Last weekend, MotoGP and World Superbike clashed in an Italian smackdown, with both events taking part at the same time in the same country within a couple of hours’ drive of each other due to the incompetence and stupidity of Dorna. Which race series won this pointless and idiotic collision? Let’s investigate:
Tracks
MotoGP staged the Emilio Estevez Grand Prix. However, fans of his greatest movie “Men at Work”* were sorely disappointed to discover that this was merely a second round at the Misano racetrack. It’s a stupid, wrong way round track where the corners moronically tighten up on the exit, which guarantees that literally everyone will get a track limits warning and the racing will be rubbish.
[*Just kidding, Emilio’s greatest movie is obviously Repo Man.]
WSBK was held at Cremona, which baffled the Italian riders as they’d never heard of it, even the ones that grew up like an hour away. Even worse, it turned out to be a trackday track folded into a parcel of land covering so few hectares that you couldn’t even fit Jake Dixon’s ego inside it. So everyone was amazed when it turned out to be a fun little circuit! There were decent overtaking opportunities, including a great one where riders could refuse to give up their position and brazen it out side by side for 2 corners in a row. And the compact nature of the place meant that the fans were packed in, giving it a great rock concert atmosphere. In other words, it’s basically a British Superbike track, but in Italy. (BSB track supremo Les Battersby should trade it in for the bloody awful Navarra goat trail in Spain).
Winner: WSBK
Support Races
MotoGP had the usual Moto3 nutter-fest, but this time the Moto2 race was absolutely watch-through-your-fingers incredible as the leading group of chumps took it in turns to throw away the victory. It went to a thrilling photo finish conclusion. Outstanding stuff from the junior GP classes.
WSBK’s baby sibling World Supersport (WSS) is always entertaining now that it’s evolved from an irrelevant, 4-cylinder 600cc screamer class into a crazy “run what ya brung” class featuring everything from howling 4-cylinder Japanese 600s, to Triumph 765 and MV 800 triples, to the thundering Ducati V2 955, with their rev limits and engine mapping rigged by the authorities to make them more or less equal (Yamaha are preparing to enter the new R9 in WSS next year, which is the sportbike version of their hugely popular MT-09 900cc triple). WSS has basically turned into a series featuring the “fairing and foot peg” race versions of all the middleweight naked bikes that dealers are actually selling these days. In other words, it’s by far the most road-relevant race series in the world right now, and also one of the most fun to watch. The World Supersport 300 demolition derby didn’t race at Cremona, but there was a WorldWCR round, which is what they call the Women’s World Championship. The Chicks Championship has basically two questions: In which order will the 3 talented ones finish on the podium, and which of the grid-fillers will get horribly injured and leave in an air ambulance this time?
Winner: MotoGP
Best Manufacturer
MotoGP was utterly dominated by Ducati.
WSBK was utterly dominated by Ducati.
Winner: Dead Heat.
Stewarding
MotoGP’s race stewards came up with a real doozy. Jorge Martin was minding his own business, leading the race on the last lap when Enea Bestiality went full Ninety-Threetard and simply rammed the Spaniard off the track to overtake for the win. Wait, what??? It’s OK to torpedo people now? The stewards panel didn’t even investigate, which means they didn’t have to state their reasoning. Was it because it was the last lap? Because it was a slow corner? Because Venus is in Scorpio? A couple of seasons ago, Zarco was getting long lap penalties just for loitering in the general vicinity of any rider who missed an apex by more than 6 inches, and now you’re allowed to Darryn Binder people out of your way? If you have to drop one place for going 3mm over the green paint on the last lap, but don’t even get investigated for doing a “Rossi-Gibernau”, then MotoGP is like San Francisco, where you can be arrested for jaywalking but not for taking a dump on the sidewalk!
Here’s hoping that when The Kiwi is chief steward next year, he’ll finally brung some frugging consustuncy to thus shut. In the meantime, radio communications should be introduced as a matter of urgency so that riders can phone up and reserve a bed in the Clinica Mobile when their pit board says “L1 P1 +0 MARQUEZ”.
WSBK had a dodgy situation in Friday Practice when abrasive Aussie Remy Gardner was touring on line and forced Danilo Petrucci to take sudden evasive action in a flurry of obscene Italian hand gestures. The humongous Italian retaliated by deliberately getting in Gardner’s way, forcing him into a gravel trap at high speed in an answering flurry of Antipodean finger waving. The stewards metaphorically cracked their skulls together by giving them both 3-place grid penalties. (They wanted to literally crack the two riders’ skulls together, but couldn’t find a box big enough for Remy to stand on). The WSBK stewards also made the sensible decision to red-flag Race One when all their screens went blank. (Presumably they were watching on the Discovery Plus app, which is easily the slowest and buggiest video streaming service to be sharted onto the internet since about 1998).
Winner: WSBK
Race Victors
MotoGP’s reigning personality vacuum Pecco Bananas won a sprint race so spirit-crushingly tedious that it was immediately sued for copyright theft by the 800cc era. However, he couldn’t make it a double. In the feature race, Pecco had a looser and slippier rear hoop than a P Diddy party guest. Amazingly, he found his rhythm, only to go all “Lowes triplet”. (Watching on TV back in Cremona, Sam and Alex looked at each other in bafflement and said in unison, “Hold on, if I’m here and you’re here, then which one of us is on the telly doing our patented late-race lowside out of 3rd place whilst lapping faster than the guys in front???”) The race was instead won by Enea Bestiality, a guy so cool and chilled that he falls asleep for up to 4 or 5 rounds at a time, only to wake up with a start and remember that he’s one of the most talented riders on the grid.
WSBK saw a stunning treble victory by everybody’s favourite big, loveable galoot Danilo Petrucci, also known as Petrux. (His nickname is a combination of Petrucci and Electrolux, due to his incredible ability to hoover up bowl after bowl of pasta). The Superbike Sasquatch didn’t just return from near-fatal injuries to win 3 races in one weekend. He made history as the first person ever to win races in MotoGP and WSBK and a stage of the Dakar Rally. (He’s also won races in MotoAmerica, but nobody cares about that because the current MotoAmerica talent pool is about as deep as a freshly mopped floor). The Italian crowd went absolutely mental to see their huge teddy bear of a countryman do the treble, along with pretty much everyone not called Remy Gardner.
Winner: WSBK
Verdict
World Superbike won this particular head to head. Sure, only MotoGP can give you a tedious procession of the world’s best riders on the world’s stupidest and most expensive 2-wheeled F1 cars with the world’s worst front tyres in a paddock with its collective head rammed firmly up its own arrogant crevice. But World Supers can give you cut-price entertainment, a relaxed vibe and genuinely likeable winners. Now, let’s just hope that such a profoundly stupid MotoGP vs WSBK same-country smackdown never, ever happens again.