It’s hard not to like Aleix Espargaro*. He’s a try-hard rider that is finally reaping the rewards of spending a quarter of his life trying to make the Aprilia not terrible. He could have probably won the race in Assen but instead was punted off by an overly-brave, yet overly-French passing manoeuvre.
But his fightback was far more entertaining than the rest of the race put together. Can anyone remember anything else that happened other than what Espargaro did?
The icing on the cake, however, was into the final chicane on the final lap where he overtook both Brad Binder and Jack Miller to steal 4th place.
It was unquestionably the highlight of the race…but how good was the pass?
Pass of the season (so far)
Aleix, having just overtaken Jorge Martin, started the final lap 0.7 seconds behind Brad Binder and Jack Miller. As we all know both Binder and Miller are absolute nut-jobs – asking either of them to ride sensibly on the final lap would be Like reading Shakespeare to a pigeon. So to pass either of them would be hard. To pass both of them would be very hard. But to pass them both at once would surely be impossible?
But not for a boiling hot Asparagus. As Brad outbraked Miller the South African was then witness to a big lump of black Aprilia then overtaking him.
Pass of the race
Without doubt the double overtake was a stunning move. After drugs and prostitution, it was the next most entertaining thing that happened that day in Holland.
But the pass itself was 90% achieved by Espargaro’s amazing corner speed from the corner before. Maybe it was Aleix speed through the Ramshoek that was the real star?
Just a pass
Aero has ruined any excitement in F1 for decades and sadly it’s now getting its grips into MotoGP making ‘classic races’ a thing of the past. These days in Formula 1 if there’s a single on-track overtake for the lead the race is instantly categorised as an ‘all-time classic’. It’s all about perspective.
So maybe because the excitement of MotoGP is slowly being eaten away by the F1-termites Aleix’s pass was actually ‘so-so’ and it just seemed spectacular in comparison?
Pass
It was nothing compared to the Carl Fogarty vs Francesco Chili clash which ended in Chili fighting Foggy afterwards in his pyjamas.
Worst Assen Pass
Now when it comes to the worst pass into the final chicane at Assen then we have to look no further than the right-wing, right-turning troubles of Colin Edwards back in 2006.
Up until that point the Texan Windbag had never won a MotoGP race and he looked like breaking that duck in Cloggland. He was aided by the fact many of the top riders were riding injured or not present due to the epic pile up the week before caused by Loris ‘now the safety commissioner’ Capirossi.
In the race Edwards led the way like he was leading a pro-Trump rally. His only rival was fellow yank Nicky Hayden. 2006 was a time when American GP racers actually existed.
With two laps to go farmhand-Hayden put a clumsy move on Edwards for the lead punting him off the track in the process. But Colin wasn’t beaten. He reeled Nicky back in, who in fairness had very little idea how to lead a race, and put a great move on his countryman into the final chicane on the final lap.
Job done. Right? Sadly for the Windbag not. Hayden braked too late and headed through the gravel (which these days would lead to a raft of subsequent long-lap penalties) which caused Edwards to brake too late too. Colin, who is an advocate for the rules, attempted to make the chicane without running off the track…
He failed. And fell on his arse with just metres to go. Nicky, meanwhile, trundled through the gravel and took the chequered flag.
* Unless you’re in that bitter demographic that still hates him for holding up Rossi in FP2 at San Marino in 2016.