 'safer barriers' Suzuka had/has, as far as I remember.

The details are a bit hazy, and I certainly will not go looking for a video of Kato's crash, but I seem to remember that there were no SAFER barriers at the time. Daijiro's crash helmet actually broke on impact, if I remember correctly from a few online discussions I followed.

In any case, I agree that it is unacceptable that Mugello's walls are unprotected. Wasn't there an F1 driver ranting about it a few years ago, back when they still tested there?

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 01 Jun 2013, 08:20

Petrov?
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/99315

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 01 Jun 2013, 08:34

Jocke1 wrote:Petrov?
http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/99315

That's the one.

Meanwhile, in the infirmary news: Marquez has been diagnosed with a small fracture in his shoulder and seems to be suffering of a severe case of Jay Leno chin; and Spies has had to pull out of the weekend, as his shoulder is still not OK yet.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 01 Jun 2013, 08:44

On the subject of Mugello's unsafe concrete walls:

http://youtu.be/xzAfCPxsSRY

Incredible that he survived.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 01 Jun 2013, 08:57

Jocke1 wrote:On the subject of Mugello's unsafe concrete walls:

http://youtu.be/xzAfCPxsSRY

Incredible that he survived.

And here he is, still winning races in 2013. 17 years on, quite incredible.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 01 Jun 2013, 12:05

CarlosFerreira wrote: Meanwhile, in the infirmary news: Marquez has been diagnosed with a small fracture in his shoulder and seems to be suffering of a severe case of Jay Leno chin

http://video.eurosport.fr/moto/grand-pr ... ideo.shtml

Here is a view that lets you see what really happened.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 01 Jun 2013, 12:10

Jocke1 wrote:
CarlosFerreira wrote: Meanwhile, in the infirmary news: Marquez has been diagnosed with a small fracture in his shoulder and seems to be suffering of a severe case of Jay Leno chin

http://video.eurosport.fr/moto/grand-pr ... ideo.shtml

Here is a view that lets you see what really happened.

Watching the Qualifying session right now (Red Button) and they've been showing it. It's effing scary, and I really don't want to think what could have happened if he hadn't bailed out of it in the nick of time. He's back, but he looks a little less... exhuberant. You get the impression he'd settle for 5th tomorrow and go back home.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 01 Jun 2013, 12:26

CarlosFerreira wrote: He's back, but he looks a little less... exhuberant.

Still, he did a personal best for the weekend.

FP1
1 54.797
FP2
1 50.210
FP3
1 49.218
FP4
1 48.952
and
Q1
1 48.524

Smith also impresses.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 01 Jun 2013, 12:31

Jocke1 wrote:
CarlosFerreira wrote: He's back, but he looks a little less... exhuberant.

Still, he did a personal best for the weekend.

FP1
1 54.797
FP2
1 50.210
FP3
1 49.218
FP4
1 48.952
and
Q1
1 48.524

Smith also impresses.

Yeah, it's working for them. I think his time would make him 3rd/4th if made in FP3, so things are looking a little better.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 01 Jun 2013, 12:38

I really like Rossi's tortoise helmet.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 01 Jun 2013, 12:58

People! Go on catch-up and check the last 2 minutes of that qualifying session. It just pathetic - everyone improved in the last 20 seconds! Pedrosa smashes the record to make pole! Dovi qualifies the Big Duke 3rd! Even Bradl qualified 4th!

Also, Crutchlow. Crashes with 8 minutes to go, leaves the pits again 3 minutes to the end on the second bike, qualifies 4th. Herve Poncharal's face was a poem as Cal crossed the line. As I said, he'll be personally beating Crutchlow with a stick tomorrow before the race.

A final word for Pirro. Made it to Q2 directly, qualified 10th. He's doing a really great job on the Duke lab bike.

takagi_for_the_win · Post by **takagi_for_the_win** » 01 Jun 2013, 13:35

CarlosFerreira wrote:People! Go on catch-up and check the last 2 minutes of that qualifying session. It just pathetic - everyone improved in the last 20 seconds! Pedrosa smashes the record to make pole! Dovi qualifies the Big Duke 3rd! Even Bradl qualified 4th!

