Monthly Archives: September 2024

They could only be Italian. Passion and pride pouring out of those bright red colours as Ducati celebrated their 100^th MotoGP™ win on Sunday. It had to be at Misano, although Mugello would have been fine, and it had to be an Italian rider who took the chequered flag. Throw in that fifth consecutive Constructors’ title and it is the perfect weekend for the Bologna factory, apart from the Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati Lenovo Team) crash.

Honestly, I don’t think any of us realised what lay ahead at Suzuka in 2003 when Ducati at last threw their hat into the MotoGP™ arena. It was the tragic Japanese Grand Prix in which Daijiro Kato lost his life that overshadowed all other events including Loris Capirossi’s third place on the V4 Desmosedici engine housed in the familiar Ducati tubular steel lattice frame. We started to take more notice when the former 125 and 250cc World Champion Capirossi started on the front row of the grid at the second round in South Africa

Their threat to the all-conquering Japanese giants was emerging and at the third round in Jerez, Capirossi and his team-mate Troy Bayliss took first and second places in qualifying – that first win was not far away. It came three races later in Barcelona with a Capirossi win over the Hondas of Valentino Rossi and Sete Gibernau. It was the first time an Italian rider had won on an Italian machine for 27 years. Ducati were up and running after the first win in the premier class, although they had tasted Grand Prix success in the smaller classes. In 1958 Italian Alberto Gandossi won two GPs en route to second place in the 125cc World Championship. A year later Mike Hailwood became the youngest ever Grand Prix winner when he won his first GP in Ulster riding the 125cc Ducati. The Italian factory had a sniff of the 500cc class in 1971 and 72. Italian Bruno Spaggiara, who won a 125cc Grand Prix on a Ducati in 1958, secured Ducati a first Premier class podium with a third place behind the MV Agustas of Giacomo Agostini and Alberto Pagani at Imola in 1972.

Capirossi continued to remind the Japanese factories that Ducati meant business with three straight wins at the Japanese Grand Prix at the Honda-owned Motegi circuit, between 2005 and 2007. He looked like a potential World Champion in 2006 until a first-bend melee in Barcelona wrecked his chances. At the final race of that season, Troy Bayliss returned to win in Valencia with Capirossi second, but all that had happened before was overshadowed when a young Australian arrived in the red of Ducati. Casey Stoner simply blew the opposition and Championship apart a year later.

What a combination. Stoner and the 800cc Ducati. Ten Grands Prix wins not only brought Ducati their first world title but blew away the theory that the 800cc machines would lap slower than their former 990cc counterparts. Witnessing Stoner sliding the number 27 Ducati surrounded by the stars of the Australian flag, often with the rear Bridgestone tyre smoking, was an awesome sight as the Australian re-wrote the history books. He became the second youngest rider to win the premier class. Only Agostini, Doohan and Rossi had won more Grands Prix in one season.

Stoner was the first rider in the MotoGP™ era to have led every lap for three successive races and set a record of 18 points scoring finishes in one season. It was an unbeatable combination of brilliant engineering and pure rider genius. Stoner won 13 more Grands Prix for Ducati before finally leaving for Honda in 2011 where predictably he brought the Japanese factory the world title.

Ducati joined Grand Prix giants Honda and Yamaha as the only factories to win over 100 GPs in the modern MotoGP™ era. They will add another premier class world title and more victories by the end of this season. Who knows when or if this incredible run will come to an end? There is little indication of their reign being threatened for a long time.

Those solid foundations laid down by Capirossi and Stoner have served them well.

So much has changed in 61 years. With the success of the new FIM Woman’s Circuit Racing World Championship this season it is hard to believe what happened in 1963. After Beryl Swain became the first woman to ride in World Championship Grand Prix in 1962, she was banned the following season. The reason the FIM revoked her international Licence – they thought racing was too dangerous for a woman.

It is the bravery and determination of pioneers like Swain, Gina Bovaird, Taru Rinne and Tomoko Igata that brought about a massive change of attitudes although it took such a long time. For half a century they fought against and defied prejudice and convention to provide the modern World Championship stars such as Ana Carrasco and Maria Herrera with an arena to display their considerable talents.

