MotoGP: 2009 Mugello Results

As we saw at Le Mans, a little rainwater on these tracks produces some odd goings-on. On Sunday, Fiat Yamaha’s Lorenzo slid off the track on his sighting lap, reminiscent of Roberto Guerrero’s parade lap spin at Indianapolis in 1992. Jorge calmly rode into the pits, jumped on his number two bike, and took his position in the starting grid.

Once the race actually started, Lap 1 found him dawdling in 10th place, and ended with one Chris Vermeulen leading the field on his Rizla Suzuki. Andrea Dovizioso, on the Repsol Honda, led for seven laps after not having seen a podium since last season. And Marco Melandri, riding the Hayate Kawasaki held together with duct tape, was competitive early and even led at the end of Lap 10.

By Lap 12, however, the track was mostly dry, all of the riders had switched from wet tires to slicks, and the usual suspects took over, as the following splits illustrate:

I’ve included Laps 22 and 23 to illustrate two points. The first is that Andrea Dovizioso is today’s news, while Loris Capirossi is so yesterday. Unlike many other sports, in motorcycle racing young and daring beats old and crafty. Dovizioso’s seizure of fourth place from Capirossi on the last lap is not about a couple of extra championship points. It is a passing of the baton, and has more figurative significance than literal. Dovi is going to be a force on this tour, while Capirossi will soon be heading off into the sunset.

The second, and far more entertaining point, is how on any given weekend Colin Edwards would gladly sell his mother in order to beat teammate James Toseland. Toseland got off to a hideous start in this one, worse than most of his bad starts, and was running 16th and 17th from Laps 4 through 9. After his tire/bike change, he began a charge which took him as high as 6th, while teammate Edwards was busy falling back to 15th. Edwards began moving up in the standings on Lap 12, but was still two positions behind Toseland as late as Lap 21. Final result: Edwards passes Toseland again on the last lap of the race, finishing 6th to Toseland’s 7th. And although it was Toseland’s highest placement of the year, it must really grind him to get passed late again by his hated teammate. Hard cheese, James.

Is This MotoGP or the Global Financial Crisis?

A word many of us have become quite familiar with over the past year is “tranche”, the ordered layers in a “collateralized mortgage obligation” in which the best quality mortgages are in the top layers and the really toxic junk is in the bottom ones. Clearly, looking at the MotoGP World Championship standings, one can begin to see tranches developing:

Up Next: Spain II Catalunya

Two weeks from now the ethanol medicine show returns to Spain, only this time they’re calling it Catalunya. Kind of the same way they call Italy II “San Marino” and how they duck the issue altogether by referring to Spain III as “Valencia.” All of this would probably work out better if they just bagged the countries and used the city names. Qatar would become Doha. Japan would become Motegi; France would become Le Mans, and so on. You wouldn’t have United States and Indianapolis, making it sound like Indianapolis isn’t in the United States. You’d have Monterey and Indianapolis.

The problem is, the sponsors want it both ways. After all, who wants to be the title sponsor of the Grand Prix de Mugello when you can sponsor the Grand Prix d’Italia? What has more thump, the Grand Prix de Jerez, or the Grand Prix d’Espagna? But how can you sponsor THE Grand Prix of Spain when there are, in fact, THREE of them? How is San Marino not in Italy? Who wants to sponsor AN Italian Grand Prix? These are weighty issues. Perhaps the best, most European solution is to lengthen the titles, in which case you could end up with GP CINZANO DI SAN MARINO E RIVIERA DI RIMINI, A PICTURESQUE PINT-SIZED DUCHY LOCATED IN EASTERN ITALY ON THE SHORES OF THE BEAUTIFUL ADRIATIC SEA. Which would work just fine, unless you were required to paint it on a motorcycle, or wanted the tattoo.