P130
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
Luck Luck
Beginn's
Beginn's
led by a rookie (Acosta) chased
by another teenager (Garcia).
Fresh from the Red Bull Rookies
Cup, Acosta has won five out of
his first 14 grand prix races, a
feat not achieved even by Rossi
or Marquez.
Moto2 is being disputed by a
rookie (Fernandez), hounding
the well-seasoned Remy Gard-
ner. The Spaniard actually has
five wins to Gardner's four, but
the older rider has finished every
race, and only three times off
the podium; the rookie has only
three other top-three finishes
and crashed out once.
MotoGP is not so different,
and last Sunday at Misano,
yet another precocious perfor-
mance proved the point.
After Brad Binder's rookie win
at Brno last year and this year
Jorge Martin's poles, podiums
and win, now it was another new
R
acing used to be predict-
able. History has long
spells when you could
pick a winner before a wheel
had turned, or before you'd even
arrived at the track. One rider, or
in richer spells, one of two (pos-
sibly three) riders.
Think Hailwood, Agostini,
Sheene and Roberts, Spen-
cer and Lawson, Rainey and
Schwantz, Doohan, Rossi,
Marquez, etc.
Familiar, experienced rid-
ers ruled. Rookies took time to
learn. As 1981 champion Marco
Lucchinelli put it recently, you
had to break a few bones before
you got there. That's how it
worked.
Not anymore.
This is a year when beginners'
luck is extraordinarily strong, in
all three classes.
The Moto3 Championship is
boy's turn. In his 14th MotoGP
race, on a two-year-old Ducati
regarded as intrinsically flawed,
Moto2 champ Enea Bastianini
was blazing.
He cut through from 12th on
the grid, scything past former
race-winners like Marquez, Miller
and Rins, to a threatening third.
More than that, he lost noth-
ing on speed to Bagnaia and
Quartararo ahead of him, setting
fastest lap of the race, a new
record. They remained out of
his reach only because of the
ground he'd lost fighting through
in the early laps.
Winner Bagnaia, at 24, was
the oldest on the podium. Quar-
tararo is 22, Bastianini 23.
What a contrast to the oldies.
Rossi, a triple MotoGP winner
here, was, once again, nowhere,
mired in 17th. Better than fellow
veteran, the returned Dovizioso,
