..made an appearance at their ugly worst at Sepang yesterday. Needing to have Andrea Dovizioso win the race and Marquez finish below 2nd, Ducati sent Lorenzo, Dovi’s team mate and run-away leader a cryptic message on his dash, “Change engine map”. The effect wasn’t instant, Lorenzo is too professional for that, but it soon became apparent that the message was code for “Let Dovi by” and, like a truly loyal employee, Lorenzo did just that. It was pretty clumsy and transparent and the fact that Lorenzo did not shake hands with Dovizioso after the race said it all. He had been denied his first win at Ducati by a team call to cede the lead in favour of his team mate.
So, with Marquez finishing 4th, the decider moves to Valencia in two weeks time. Marquez still holds the whip hand with 21 points in the bank but nothing is ever certain and there are those, myself included, who feel that he SHOULD have been crowned world champion yesterday but for a bit of skulduggery that has no place in MotoGp. Leave the contrived results to the 4 wheel brigade, please, MotoGp was dragged down a bit last night and, should Dovi WIN the title, you can’t help but think that it will be somewhat tarnished. No rider likes to win if he hasn’t fought for it and won it fair and square.
Morbidelli also won the Moto2 title in a way that he really didn’t want to and he said so at the post-race interview. The first sting he said was that he was sorry that Thomas Luthi hadn’t been out there wrestling with him to the end. Poor Luthi, victim of a vicious highside in qualifying, was forced to watch the title slip away from the sidelines. It is fair to say that Morbidelli has been the star of the show in 2017 and, as someone remarked, the rest of the Moto2 competitors will be very glad to see the back of him when he graduates to MotoGp next year!
The Mir-acle man did it again, what a star this young Spaniard is. As with the comment about Morbidelli, the rest of the Moto3 staff will be glad to see him graduate to Moto2!
I’m still battling major suspension woes with Rhonnda so it was off to the shop this morning to see if my tame mechanic can diagnose the problem and suggest some solutions. I’ve got two big rides coming up and failure to get the suspension sorted means that I won’t be going on either. Fingers crossed.