Winners
Italy
It was a great result for the thousands of greasy Italian who slid down the Tuscan trackside hills thanks to the superior low Coefficient of friction of spilt celebration olive oil gives.
First of all Italian Pecco Bagnaia won the race comfortably on an Italian bike. And there were two different Italian manufacturers on the podium and five Italian bikes in the top six places. It was a triumph for Italian machinery and went some way to helping repair the damage done by the dreadful Fiat Multipla.
But that’s not even all. The much loved legend Valentino Rossi may not have been racing this weekend but he was present – and both riders in his team finished in the top six.
Finally Uccio was back! The famed, fist pumping Italian hanger-on was back in Parc Ferme lording it up despite recently being diagnosed of having a blood type of ‘frying oil’. Undoubtably everyone around the circuit were delighted to see his landscape face back on the big screens.
What a weekend for the Italians. It surely couldn’t have gone any better than this…
Italy
Actually it could. And it did. A lot better.
For over two decades the Italians have turned up at Mugello to see one rider. Valentino Rossi. They loved him more than they loved their mothers and he loved them back. In the good old days Rossi was untouchable at Mugello winning year after year in front of an ever-increasing amount of Yellow t-shirts.
But as time moved on Rossi’s pace began to drop. With each year that passed the Italian superstar would be sucked closer to the rear giving the crowd potentially less to cheer about. Luckily the yellow army had an answer – the hatred of other riders.
Instead of cheering on their hero they found they could also boo the riders that were beating him. Lorenzo and Stoner were prime targets…up until the arrival of the Antichrist Marc Marquez.
The increasingly bitter Rossi fans really, really hated Marquez. More than you or I hate James Corden. They willed him to crash and booed him with all their strength when he didn’t.
2022 was the first year that Rossi wouldn’t be riding. So the sole reason now to come to the track was to wish bad fortune on Marc Marquez. What they really wanted was to see him crash. What they really, really wanted was to see him crash and get injured. What they got was even better…
Seconds into qualifying, on a drying track, Marquez the elder violently highsided his Honda. His bike was wrecked and burst into flames. Marc meanwhile was piled headfirst into the track and was lucky his eye didn’t fall out again. It was pretty grim viewing none the less.
The crash was enough for Marquez to announce he is struggling. His injured shoulder still doesn’t give enough movement which then hinders his riding and disco moves. So, on Saturday night, he announced to the media that straight after the race he is to be crated up and shipped over to America for his ‘last chance’ surgery. It’s a final attempt to put right what was put wrong whilst trying to put right the first injury. The recovery time for such surgery is expected to be around the six months mark…even longer than the time Morbidelli has off when he doesn’t like the bike he’s on.
So the fanatic Italians got better than they could have ever hoped: Marquez crashed, he’ll now miss the rest of the season so can’t win the title but raced at Mugello so they had full opportunity to still boo him.
Oh and also he only finished 10th.
Losers
Fabio Quartararararo
Once the pasta sheets had been peeled back the real star of Mugello was actually French. Fabio Quartararararo’s second place finish was nothing short of mind-boggling. His skill and tactics used to minimise the phenomenal speed of the thousands of Ducati’s made him the class of the field.
Yamaha had finally decided to do some work and came to Mugello with a few new aero parts to help aid Fabio’s desire to minimise the staggering speed deficit to the other manufacturers. But all the aero parts on the planet wouldn’t scratch the surface of Yamaha’s problems and would be like tying a limp noodle to a burning shoe.
For the race, Quartarararo ditched the new parts anyway deciding they weren’t very good. Just another 12 months to wait for Yamaha to bother doing anything else then?
And this is Fabio’s problem. If Yamaha had actually done what he requested and just delivered some extra horsepower the Frenchman would be now untouchable. He’s currently riding so brilliantly that he’s on another level compared to the rest of the field. But he’s hindered with a dog-slow bike.
For reference the next best Yamaha rider was Darryn Binder in 16th. Meanwhile Fab’s teammate Morbidelli was so far back he was still in Le Mans departure lounge waiting to board the aeroplane.
Suzuki
Ever since the Suzuki top noodles decided to pull the plug on their MotoGP team the team itself have done their best to finish it for them.
Just like the last race in Le Mans both Rins and Mir fell off – this time within a lap of each other. Mir, who doesn’t crash until he crashed last time, crashed again. Rins meanwhile fell off trying to pass Takagami. The Spaniard was furious with the outgoing-Jap claiming he’d on purposely been on the bit of the track he wanted to ride on and thus he had no choice but to fall off.
Pol Espargaro
With it being officially unofficially announced that Pol would be replaced at the evil Repsol Honda by Joan Mir next season it was down to the younger Asparagus brother to put himself in the shop window. He did that at Mugello by almost going through the trackside merchandise shop window as he crashed out of the race like a pile of disappointing yeast infections.
Tech 3 KTM
What misery for poor Herve Poncharal. Not only is he registered French but he now has two riders that have fallen out with the team and don’t want to ride anymore. And these two riders are on the worse version of the worst bike on the grid.
Time to call Yamaha back.