Monthly Archives: September 2023

I blame the incredible performance of Dani Pedrosa in Misano and Jerez for bringing back memories of Japanese wildcards. I loved going to Japan but often dreaded commentating. Pronunciation of names was one aspect of the job I never found easy and that is putting it mildly! Going into that crucial Grand Prix at Motegi on Sunday Cal Crutchlow as the wildcard for Yamaha would not have caused a problem but it was not always the case. Not only were their Japanese wildcards to get my head round but they often won the races. Some of these riders went on to become World Champions and Championship contenders. Others just disappeared, while one career ended in tragedy.

On my very first visit to Japan in 1987 at Suzuka I got a clear indication of what lay ahead. Masaru Kobayashi won the 250cc race at the Japanese Grand Prix for Honda and then almost disappeared from sight. He finished third at Suzuka a year later. They were the only World Championship points he ever scored. Fifteen years later Osamu Miyazaki won the 250cc race at Suzuka as a wildcard entry riding a Yamaha. Second place went to the Honda of Daisaku Sakai scoring his only ever World Championship points

Other Japanese wildcard entries went onto greater things. Daijiro Kato won the 250cc race at Suzuka in 1997 and 1998 before embarking on a Championship winning career. He won the 2001 250cc World Championship for the Gresini Honda team before tragically losing his life when he crashed in the 2003 MotoGP™ race at Suzuka. The lovable Nobby Ueda won the 1991 125cc race at Suzuka on his Grand Prix debut. He raced for the next 11 years and finished second in the 125cc World Championship on two occasions.

Takumi Ito finished third in the first ever Premier class Japanese Grand Prix riding the V4 Suzuki in 1987. Eight years later Takumi Aoki was third on his Premier class debut. In 2002, the first-ever, history-making four-stroke MotoGP™ race was won by Valentino Rossi, Akira Ryo brought Suzuki second place on a historic afternoon.

The only wildcard or rider replacement winner in the modern MotoGP™ era came in 2006, but it almost went unnoticed. While the world focused on the Nicky Hayden/Valentino Rossi fight for the Championship at a dramatic final round in Valencia, history was made. The World Superbike Champion Australian Troy Bayliss returned to MotoGP™ replacing the injured Sete Gibernau at Ducati. He won the race from Loris Capirossi giving Ducati their first Grand Prix one two. Can history be repeated in Malaysia next month?

World Superbike Champion Alvaro Bautista returns to MotoGP™ to ride for the Ducati Lenovo team as a wildcard. Bautista has won both 125 and 250cc Grands Prix at the Sepang circuit and will be up for the fight.

Great to see Cal Crutchlow and a British rider back in Grand Prix action at Motegi on Sunday. He finished second there in 2018 riding the LCR Honda. It’s been a tough year for Yamaha, but a little bit of rain could make a big difference – ask Olivier Jacque. In 2005, a year before Bayliss’s historic win, out of the blue he came close to beating Valentino Rossi in China. Replacing the injured Alex Hoffman in the Kawasaki team, the former 250cc World Champion eventually finished second 1.7 s behind World Champion Rossi in the rain.

It can rain at Motegi and I would have no problem pronouncing the winner’s name.

This weekend is so much more than racing at a new venue. MotoGP™ takes a giant step forward when it travels to India for the very first time. A journey into an explosive new world and culture, to a country with the fastest-growing major economy. A journey to a country with the largest population of any other in the world. A population of almost one and a half billion people which is one-sixth of the population of the whole world. It’s hardly surprising that Indian riders buy more motorcycles than any other country in the world. The Indian public are sports mad. Cricket is their great love, and it was estimated a television audience of nearly one billion viewers worldwide watched a World Cup encounter with rivals Pakistan

International Motorsport is popular from a distance. The Indian Formula One Grand Prix was staged at the same Buddh International Circuit, which hosts MotoGP™, between 2011 – 2013. The legendary F1 designer Hermann Tilke designed the circuit. There were Indian drivers in the World Championship plus a Silverstone-based Indian team. International motorcycle racing makes its debut over the weekend. The World Superbike Championship was scheduled to hold Indian rounds in 2012 and 2013 but logistical problems caused their cancellation. There has always been a hard core of national races and championships at circuits such as Sholavaram from the mid-1960s and the Sriperumbudur race circuit which was built in the early 1990s.

However, it was the Mahindra Engineering Company that brought MotoGP™ to the Indian public for the first time. They raced in the 125cc and Moto3™ classes between 2011 and 2017 with plenty of success. MotoGP™ World Champion and Championship leader Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) won two races in 2016 for the Mahindra Moto3™ team. In addition to his wins at Assen and Sepang, he also started the British Grand Prix from pole position the same year. Danny Webb started the last ever 125cc Grand Prix from pole in Valencia in 2011. Miguel Oliveira (CryptoDATA RNF MotoGP™ Team) started from pole on the Mahindra at Assen in 2013. Others who rode for the Mahindra factory included 2021 Moto2™ World Champion Remy Gardner and 2016 Moto3™ World Champion Brad Binder (Red Bull KTM Factory Racing). Mahindra have continued racing internationally on four wheels competing in the FIA Formula E World Championship.

It was never going to be easy for Indian riders to take the massive step up into international racing. The only Indian rider to compete in the modern Grand Prix era was Sarath Kumar. He finished twenty-fourth in the 125cc race at the 2011 Portuguese Grand Prix but failed to qualify in Qatar and Spain. This weekend is sure to whet the appetite for more to make the journey with the support of the Indian public.

Of course, there will be logistical problems at a new venue over the weekend, especially with the next Grand Prix in Japan so close, but this is an opportunity that MotoGP™ simply must not miss. The chance to showcase and expand the sport into one of the biggest economic markets in the world.  It promises to be one of the most important weekends in the 74-year history of Grand Prix racing both on and off the track.

The drive from Bologna airport to the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, is a magic carpet ride through the very heartland of MotoGP™. Every road sign and every town and village on the 120kms frantic drive down the E45 autostrada has a tale to tell. The history of grand prix racing on two and even four wheels just flashes in front of you like a giant cinema screen. Riders’ birthplaces, circuits and team headquarters appear at almost every junction, turning a page of the history book.

Starting in Bologna the home of the all-conquering iconic Ducati factory that is dominating the proceedings this year. Immediately you see signs for Modena. Perhaps best known as the home of Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti but also the home of 125 and 250cc World Champion Luca Cadalora. The World Champion received a congratulatory telegram from Formula One legend Enzo Ferrari after every one of his 34 Grand Prix wins. They also raced on the old Modena aerodrome and I remember watching those bitter rivals Giacomo Agostini and Phil Read battling it out there on a pair of Suzukis in 1976.