What a race we has last time in Austria. It was if all the excitement from the Moto2 race was scooped up, stored and then generously sprinkled over every lap of the MotoGP event – giving us an unforgettable MotoGP race and, as ever, a forgettable Moto2 parade.
But let’s not be too harsh on Moto2. It could have been a lot worse as any poor soul witnessing last weekend’s World Superbike races would confirm.
Anyway, here’s Arjen with a recap:
So who’ll win this weekend? In a knee-jerk reaction we expect a lot of votes for Brad Binder. Interestingly, like every day since 1968, it will rain/drizzle in the UK…even if the Met Office’s servers are currently playing up and giving us this false prediction:
When it does rain then maybe Brad will once again shine like his teeth? But probably not.
So do you really need me list who the favourites are? Quartarararo and Ducati riders etc? Well I’m not going to.
One rider who not be winning or getting anywhere near the front is the stand-in replacement Jake Dixon who takes a turn on the Petronas SRT Yamaha (or whatever the hell it’s called).
SRT Yamaha have been extremely fortunate to have prised Jake out of their Moto2 team (at the expensive of his impressive championship push in 19th place) to give him a shot on the big bike. No doubt this is to evaluate his performance and decide whether the potential of a big sack of dirty cash dropped on their doorstep by Dorna for taking him on outweighs the embarrassment to their team and the sponsors.
Despite having no chance of ever winning we’re adding him to the poll so you can all vote for him and make a mockery of this already heavily mocked procedure.
How did you do last time?
With it being the second race at the Red Bull Ring in two weeks it was surely an easy task to predict the winner?
Your selected winner: Jack Miller (14%)
For some reason Jack, who has a questionable forehead slope, totally forgot he was at the same circuit as the week before. The Australian was off pace all weekend despite looking promising the week before. A real marsupial scratcher.
When the rain started to fall Miller did the famed Jenson Button ‘do an early switch of tyres and hope it pays off as I’ve no actual real speed’ tactic and, like 95% of Button’s efforts, it all went wrong and was forgotten about.
Actual winner: Brad Binder (0.6%)
Only one person thought Brad would win. To be fair at half distance it would have probably been the same…or less. So yet again you’ve failed to predict the winner!
Special mention: I think Vinales would have won this one (37%)
As randomly terrible as Maverick has been we also agree that he could have actually won this. Why? Well surely he was due a win after his frankly bizarre last few races? And nothing seems to fire up a rider more than falling out with your team – like Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso both did at Ducati.
Hopefully we’ll get to see him fall out with Aprilia sometime this season too.