Welcome back to our One on One Smackdown, where we mangle the legacy of the ancient historian Plutarch to compare and contrast two MotoGP riders after each race. This time we put Aleix and Pol Asparagus under the microscope to find out which one of them is Will Smith’s ego, and which one is Will Smith’s reputation.
Termas de Rio Hondo
Named after a badly translated John Wayne movie title, the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit is situated in Argentina. This is an obscure South American country, believed to be situated somewhere to the west of the Falkland Islands. The race weekend was cut to only two days due to a late-arriving cargo plane, and luckily Argentina managed to last the full 48 hours without its economy collapsing (setting a new record).
Aleix versus Pol
The Asparagus brothers are both known for being pretty quick, always crashing when they’re on for a good result, then being massive crybabies about it afterwards. Aleix has had a longer winless streak, mostly by virtue of being older.
Team-mates
Aleix has had more team-mates than anyone can remember, most of them forgettable and not worth looking up on Wikipedia. He coped well with being teamed up with Bradley Smith, except the time that Bradders crashed into and injured him. After the doping ban for Andrea Iannone, Aleix must have thought that his days of sharing a garage with an escaped lunatic were over. However, he is now teamed with the certifiable Maverick Vinales. Aleix has nearly always been faster than his team-mates, except the 8 million times he’s fallen off and been overtaken as he trudged through the gravel trap.
Pol’s former team-mates all pale in comparison with his current team leader, Marc Marquez. The yellow-hating, one-armed, multiple-visioned multiple champion is a far more formidable opponent than anyone else in MotoGP right now. Or at least he would be if he still had double arms and single vision instead of the other way round.
Bikes
Aprilia have massively improved their bike this year. The main upgrade has been that they removed the old Cessna wing they’d been using for front downforce after realizing that MotoGP bikes are significantly faster than Cessnas. Casting around for ideas, their technical chief was watching an ice hockey match and was amazed at how the sticks fly through the air when the players discard them to start punching each other in the face. The new Aprilia front wing, shaped like a pair of ice hockey sticks, has made the RS-GP22 one of the best bikes on the grid.
The Honda bike is also vastly better and more rider-friendly than last year’s machine. Unfortunately, due to the lack of any comical wing shapes, we have no idea why this is the case.
The Race
After a serious lack of practise time, the grid was as random as a Marco Melandri results sheet. Aleix rode an almost flawless race, running a bit wide a couple of times but nothing serious. Winning his first ever MotoGP race after just 200 attempts, he was bawling his eyes out so hard that you would think he’d just saved a near-highside and landed nuts-first on the tank from about 4 feet up.
Pol had one of his trademark races. He showed a lot of promise before making a silly mistake, crashing, then being a stroppy tart about it and blaming the bike afterwards.
The Future
Aleix is in the form of his life, and the Aprilia really looks like a great bike this year. It wouldn’t be that surprising if he bags another win or two during this ridiculously long season. Pol, on the other hand, looks like having his usual year. We can expect the occasional podium and a lot of pretending to be happy when Marquez returns.