Winners
Marco Bezzzzecccchi
Marco, who’s surname can score you 648 points at Scrabble, was brilliant in the sprint race finishing second and coming within a Puig’s artificial hair’s width of snatching the victory.
But that was nothing compared to his main race. Come Sunday the 12-year-old Italian put on a show in the wet that was simply a class above his rivals.
Leading from the off no one had an answer to Bezzzzecccchi’s skill in the rain in what is only his second season in MotoGP. By the end of the day the VR46 rider found himself leading the championship.
However a word of warning: Should Marco’s performances continue this way then there’s every chance his team will do a ‘Bastianini’ on him – kicking him out so as not to overshadow the team’s favourite nepo-rider.
Brad Binder
No one knows if the KTM is a good bike or a heap of anal gland seepage. And Brad Binder certainly doesn’t help any of us work it out.
The KTM bikes were looking fairly poor throughout practice and qualifying. Brad qualified in a lowly 15th place on the grid – which would probably have been a lot lower if many MotoGP riders weren’t currently being fed through tubes.
But Binder’s a Sunday man (well Saturday now) we’re constantly told – which tends to mean a rider can only be bothered trying come the race. But who cares? Not KTM. Because from 15th on the grid the South African was about to prove you can win races and not be shit despite being called Bradley.
Binder charged to the front like he was tracking a giraffe and within a handful of laps was leading the race. From there he never let the lead slip despite a late charge from Bezzzzecccchi.
Franco Morbidelli
Poor Franky has been getting some strong and unfair criticism from other lesser MotoGP news outlets. They’ve stated how awful he’s been since returning from knackering his knee whilst worshipping the golden statue of Rossi. They also stated how he’s crumbled like a Chernobyl toe scab once he was promoted to the factory team. But not us. We’ve always championed our boy Morbidelli stating that form is temporary, class is permanent.
And, as we predicted, Franky, was back at the sharp end of both the sprint race and the main race just missing out on the podium both times.
But MGPN backed Morbidelli showed the world that the Yamaha is still a great bike – even if his flash-in-the-pan teammate Quartararararo lacks the Morbidelli-brilliance to perform on it.
Alex Marquez
5th in the sprint race and a podium in the main race has seen the marginally less hated Marquez brother jump to an impressive and slightly mind boggling fourth position in the championship. Watching on was his bed-bound brother Marc who was risking damaging his other wrist by frantically texting his lawyers to check for loopholes in his Repsol Kalex-Honda contract.
Not a winner, not a loser
Johann Zarco
Like losing a beige beret in a croissant factory Johann Zarco is a true French enigma. Is he good? Is he bad? Is he two thirds terrible one third brilliant? No one knows. But the loveable Frenchman once again finished on the second step of the podium after a predictable ‘slightly too late to win’ charge to the front. Another silver medal to add to his collection that would outdo Randy Mamola.
Losers
Brad Binder
After his frankly unbelievable sprint race win in the dry all eyes were on the wet weather specialist Brad Binder to pull off yet more heroics and send his army of online-supporters into a wild frenzy.
But instead he fell down on lap one like he’d been shot with his own poacher’s gun.
Repsol Kalex-Honda
It keeps getting comically worse for the factory Kalex team. The weekend started with last week’s Marc Marquez incident still raging leaving Kalex’s star rider now hated by all of Portugal along with the Italians. In fact Marc Marquez is now officially less popular than the twat who always claims he’s not seen a certain movie as he’s ‘read the book and it was much better’. And we all know how much we hate that guy.
At the Argentina round Marc was instead sat at home with a broken wrist or something whilst his team agitatedly tried to overturn his long-lap penalty ruling that was moved to Austin due to people shouting at Dorna on social media.
Luckily Kalex had their backup ex-world champion Joan Mir to keep the ship steady. Joan did this by falling off in the sprint race and then claiming he had a head injury for the main event to avoid having to ride the evil machine again.
All this means that Repsol Kalex are now 9th out of 11 in the team’s championship with their lawnmower engine supplier Honda last in the constructors.
How will it get worse for them in the next round? We don’t know, but we can’t wait to find out.
Pecco Bagnaia
After his tipsy incident in the Skoda Fabio in Ibiza Bagnaia changed his ethos and put an end to the pointless crashes into the gravel or roadside ditches. It was this new and improved mentality that saw him claw back 90 points in the championship to eventually win it.
His start to the season was impeccable (we respectfully refrained from using the ‘impeccoable’ pun there) winning both races in Portugal. The closest the Italian came to not ever winning was from Maverick Vinales – who realistically never once looked like stopping the impeccoable (damn) Bagnaia winning.
But in the land of the Bargie things went slightly old school. A steady performance for Pecco in the sprint race was understandable given the usual A&E antics that prevail.
But, whether it was the wet track, over-confidence or more shandy in his bloodstream, Bagnaia fell off in the main event whilst in a steady second position. The beard-shot Italian tried to recover out of the gravel trap but alas one of the quarter of a million sticky-out bits had broken off and lodged itself in the inner-gizzards of his Ducati lump.
All Pecco could do was walk back to the pits whilst looking for a kebab shop.
Us
Oh God. VR46’s success over the weekend only meant one thing – the fist pumping return of Uccio on our screens. The oversized block of retarded Italian geese fungi suddenly somehow thinks he’s VR46 Mooney’s team manager and is keen to parade his unwanted, landscape carcass onto our screens. Often whilst we’re trying to eat.
It’s like that rash that just won’t go away.