Get to the main race, and I still can't work out if MM decided to sit behind AM just for sport, or if he had an issue. He didn't really say much after the race about it but it definitely looked like he let his brother past.
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Tyre pressure.
Effortless. Hand over the best bike on the grid to the best rider on a circuit that goes left - and this is what you get. Marc has been riding with such a significant handicap for so many years, (even last year you could see how much the GP23 was losing out to the 24), he's now cruising. Great rides from Agora, and yes, it must be tortuous for Martin to be watching knowing that he may have taken it to Pecco. I like Ai, and I like the Trackhouse team and loved the Gulf livery. Many tipped Roberts for the seat, but credit to Brivio who recognises Ogura's potential.
Yeah, in terms of the main race, my first thought on lap 7 when Marc looked at the rear was a defective tyre, but then when he sat in behind Alex, after all that we've seen last year, it was pretty apparent that the front had, for whatever reason, dipped below the legal threshold. I think you need to run 60% of the race at 1.8 bar (26psi), so knowing how much he had in reserve, he sat back and waited. The rule is harsh because we've had leaking rims before...but although I've been highly critical of it in the past, Michelin have set that level it for safety reasons. Riders had been running so low, there was a real threat of delamination, or worse still, the tyre separating from the rim. Every rider is looking to extract fine margins to gain an advantage, but why Ducati sailed so close to the wind today, knowing that Marc had the pace to be way out front, (I mean he could have on today by at least 16 seconds), is a mystery. In the heat of the draft behind his brother, I would speculate that the front returned to its correct pressure within a couple of laps. I think Pecco meanwhile was struggling with the soft front all weekend, which really, he had no option to run if he wanted to b competitive given that Marc's strategy was to put the hammer down from the first lap. I watched the race this morning and haven't read any of the post race analysis or looked at the official results since (largely because I don't accidentally want to risk spoilers having not watched Moto2 and Moto3 yet. I'll probably discover now that Marc failed to get the front pressure down, thought fuck it, and took his brother at the end and received a 16 second penalty anyway.
DiGi, the only other factory Ducati is clearly the test mule this year, (much like Hayden was for Pedrosa all those years ago at HRC), getting lumped with all those dubious parts to persevere with that didn't work in testing.
The Honda is a significant improvement, A softer engine may have sapped a bit of top end, but it's certainly giving the riders more feel and rideability. Shame about Mir's front ender. Pramac Yamaha may well outdo the factory effort this year.
Respectable first weekend for Aledeguer at Gresini.
Viñales and Bastianini are screwed.
My main fear is for KTM. I think Acosta will win at least a sprint this year, but he was saying in the close season that he needs to eliminate the mistakes that dogged his nonetheless impressive rookie season last year. Unforced error today. If he and Binder fail to get results, given the parlous finances right now, the factory could simply decide that MotoGp is a money pit and pull out altogether, which would be a great shame.
