Catalan Grand Prix - Barcelona-Catalunya

[René]

Only one week after the dramatic events at Mugello, the MotoGP circus has travelled to Spain for the next race. The racing goes on, always.

Fabio Quartararo has a strong lead in the championship after his convincing win in Italy. Zarco is now in second position but no win yet. C’mon Johann, you can do it, it’s about time!

Latest news: Alex Rins will not start after breaking the radius bone in his right arm during a training accident. Not a good season for him so far.

[chrisb]

have just caught up with the practice and it is looking very exciting, and competitive , I have gone for Maverick as he has his new chief and is raring to put a stop to some poor races, however, Fabio and Johan look the class of the field, Brad and Miguel also look good, as does Gianni so it is looking good,

The big rumour is an announcement from Rossi, if this happens this weekend I will be surprised, but you never know

[charleselan]

Surely Johann's time has come to get that first long overdue MotoGP win, great to see him top the time sheets this afternoon but only a fraction ahead of Frankie on the old Yamaha. Just tragic that he has to make do with an old bike when the other is being tooled around by someone who should bow out gracefully and start having some fun in his life rallying.

[charleselan]

To quote a well used phrase, Fabio "is on fire at the moment"; however Johann very nearly piped him during the very last seconds which yet again the flaming producers missed as they followed Vinales fruitless attempt. If Johann had not come across a much slower Brad Binder he may have taken pole, but a great effort none the less.

Yet more of this crass following other riders throughout to get a better lap time, and as in the previous weekend the BTSport team think it is funny and acceptable, someone really needs to give them adult advice on this. Yet these hypocrites slam the riders in the lower categories for doing it, and then say it is accepted in the premier class. I do not recall any of the top riders in past decades doing things like this on normal tracks, maybe on slipstream super fast circuits but not on these types of circuit.

[chrisb]

Vive La belle France!! what with Charles in F1 and Fab and Johan in MotoGP the French are taking over, excellent, what a qualifying race really, it was breathtaking at times,

in Moto2 we are seeing Remy and Raul stretch away and Sam a poor 8th and a great time by Bo, missed what happened to Jake, as at one stage he was right up there and if the injuries are healing his speed will get him a good result, just hope Sam finishes this week, still gutted from last week - what was truly astonishing was that Remy was just 4 seconds off MotoGP pole time, this to me reinforces the need for another category

Moto3 was its usual mixture and the pace setters mainly did it on their own, which the commentators banged on about ad finitum, however, when Marquez does it - well that is ok, after all we are Marquez's fan club presidents, I did think Jack handled it very well, in fact really put both Marquez, Esparago and Honda in their places, by extracting the rise Honda would not have seen the funny side of that - We know there are certain riders who do this a great deal, Aleix for one, my issue is that he doesn't hound or dog the footsteps of a victim, he doesn't try to intimidate them, like Marquez tries to, I am always reminded of how the likes of Stirling dominated psychologically his opponents, a far more subtle and successful way of doing it, listening to the commentators criticising Maverick for getting upset about Marquez's tactics misses the point in my mind, that is just bullying and maybe in the testosterone filled MotoGP paddock that is aceptable to the commentators but for me, bullying tactics shows a weakness and a vulnerability and should never ever be condoned, my word what a rant, apologies but heart-felt

[charleselan]

A very good MotoGP race indeed and just like in F1 a feel good podium, a splendid result. Before the race Neil Hodgson in the BTSport "box" was saying that it would be a Fabio walk over, no one was in the same league, fatal words to make Mr Hodgson.

From the very outset one could see that Miguel Oliveira was a not going to let go of Fabio, he was on a mission and had made a masterful choice in his tyre selection. It was a brilliant victory which also raised the question in commentary as to why Miguel had not had his contact with KTM extended after they had given Brad Binder a three year extension. However its as decided that maybe it was Miguel who had not yet agreed and that his stock is continuing to rise in the meantime. I rate Brad highly and he is a tough and brave racer but I have always had the feeling that Miguel is the better of the two, very bright too.

Coming back to the BTSport commentary they seem to spend far too much time gabbing on about total irrelevances and in so doing miss what is actually going on in the race. Chatting away like two old washer women Emmett and Hodgson missed the fact that Zarco was coming up fast after another slow start and the same with Vinales. I was not a huge fan of Keith Heuwen mainly down to his machine gun Londoner pronouncements, but he was miles better than Gavin Emmett whose real forte was in the paddock. I also find it soulless with them being in a studio at the London Post Office Tower, rather than at the race itself. This harks back to the good old days when the BBC used to have dear old Murray Walker "here at Monza" when he was in a studio in London.

Of course some of this is down to Covid restrictions, but if F1 can have live commentary at races then why not with MotoGP. IO see little point in having people telling me what is on screen that I can see for myself.

Back to the race and another superb ride by Johann, I have a sneaking feeling he might have won that first elusive MotoGP race had he not got mired behind Jack, not saying that Miller hadn't ridden well by the way as he had done a darn good job.

It appears that Fabio's somewhat brazen race suit which adopted a mind of its own has cost him a further there places and he was eventually dropped to sixth. It would have been better for him if he had slowed and tried to zip the thing back up, surely that would not have cost as many places as he eventually lost.

At the start everyone was going mad about Marquez but failed to realise that the pace was slow at that point and when it was upped he dropped like a stone and ended up yet again saying hello to the gravel. There was even some talk that if Honda carried on like this they would end up getting some dispensations that poor performing manufactures get in this series, Oh! the irony of that.