If You Like Rollercoasters… Friday and Saturday on the Portuguese coast saw relatively few surprises, if you ignore having both Yamahas passing directly into Q2. The Ducs and the #12 Aprilia were having things pretty much their own way. Contrary to recent history, the all time track record was NOT broken during qualifying, making my pole time prediction (1’36.986) look just plain silly. Enea Bastianini continued his personal reclamation project, capturing pole, joined on the front row by Top Gun Maverick Vinales–remember him?–and the resurgent Marc Marquez, who is going to win himself some rac ..read more

Welcome back, Qatar Here we go again. Swarthy miniature European jockeys holding on for dear life to grossly overpowered motorcycles. 20-some rounds all over the world between March and November. Six rounds in seven weeks to end the season, testing the mettle of riders and crews. Teenagers running wild in the lightweight Moto3 class; grizzled veterans seeking the top prize in motoracing in the premier MotoGP class. Half-length Saturday Sprint races on the big bikes making Saturdays on race weekends as exciting as the main event on Sundays. Saturday Jorge Martin is pretty much untouchable at sh ..read more

Jorge Martin has that look of inevitability about him After difficult weekends in Indonesia and Australia, Prima Pramac pilot extraordinaire Jorge Martin held off stiff challenges from KTM’s Skeletor Brad Binder and world champion Pecco Bagnaia to win the Thai Grand Prix in the fourth-closest podium scrap in history. His Thai weekend followed an increasingly familiar pattern: Win pole by setting an all-time track record Win the Saturday Sprint Win Sunday’s main event Martin now trails championship leader Bagnaia by a mere 13 points with three races left. It is a two-man race; Marco Bezzecchi ..read more

Bagnaia retakes the lead after Martin chokes By now, I assume everyone reading this has either seen the race or read about the results. Jorge Martin took over the lead in the 2023 title chase for roughly 24 hours, winning yet another Saturday Sprint before an unlikely/uncharacteristic/unforced error while leading comfortably on Lap 13 forced him out of the grand prix. Pecco Bagnaia overcame a P13 start to win the main event on Sunday after a two point Saturday. KTM tough guy Brad Binder knocked polesitter Luca Marini out of Sunday’s race, did the same to Miguel Oliveira some nine laps later ..read more

Awaiting the announcement from Gresini So, this week the shoe we’ve been waiting to see dropped finally got dropped on Tuesday, when HRC released a face-saving announcement that they and Marc Marquez were terminating their relationship upon “mutual agreement.” LOL. There is nothing “mutual” about this, with HRC having been unable to deliver a competitive MotoGP bike for three or four years, and Marquez practically getting killed trying to compete on what used to be the best bike on the grid. So, one of the great riders in MotoGP history is abandoning his 11-year affiliation with one of the wor ..read more

A race, a parade, and a cluster Psychedelia from the Japanese Grand Prix From my limited perspective–the kitchen table at my home in Indiana–it was an enjoyable last weekend in September/first weekend in October as MotoGP arrived in The Land of the Rising Sun. Something for every taste and budget, as it were. In the premier class, young Jorge Martin continued his assault on the 2023 title, elbowing his way to pole, another Sprint win, and being declared the winner of the red-flagged main event on Sunday. Somkiat Chantra led an Idimetsu Honda Team Asia 1-2 in an increasingly familiar Moto2 para ..read more

Testing the limits of human endurance again, but more After a cursory examination of the provisional 2024 MotoGP calendar, we are once again going to get all up in Carmelo Ezpeleta’s business. We thought (think) the 2023 calendar is brutal enough to get a few riders and crew members hospitalized. The Powers That Be took our comments to heart and produced a calendar for next year which is even worse. 22 rounds. Four back-to-back rounds. A late season Pacific flyaway with six rounds in seven weeks, including four hotties–India, Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia. Round 9 in central Asia–Kazakhstan ..read more

Pecco opens the door for Martin and Bezzecchi As expected, this weekend’s Grand Prix of India was hotter than a freshly f**ked fox in a forest fire. Rather than thinking of it as the hottest race weekend ever, it might make more sense to view it as the coolest Indian Grand Prix of the next ten years. How hot was it? Prima Pramac Ducati pilot Jorge Martin, with the conditioning of a triathlete, was unable to drive his Desmo to Parc Ferme, having to get off at his garage. His team poured ice water into his leathers, on his neck, removed his helmet, and tended to him as he sank to his knees. Ther ..read more

https://www.motorcycle.com/bikes/features/rip-evans-brasfield-44594668 Evans Brasfield became my editor at Motorcycle.com in 2018 upon the unfortunate departure of Kevin Duke to parts unknown, one of the radical staff reductions-in-force that have plagued industry publications during the past decade. I had read some of Evans’ work and was familiar with him by name only. He continued as my editor until early this month when MO published my mid-season review of the 2023 MotoGP season. During these six years, I cannot remember a single time when Evans lost his temper or criticized me for anything ..read more

Nothing but spoilers here Moto3 was a four-man cage match. Deniz Oncu, my boy Jaume Masia, and teenagers David Munoz and David Alonso spent the second half of the race in a small, select group going very fast in close quarters. During the last two laps it looked as if any of the four could win. At the flag, Masia trailed Alonso by 4/100ths of a second in the best race of the weekend. Moto2 was another master class by The Next Great Spanish Rider as Pedro Acosta led from wire to wire, followed at the end by Celestino Vietti and Alonzo Lopez. A parade, despite the breathless efforts of Matt Birt ..read more