MotoGP 2016 Motegi Results

For the third time in four seasons, Repsol Honda supernova Marc Marquez claimed the MotoGP world championship. He did it by winning the Japanese Grand Prix while the Bruise Brothers of the factory Yamaha team – Jorge Lorenzo and the legend Valentino Rossi – choked on their own bile, both riders crashing out of a race in which neither could afford the slightest error. This unlikely confluence of events is responsible for, among other things, the very pedestrian championship celebration prior to the podium. Nothing like the Bushido spectacle we watched in 2014.

Jorge Lorenzo, Andrea Dovizioso, Marc Marquez and Maverick Vinales were quick on Friday. Bradley Smith and Jack Miller returned from injury, young Jack needing to get some laps in before fighting for the win at Phillip Island next week – in his head. Smith is lapping very slowly on Friday and appears to be saving himself for KTM. Miller starts 14th, with Smith alongside him in the last spot on the fifth row.

Rossi somehow took the pole everyone in the joint expected would belong to Marquez, with #93 second and Lorenzo somehow completing the front row. An international second row formed up on the top Ducati qualifier, Italian Dovizioso, joined by Brit Cal Crutchlow and Spaniard Aleix Espargaro, who whipped his Suzuki hard, pushing teammate Vinales, in seventh by 4/100ths of a second, to the third row and feeling pretty good about it.

If nothing else, Mike Jones, the replacement for Barbera at Avintia, won the battle of “Who Gets to Wear #7?”, beating Hiro Aoyama who, denied his usual number, went with #73 and a long story as to why.

The 2016 Japanese Grand Prix was, itself, a conventional, low-drama affair. Early on, the Yamahas asserted themselves, as the front group consisted of Lorenzo, Marquz, Rossi and Aleix Espargaro, who, along with his teammate Vinales, discovered how much the Suzuki GSX-RR does love itself some Motegi. Rossi took a couple of swings at Marquez early but couldn’t get anything to stick, while Lorenzo was riding with “bumps and bruises” suffered on Saturday morning that would leave most mortals lying in a hospital somewhere. Marquez went through on Lorenzo into the lead on Lap 4. Rossi crashed on Lap 7. Lorenzo crashed on Lap 20. Championship over. Oh, and Dovizioso claimed second while Vinales took third.

Historians will argue for years weeks as to where this race was actually won or lost. Some will insist it was at Turn 10 on Sunday when Rossi went lowside, unforced, for the third time this season. Some will say it was at Turn 9 on Sunday, where Marquez went through on Lorenzo on Lap 4 and where Lorenzo lost his grits on Lap 20, the moment at which Marquez effectively clinched the title. Some will say it was Turn 2 on Saturday, when Lorenzo crashed heavily in FP3 and was airlifted to the local hospital, only to return in time for FP4. After Lap 4, when Marquez took the lead for good, the only drama concerned whether the 2016 trophy would be awarded to Marquez in Japan or Australia.

With three races left, we turn our attention to the MotoGP undercards and the Moto2 title fight. Johann Zarco gave himself some breathing room over challenger Alex Rins by taking second place today while Rins finished out of the points, presumably the result of a crash or a leisurely walkabout in the kitty litter. Zarco’s 21-point cushion with three rounds left make him the odds-on favorite to become the first repeat Moto2 champion since the category came into existence.

The undercards in the premier class:

Round 16 launches this next week at Phillip Island. As such, it kicks off the dreaded Epilogue section of the season, the three races (and three previews) we here at MO need to spice up to maintain your interest and engagement once the title has been decided. (Not that our usual work has all that much to do with motorcycle racing anyway.) Rest assured that we’ve kept our own powder dry and are fully prepared to speculate on things at least remotely related to MotoGP in Australia, Malaysia and Spain.

As Arlo Guthrie admitted in the folk classic “Alice’s Restaurant,” I’m not proud. Or tired.