I remember sitting with my dad watching black and white pictures of Beryl Swain on BBC television in 1962. She was racing her 50cc Itom round a banked tarmac cycle track in South London preparing to make her World Championship debut in the Isle of Man. She finished 22^nd in the very first 50cc World Championship race to be held over the Mountain circuit and that was that. The FIM would not budge over its ban and Swain’s World Championship career was over. Women sidecar passengers were allowed to continue as long there was a male driver at the helm

In 1980 I reported from Daytona on the performance of Gina Bouvaird in the 200 miler round the world-famous banking. Riding a 500cc TZ Yamaha she was the first woman to compete in the 200 miler and she was soon on her way to Europe. She rode at Brands Hatch in England the same year and then embarked on her dream to race in the toughest, most competitive, dangerous, and frighteningly quick World Championship ever witnessed, the 500cc World Championship of the eighties. She was undeterred after failing to qualify for a number of grands prix and finally made it 1982. Many of the top riders boycotted the French Grand Prix at Nogaro on safety grounds. Bouvaird finally qualified to become the one and only woman to compete in a premier class Grand Prix in the 75-year history of the sport. Unfortunately, she failed to finish but it was a historic day.

Seven years later I stood on the pit wall at Hockenheim with pen and notebook in hand. I was ready to lap chart the 125cc race at the 1989 West German Grand Prix and I was lucky. Only after she finished second in qualifying did I realise that Taru Rinne was a woman. Even then I was not prepared for those explosive opening few laps of the 14 laps race around the ultra-fast track. The Finnish female Honda rider fought for the lead in a typical 125cc scrap. Eventually she finished in seventh place just over ten seconds behind winner Alex Criville who went on to win the World title. Rinne was the first woman ever to lead a Grand Prix race. That seventh place was followed a month later with an eighth place at Assen but unfortunately a bad crash at the French Grand Prix the next year halted her trailblazing progress.

That seventh place in Hockenheim was equalled by Japanese rider Tomoko Igata at Brno in the 125cc race at the 1995 Czech Republic Grand Prix. That is still the highest Grand Prix finish by a female rider. Ana Carrasco came close in the Moto3™ race at Valencia in 2013 when she crossed the line in eighth place.

Attitudes and prejudices have changed dramatically in those six decades. Grand Prix Motorcycle racing has played its part in this ongoing revolution. When we reflect and embrace those changes in all aspects of life we should never forget those brave pioneers who set the wheels in motion.

Was it a split-second decision that could cost Jorge Martin the World Championship? Probably not, but it took a big chunk out of his Championship lead and planted some doubts when the raindrops started falling. Did that shower on the grid and then in the early laps give Marc Marquez a chance at the Championship? Again, probably not but never say never when the eight-time World Champion is involved. He is going to win more Grands Prix this season and so it is down to Martin and Pecco Bagnaia to make no mistakes at the front.

Since that very first flag-to-flag race at Phillip Island in 2006, good and bad decisions have been made in that split second. It must be a nightmare for riders who are rather busy at the time. Riding a 325 kph motorcycle is tough enough, but in modern times they have so many things to check and change even before checking just how hard the rain is falling on their visor

Sometimes it is a very easy decision. When the heavens open as they did in Motegi last year, your only thought is to get back to pit lane as quickly and as safely as possible to change bikes. When it is iffy it is a very different story. Who will ever forget Brad Binder’s ride of a lifetime at the Red Bull Ring three years ago? As the rain fell on the skating rink surface the KTM rider defied logic by staying out there on slicks as his rivals pulled in. I do not think I was the only person to hold my breath and marvel at his last couple of slipping and sliding laps.  It was a gamble that paid off, but it has not always been the case. In 2014 as the rain started to pour down at Aragon, Repsol Honda teammates Dani Pedrosa and Marc Marquez decided to stay out on slicks while Jorge Lorenzo pitted to change to wets. Both Pedrosa and Marquez crashed in the rain. Lorenzo was a comfortable winner, but Marquez went on to win the title. So, take heart Jorge Martin.

