Winners
Johann Zarco
The Frenchman finally won a MotoGP race – just like we said he eventually would! However not every news outlet was as confident or correct as we were. Here’s some of the things they wrongly stated:
- Zarco will finish in second place more than his country’s army has.
- Zarco, like France, lacks the fighting spirit needed to succeed at the highest level.
- Zarco has the teeth of a previously undiscovered deep sea fish
But not us. We always knew the Frenchman, who’s built like a depressed toilet brush, would one day stand on the top step of the podium and we certainly haven’t just binned an article titled “Why Zarco is too rubbish and too French to win a race”…so don’t think that.
In the end everyone, with the possible exception of his teammate, was happy to see him win the race in Australia. And we got the famous backflip – something we’ve waited so long for that there was a very real risk of him breaking his hip on landing.
Fabio Di Giannantonio
Apparently DiGi made some radical set up changes a few weeks back that has seen his results switch from being average to being a podium threat. The ‘set up’ change was probably the Italian ‘riding his arse off to stay in MotoGP’ as it coincidentally aligned with the news that Ducati was kicking him out of the fold for his performances or for not having a famous half-brother.
But it worked. Fabio turned his season around and at Phillip Island scored his first MotoGP podium in brilliant style. Furthermore he finished the race a mere 0.4 seconds from the leader. Could Giannantonio do a ‘Zarco’ and win a race this year after everyone wrote him off? (Except us of course)
Seagulls
One of the best aspects of the race at Phillip Island is seeing a few pesky seagulls cop a bike up their egg-chute. With even more emphasis on aero it was hoped by ornithologists around the world that MotoGP bikes would cause more Seagulls to become enveloped in a deadly vortex leading to getting their beaks entangled in the complex aerodynamic sticky-out-bits.
But sadly the weather was far too boisterous for even these annoying thieving bastards. And alas this meant we witnessed zero of them suffer the amusing humiliation of being run over in a glorious pile of feathers.
Pecco Bagnaia
With one lap to go it looked like the beard-inflicted Italian was to surrender more points to his championship rival Jorge Martin.
By the finish, though, he’d extended his championship points lead to over a race victory.
Not winners, not losers
Primark Ducati
Was this a good or bad result? No one is quite sure.
Losers
Sunday
Back in the 80’s the pop group ‘the Bangles’ (known for having one attractive member and three ‘so-so’s) told us that they hated manic Mondays and that Sunday was their fun day. This was of course a lie. Sunday’s are, more often than not, awful. The DIY tasks you’ve been putting off need doing, the pubs have shorter hours and the impeding doom of work the next day ruins everything.
But at least we have MotoGP…although this season that’s often been a curse in itself. And even if MotoGP is dull we have some distraction from the imminent horrors of life.
Alas Sunday’s racing was cut short. We had one Moto3 race, half a Moto2 race and bugger all else. Even fitting a wonky shelf would be more fun. So pipe down Susanna Hoffs.
Australia
Life is generally good down under. Most days are spent driving utes whilst drunk, having barbeques whilst drunk and restricting the rights of the Aboriginals…possibly whilst drunk.
But it’s not all drinking and domestic violence, sometimes the uneducated surfers have bad days too – and Sunday was one of them. Any poor spectator that bought a ticket for Sunday was informed on the Friday that they’d only get to see the sprint race due to weather concerns. Come Sunday and the Moto2 race was cut short and the sprint race was cancelled. The poor race fans suffered all this in freezing conditions with buckets of rain being hurled on their mullets.
So it was a bad day for Bruce and his mates. Time to head off home in their soaking wet double denim outfits to their nearby town…which was probably a 52-hour drive or something.
Jorge Martin
The Martinator was fastest all weekend and looked set to cast aside his banana-skin moment of last weekend. So confident was the Primark Ducati rider that he lined up on pole position on the soft tyres – unlike all his rivals that had gone for the medium.
If he won he’d not only look like the fastest rider but also a great strategist – like Kurtis Roberts in reverse. But if he lost he’d look like an overly confident chump.
Sadly for him and the championship he lost. On the last lap.
Commentators
It’s worth remembering that commentators never have our best interests at heart. And this was never more apparent than at Phillip Island on Sunday.
As the Moto3 race began in streaming rain there was an even bigger stream of unwanted righteous comments been delivered to us. “This needs to be stopped” and “if the rain keeps coming they should declare this race” we were told. Then when the Moto2 race was red-flagged halfway through the commentators informed us that “it was the right thing to do”. Worse still cancelling the MotoGP sprint race was “the correct decision” and “the only option that makes sense”.
No! Piss off! That’s not the correct decision at all. Cancelling something that we want to watch is a terrible decision.
So why did the commentators spend so much time and effort preaching to us that they should cancel the racing?
Firstly to virtuous signal. In a crazy world where we can’t you can’t call mothers women yet men in wigs can enter female changing rooms it’s more important than ever to only express views that make yourself look good rather than what you believe. Saying something wrong will have you excluded from the inclusion mob.
For example if there’s a fight in the crowd at a televised football match is it a bad thing? No of course not. It’s awesome entertainment – zoom in and let’s all follow the fun. But the commentators must tow the line and state that “it’s what no one wants to see.” Wrong. Us, and you, are loving it.
And so at Phillip Island the commentators donned their ‘self-righteous’ caps and pretended that they were concerned about the safety of the race…and banged on about it all afternoon.
Secondly they did this to skive work. Remember that a cancelled race means an early finish and less ‘work’ for them to do. Now most of us would happily stamp on the adorable heads of orphan bunnies to get such a chance…but these guys like to inform us that talking whilst watching every MotoGP race free of charge is somehow just has hard work as resurfacing the M62 in the winter rain.