“MotoGP will be finished once Rossi leaves”, we were all warned a few years ago. Luckily France, a nation known for stepping back, has stepped forward and kicked that theory in the nuts.
At Le Mans so many grubby French-folk turned up to watch the racing that it was both a MotoGP attendance record and the most concentrated area of unwashed humans since the modern age of sanitation started in Europe in the 16th century.
Indeed such was the mass of the unfortunate odour, which was said to resemble ‘steaming, onion manure on a late summer evening,’ that locals said their pets were vomiting blood and paint was peeling off their Citroens.
But who cares? The good news is that we had some cracking racing. And nowhere more so than in the awesome crashes on show*. But which crash was your favourite? Read on and vote!
Vinales vs Pecco
A genuine racing accident saw series leader Pecco Bagnaia and series not-leader Maverick Vinales clash violently in the chicane and pile into the gravel. Thankfully both were fine but a furious Mav, who thought he had a chance of winning, was not taking the crash laying down.
Reasons to vote:
- You like a gravel trap punch-up
Back in the 80’s, when the internet wasn’t a thing but celebrity paedophilia was, a motorsport ruckus in the gravel was a delightfully common occurrence. Indeed most weekends the F1 Brazilian nutjob Nelson Piquet could be witnessed jumping out of his car and braying some poor soul who’d got in his way.
But alas those fine days have all but gone. Political correctness and social responsibility have ended the amusing antics of two fully grown men trying and failing to punch each other through the small gap in the helmet visor. However in France it came close with a furious Vinales aggressively pushing the beard of Pecco Bagnaia.
- You don’t want Bagnaia to run away with the championship
Let’s be honest here. Pecco has the best bike and is comfortably faster than the current crop of Ducati riders. Yes Marco Bezzecchi is putting in a great effort – but yet we all know deep in our hearts he’s not going to win the championship. Like how we knew Aprilia were going to fail to win.
So any incident like this that slows down the rot of boredom should be applauded
Alex Marquez vs Luca Marini
This nasty clash came when Luca ‘immune to penalties’ Marini slipped on a wet croissant and was forced to make an elbow scraping save…which he spectacularly did. However the 3 stone Italian was almost stationary by the end of the save which allowed Alex Marquez, who was probably trying to suss out when Luca was going to fall, ran into the back of him.
Reasons to vote:
- You’re South African
Being South African means you generally don’t have much to celebrate. Unless car-jacking, poaching and/or looting are your thing. So when someone like Brad Binder turns up the nation of annoyingly rude people goes mental.
The internet is literally stuffed to the gizzard with overly vocal Brad Binder fans – all yelling to the rafters that he’d be a 50 times world champion if he wasn’t riding such a heap of junk. So it would have come as quite the irritation when Alex Marquez did a ‘Brad Binder’ and punted Brad Binder wide on the opening lap effectively ruining his race.
It only works one way Alex.
- You’re a seasoned Rossi fan
Poor Alex hasn’t actually really done that much to antagonise Rossi or his fans. But facts and logic mean nothing in the blinkered yellow realm. The fact that Alex has the same surname and is the brother of the most hated living organism ever to crawl the planet is enough to want to see him fall off.
Marc Marquez
The return of Marc saw the return of Marc’s crashes. This time, however, he didn’t take anyone to the infirmary with him.
Reasons to vote:
- You’re a seasoned Rossi fan
Nothing is more satisfying and rewarding for a 46-clad fan than seeing Marc Marquez fall off. It means the generic flood of internet posts stating “Rossi was right when he said Marc needed banning” and “Marquez should retire as he a danger to everyone” can commence.
After another long lay off it looked like Marc was instantly back to form at Le Mans. This was obviously a worry…or it was right up to the point the Spaniard fell off again.
- You’re a Honda fanboy
It’s been a pretty embarrassing time for any Honda MotoGP fanboys who dare stick their head above their Civics. The once mighty-evil lawnmower corporation have finally given up scratching their noodles and admitted they have no idea how to build a chassis in any form of motorsport. In MotoGP this has meant the huge dishonour of outsourcing their chassis to Kalex.
With Marc riding the new chassis, and doing rather well, it was all set for more embarrassment until he fell off and the fanboys could breathe a sigh of relief.
Joan Mir
“The Mandela Effect is an observed phenomenon in which a large segment of the population misremembers a significant event or shares a memory of an event that did not actually occur.”
Apparently Joan Mir was once the MotoGP world champion. But can anyone actually remember this? Has anyone actually ever heard of this so-called ‘Joan Mir’. Of course not as he doesn’t exist.
Despite probably not existing Joan still found time to fall off again…somewhere unnoticed off camera.
Reasons to vote:
- You don’t like Joan Mir
Maybe you’re one of the four people who have actually heard of Mir. Maybe you went to school with someone that looked like him? Or maybe he reminds you of the bloke who once kicked your dog? For whatever reason if you think you know him (obviously you don’t actually) then you could potentially have a beef with him…or the person you think he is.
- You don’t like HRC
Unless you’re an insufferable fanboy then chances are you’ll not really like Honda. Coming over here showing up our BSA’s with their Japanese junk and stealing our beansprouts. Joan’s crash meant yet another DNF for the factory Repsol team and cements them to the bottom of the team’s championship.
Jack Miller
Throughout the years Miller has always had a knack of going great guns in the first third (often accompanied by Keith Huewen’s ecstatic shrieks), fading with tyre wear in the middle third, before falling off in the later third.
Since the introduction of the sprint race this has thrown a veggie sausage in the BBQ as the shortened format means often Miller hasn’t had time to fall off before the race ends.
Luckily this weekend he managed to fall off in both races perfectly fine.
Reasons to vote:
- You once got beaten up by an Ozzy bloke/woman
Could easily happen. Australians are noted throughout history as debating with their fists.
Alex Rins
Alex fell off. I can’t really remember how but chances are it was a lowside.
Reasons to vote:
- Something
This article’s already out of control and way too long. So make up your own reasons here – possibly based on his haircut.
* Please note, we never want to see crashes. Even when utterly awesome and/or involving Marc Marquez