Also, Crutchlow. Crashes with 8 minutes to go, leaves the pits again 3 minutes to the end on the second bike, qualifies 4th. Herve Poncharal's face was a poem as Cal crossed the line. As I said, he'll be personally beating Crutchlow with a stick tomorrow before the race.

A final word for Pirro. Made it to Q2 directly, qualified 10th. He's doing a really great job on the Duke lab bike.

Isn't that 3 races in a row now where Crutchlow has crashed in qualy? He's making a habit out of that.

Post by **mario** » 01 Jun 2013, 13:38

CarlosFerreira wrote:
Jocke1 wrote:
CarlosFerreira wrote: Meanwhile, in the infirmary news: Marquez has been diagnosed with a small fracture in his shoulder and seems to be suffering of a severe case of Jay Leno chin

http://video.eurosport.fr/moto/grand-pr ... ideo.shtml

Here is a view that lets you see what really happened.

Watching the Qualifying session right now (Red Button) and they've been showing it. It's effing scary, and I really don't want to think what could have happened if he hadn't bailed out of it in the nick of time. He's back, but he looks a little less... exhuberant. You get the impression he'd settle for 5th tomorrow and go back home.

An accident of that magnitude would probably shake the confidence of anybody in the MotoGP field right now - he was extremely lucky to get away with relatively minor injuries considering how fast he was going when he came off the bike and how close to the wall he was.

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 01 Jun 2013, 20:32

takagi_for_the_win wrote:Isn't that 3 races in a row now where Crutchlow has crashed in qualy? He's making a habit out of that.

I think so. I hope he starts finding some other form of motivation. Seriously, for those watching the qualifying session, Poncharal's face was priceless.

mario wrote:An accident of that magnitude would probably shake the confidence of anybody in the MotoGP field right now - he was extremely lucky to get away with relatively minor injuries considering how fast he was going when he came off the bike and how close to the wall he was.

True. Marquez has form of big crashes, like the crash he had in Sepang a couple of years ago, which resulted in damage to his optic nerve - and probably cost him a first Moto2 title. MInd you, he'll still be shaken from that crash in Mugello.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 02 Jun 2013, 09:07

Marquez left the track at 337.9km/h (209.9mph), sustaining several heavy blows to his back and shoulders as well as injuring his chin while sliding along the damp grass verge en route to San Donato corner.

The first graph shows the time it took for Marquez’s airbag suit to deploy, with individual impacts markets with circles. Incredibly, it is quite possible that the 20-year-old’s body was subjected to gravitational forces greater than the highest recorded figure of 25G, as the suit’s accelerometers were completely maxed out.

The second graph demonstrates a zoomed in look at the initial moment of impact. With this information, we know that it took the Alpinestars suit just a quarter of one tenth of a second to detect that the rider was falling. This ensured the airbag had already been deployed for eight hundreds of a second by the time Marquez sustained his first hefty blow with the ground.

Several other impacts were recorded at intervals of 1.2 seconds, 1.9 seconds, 2.3 seconds and 3.0 seconds after the deployment of the airbag, with the overall duration of the high-speed shunt being officially clocked at 5.2 seconds. Marquez went on to qualify sixth fastest just 24 hours later.

roblo97 · Post by **roblo97** » 02 Jun 2013, 09:35

Brilliant moto3 race here at Mugello.

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 02 Jun 2013, 09:55

Yes, I'm just worried for Matteo Ferrari, he didn't get up after that last lap last corner crash. It looked like he got the bike over him?

Jocke1 · Post by **Jocke1** » 02 Jun 2013, 10:17

http://youtu.be/rQr8YkzEEWQ
Safety Sphere - Ultimate motorcycle airbag suit

CarlosFerreira · Post by **CarlosFerreira** » 02 Jun 2013, 11:04

Redding wins in Moto2! Masterful performance, that kind of ride that Champions often do. Now 43 points ahead in the championship. Very promising for him.