P114
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
I
t's Marquez's fault, really. Like
most things in racing—good
and bad. But among his vic-
tims, count his teammate in the
forefront.
Not just because Marquez
reliably has been beating Dani
Pedrosa, because actually he
hasn't. Not every time. At Jerez
Dani beat him by six seconds,
just the once, this year.
There was a reason. It was
baking hot, on a quirky low-grip
track. Conditions in which, all of
a sudden, Dani becomes quite
unbeatable.
Sadly, the direct opposite is
also true. Make it cold and wet,
or even just cold, and Pedrosa
is a thing of the past. Down with
the backmarkers. The differ-
ence is absolutely weird.
Yet apparently easily ex-
plained. To control, Michelins
need to be brought up to work-
ing temperature, and to do this,
the riders have to bully them,
subject them to some solid
abuse. In other words, throw
their weight around.
There lies the root of Dani's
problem. He hasn't got enough
of it.
All this is literally true, not
the product of imagination or a
typical rider's equipment-blam-
DASH FOR THE DONUTS, DANI
