VOL. 50 ISSUE 24 JUNE 18, 2013
almost crashed.
"I tried to prepare an attack,
but I did it at the wrong place.
Dani braked very late." Even so,
he was attacking again over the
line.
Rossi could mark fourth as
progress, and his close encounter with Bautista as a lucky escape. The Go & Fun Honda rider
tried to swoop inside him into
the tight left, almost hit him as he
forced the Italian wide, then fell
off, having a second go at the
Yamaha's back end as he slid
into the dirt.
Bautista makes rather a habit
of this sort of thing. After the
race, he said, rather superfluously: "In hindsight, it would
have been better to wait."
On lap six it was Crutchlow's
turn, running out of grip into the
left-right turns eight/nine.
"It was completely my mistake," he said. "I was struggling
to stay with the Hondas into the
corners, so I tried to step it up
and stepped it up too much. Our
set-up is good for the middle and
end of races, but I can't stop the
bike in the early laps. The front
tire had no grip when I crashed."
Losing ground to Crutchlow,
SAVE OF THE WEEKEND
Marc Marquez came close to
a major disaster in the closing
laps. He put an inside pass under
braking on Dani Pedrosa, but the
championship leader braked even
later and cut across. Collision
course, and it looked as though
they had collided. Not so: Marquez had seen the consequences
of putting them both off, and
locked the front to avoid the hit.
That he saved the crash proved
what he'd said two weeks before:
"If I lose the front I can usually
save it."
That he came straight back to
attack again proves something
greater.
Marc Marquez celebrates with his fan club after finishing third.
P61
Briefly...
Last 250 champion Hiro Aoyama's
difficult return to MotoGP got harder at Catalunya, two weeks after he
picked up knee and hand injuries
at Mugello. His misfortune was a
blessing to an unknown Spanish
national rider, recently retired, who
hopped on his bike and earned a
first-time-out title point. He was
36-year-old Javier Del Amor, a
long-standing national competitor,
who more or less just happened
to be in the pits at the right time.
Aoyama, who struggled last season in World Superbikes, withdrew
after another crash in the last free
practice. The Avintia Blusens team
quickly slotted Del Amor in his
place, and he managed to set the
required time within 107 percent of
the top QP2 rider. One lap down,
race attrition promoted him to 15th.
Dorna's change of tack is in preparation for a radical new system
for 2015, with a possible expansion of the grid to 28. Support and
payments will be based on results
from the 2014 season. The top 22
teams will get full support, the next
two only freight costs and free tires.
Any teams lower than 24th will have
to stump up or get out. The aim is
to get rid of time-serving teams,
and leave a larger share of the pot
available for the others.
When Harry met Sally, there was
famously some fakery in the expressions of mutual pleasure. Not
so it seemed when Freddie met
Markie, the new kid who has been
breaking all his records. Freddie
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