Good brothers
Alex Marquez
Poor Ralf Schumarquez has had to live under the shadow of his big bad brother since he was knee high to an olive. The ‘slower learning, less impressive, more rubbish’ Marquez brother has until now been forced to eat the dropped donkey crumbs from under the table in the Marquez household. Alex’s face even looks like Marc’s face if it were bought from AliExpress.
But all that finally changed on Saturday when the younger Marquez brother took the sprint race victory in conditions usually suited to Marc.
Alex was also performing brilliantly in the main race until, suspiciously, his gear shift linkage fell off forcing him to retire. Was this surreptitiously loosened by Julià Marquez to avoid more tears on the car drive home? We’ll never know. But we do know this was a great weekend for the insignificant Marquez brother.
Aleix Asparagus
“Give an infinite amount of Bradley Smiths and infinite amount of races and eventually he’ll spawn a podium in Australia”
Loveable Aleix has been soldiering on in MotoGP on 2nd rate bikes for as long as anyone can be bothered remembering. This year it’s predicted that he’ll achieve the quarter of a million race starts quota providing Marc Marquez doesn’t somehow hospitalise him. With all these races it’s quite astonishing at first that the Spaniard had only won one race before this weekend…but then you remember how much of a nail the Aprilia used to be.
Thankfully Aleix doubled his win tally with a brilliantly calculated and daring race in unpredictable settings – also known as ‘crap British summer weather’.
So whether you support the underdog or you just didn’t want to see Bagnaia win another dull race Aleix’s Silverstone victory was well worth leaping off the sofa and accidentally landing on the dog’s tail for.
Pol Asparagus
(See footnote)
Unfunny MGPN jokes aside, it was great to see Pol back after his horrific, career threatening injuries he suffered in Argentina Portugal.
A great weekend for the family.
Bad brothers
Marc Marquez
This season Marc’s been looking less like ‘Marc Marquez’ at the same rate that Marc’s actually been ‘less of Marc Marquez’ thanks to bits falling off him. However Silverstone was a new low for the Spanish Antichrist begrudgingly delivering his worst performance in what is his worst season. Marquez never once, ever looked interested in racing. Sure, he was still much faster than Joan Mir, but in the scheme of relevant MotoGP riders he, like an Australian’s university degree, was nowhere to be found.
In the sprint race, won by his lesser brother, Marc finished somewhere down the order – far too low for me to remember or bother looking up.
In the main race he pottered around near the back then fell off. This continued Marc’s 100% record of completing 0% of the main races in 2023.
Luca Marini
Although not a bad weekend Marini (and his worryingly long neck) was once again overshadowed by his teammate Marco Bezzecchi. This means that once again history will repeat itself and Luca will be beaten by his teammate – thank goodness for his brother.
Darryn Binder
When it comes to home talent the rain-beaten UK doesn’t have much to shout about in MotoGP.
The weather continued to be so appalling that even the Just Stop Oil pillocks skipped the event deciding that a bit of ‘Global Boiling’ probably would help everyone on the tea-supping island.
In the opening Moto3 race the UK pinned its hopes on the 12 year old Scott Ogden who, sensationally, had qualified on the front row. All hopes were flushed down the Silverstone gutter though before the race even started as Scott stalled on the warmup lap forcing him to start from the back of the grid.
In MotoGP the UK has no full time rider – although rumours state that the cyborg Cal Crutches will be making a wildcard race in Japan to help clarify to Yamaha engineers that their bike is still shite.
So, after the Moto3 failure, all British hopes were on the passport-promoted Jake Dixon in the final Moto2 race of the day. Jake had won a race in Assen about 8 months ago when we last had an event so was brimming with confidence. But it wasn’t to be…
Alas the crowd hadn’t even had time to pass around the communal shepherd’s pie before poor Dixon was elbowed off and out by the downunder dolt Darryn Binder.
The fallen Englishman was absolutely furious and went on an epic rage – all of which was gloriously captured live on TV.
Meanwhile Binder, whose two rocks he has for brains have already started to chip, was given a long lap penalty for his riding and a stern telling off from the woman in the canteen for his terrible haircut.
Bonus content
Because at MGPN we rarely check stuff and have terrible memories we wrongly thought Pol crashed in Argentina. Hence we wrote the following paragraph before realising it was more redundant than Lizzo’s fruit salad voucher. However not wanting to waste a good insult here’s what we would have written if we’d have not noticed…
Nothing good ever comes from a visit to Argentina. A nation that’s probably still beefing about the death of their fat, drug abusing cheat Maradona will still find the time to rob you of all your belongings. And it’s not even warm. What’s the point of risking your life and wallet visiting South America if you’re not going to be able to enjoy the sun before the kidnapping?