I am not sure if all riders like the flag-to-flag format but for race commentators it was a dream. I was rubbish at working out if the riders had completed the right distance when the rain started, or if we had to take aggregate times from two separate races. The crunch came at Mugello in 2004 when the original race was stopped when the rain arrived. The re-run was classed as a separate race and consisted of just six laps. It was rumoured that a television station announced the first race as the result, and closed their transmission before the shortest race in MotoGP™ history took place. The crowd at Mugello did not worry because Valentino Rossi won the 31.470 kms encounter.

Misano is situated on the coastline of the Adriatic. Perhaps the proximity of the water makes the weather a factor, because it certainly has played a part in my Misano experiences. In 1976, my very first assignment as a Road Racing reporter for Motor Cycle News was curtailed when sleet and rain persuaded Giacomo Agostini not to race and the meeting was called off. In 2007 when Misano returned to the Grand Prix schedule after a 24-year absence, torrential rain wiped out the first day of practice.

You could taste the tension in the air on the Misano grid as those spots of rain arrived from over the Adriatic Ocean. Those old bitter rivals, Valentino Rossi and Max Biaggi offered their advice but only one person could make that decision once the lights changed. Jorge Martin made the wrong one on Sunday, but he will not be the first or the last rider to make the wrong call in the heat of battle.

The very nature of the sport makes MotoGP™ a Championship of logic-defying comebacks, but was Marc Marquez’s amazing weekend the greatest in 75 years? The Gresini Ducati rider joined the likes of Mick Doohan and Barry Sheene, who fought back from terrible and in some cases life-threatening injuries, not only to race again but win Grands Prix and ultimately World titles.

Marquez had to wait 1043 painful, desperate, soul-searching days between his last MotoGP™ win in 2021 and his record-breaking weekend in Aragon. Phil Read had the longest wait of 3200 days between premier class Grands Prix wins but won plenty of other class races in between. Doohan and Sheene may not have had to wait so long, but their fight against pain, desperation, and their utter determination to return to the track stands them out from mere mortals.

In 1992, Mick Doohan was running away with the 500cc World Championship on the factory Honda. The Australian had won five of the opening seven rounds and led the Championship by 53 points when we arrived in Assen. He crashed in the accident-littered final qualifying session and snapped the tibia and fibula in his right leg. I was in the medical centre when Mick decided to have the leg operated on at the local hospital and hoped to be back in 15 days at the Hungarian Grand Prix. He had a successful operation with plates fitted to pin the broken bones, but then it started to go so wrong.

Mick knew something was very wrong when his foot started to turn black, and he could smell dying flesh around the wound. When talk of amputation was mentioned it was time to get him out. Legendary Grand Prix doctor, Italian Dr Costa, smuggled him out of the hospital together with Kevin Schwantz who had broken his forearm and dislocated his hip in a race crash. They flew to Dr Costa’s clinic in Imola. There was every chance that Mick was going to have his right leg amputated but treatment in Imola and America saved him. At one stage he had his two legs sewn together to try and restore circulation from one to the other. Despite hardly being able to walk he returned to defend a 22-point Championship lead at the penultimate round in Brazil, but eventually lost the Championship to Wayne Rainey by four precious points. It was another year before Mick won a Grand Prix at Mugello in 1993. A year later he clinched the first of his successive five World 500cc titles.

Sheene survived two big crashes. The first at Daytona made him a national hero in Britain. In 1975, I travelled to Daytona by Greyhound bus after flying to New York only to discover that Sheene had crashed in practice. A television crew had flown out to America to film him and typically Barry took full advantage. Lying in the hospital casualty department he told the camera he had broken his right femur, a broken right arm, compression fractures to several vertebrae and a great loss of skin. He then requested the customary cigarette. He became a national hero overnight when the film was shown. Barry was back in action just seven weeks later and won his first 500cc Grand Prix at Assen two months after that. Barry was crowned World Champion in 1976 and the following season.

Marquez is back to winning Grands Prix and is that ninth world title around the corner? It probably will not be this year, but opponents be warned the comeback has only just started.

The next two Grand Prix races are staged around Misano on the Adriatic coast of Italy, which is where Marquez’s record is just as good as it was in Aragon. Already seven wins around the 4.2km Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli, including his last MotoGP™ win in 2021 before Aragon.

Perhaps it is wrong to suggest any rider’s comeback is the greatest because every one of them is so special and a perfect illustration of just what Grand Prix riders are all about.