P106
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
T
here's a couple of riders
currently ruining racing.
They're just too good.
I'm talking about Marc Mar-
quez and (over in the Proddie-
bike paddock) compatriot Alvaro
Bautista.
Admittedly, Marquez dem-
onstrated a comforting streak
of humanity at the last race in
Texas, by falling off. But he had,
by then, set his seventh succes-
sive pole position at the fast and
complicated CotA circuit, and
had built up a commanding lead,
ready not just to take a seventh
straight COTA win, but repeating
his utterly dominant performance
of two weeks before in Argen-
tina, and in the championship
five times over the past six years.
But displaced ex-MotoGP rid-
er and former 125 World Cham-
pion Bautista, riding the new V4
Panigale Ducati much faster than
anyone else on the MotoGP-
inspired street bike, hasn't come
close to being beaten once in
the first four WorldSBK week-
ends, taking every Superpole,
every Sunday sprint race, and
every main race, too.
Why should they win so
much? It just spoils everything
for everyone.
This at least is a view clearly
cherished by the control-tower
cronies who run both series.
Why else would Dorna and their
FIM allies conspire to make rac-
ing more equal?
In general life, it is humane to
THE QUEST FOR MEDIOCRITY
Is this man ruining racing?
