Please allow me to hold forth a little on the Laverty/Sofoglu incident on Sunday night. I saw the race live on TV, watched the innumerable replays and listened to the various comments. I’ve also watched the on-going comment on crash.net where opinion (obviously) runs in its usual, pro-British way.
The race was a cracker, no doubt; one of the best WSS races I’ve seen for many years. And, yes, it is a shame that it finished the way it did, but let’s look at the how and why.
Plainly, Sofoglu was the fastest rider on the track and plainly he had Laverty’s measure from about Lap 2. There were two very desparate riders in the race and Sofoglu was the more desparate for most of the race. His braking efforts and overtaking in the Aqua Minerale were nothing short short of miraculous.
Now “Superglue” is no mug. He’s already got a WSS title so he knows which way the river runs. His “slow down and watch Laverty from behind” tactic is not new. In doing this he can have a break from the constant pressure of leading and having to cover his lines and also seek out his opponent’s weaknesses in relative safety. Laverty, though inexperienced, knows the score as well. He’s seen this already this season.
So, he MUST have known that the Turk was keeping something in reserve for the end. And that reserve was going to have to be in the braking area in the final corner. Laverty had already tried all the other traditional overtaking positions, only to see his efforts rebuffed. So it had to be under brakes and Laverty must have known that this was going to be next to impossible. NOBODY brakes later than Kenan and Laverty knows that.
Which makes his banzai move on the last corner even more inexplicable. Sofoglu was as late on the brakes as you could possibly be in the final corner, how the hell did Laverty think that he was still going to be able to outbrake him?
Laverty has since said that he didn’t mean to deliberately take Sofoglu out of the race. This seems a little disingenuous to me. He HAD to win to keep the championship alive so he took the only course that he could TO win, take Sofoglu out and hope that, by using the Honda as a blocker, he could stay upright and go on to win.
What I also find inexpicable is the TV commentators inferring in the aftermath that it was all Sofoglu’s fault because he didn’t clear out and win and get out of the danger zone. I mean, give me a break, who hit who, for God’s sake?
In any event, the attempt failed. Laverty finished 3rd with Sofoglu 2nd. Kenan has a 16 point lead going in to Magny Cours this weekend and only needs to finish 10th even if Laverty wins.
We used to have a saying at school, “Cheats never prosper”. 🙂
