Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1523461
ROUND 8 / JUNE 28-30, 2024 TT CIRCUIT ASSEN / THE NETHERLANDS MOTOGP I FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP P92 nine on lap 19. Vinales took full advantage, breezing by the pair of them into third. By then, the battle had grown to five riders big. Enea Bas- tianini's (Lenovo Ducati) qualify- ing performances have been his undoing all year long. Assen was another case in point, as he gradually built speed from a sleepy 10th place on lap one. But he made stealthy progress der and waved Di Giannantonio by at turn nine. The reality is that the eight-time champ found his front-tire pressure to be wor - ryingly low. He soon knew it would only rise to a legal level when benefiting from another rider's slipstream. The problem was so pronounced that Marc Marquez even refused to pass Di Giannantonio when the Ital - ian made an error exiting turn HONDA IN DELAY Honda's riders are still await- ing significant updates after the company acknowledged that it had taken the wrong development di- rection earlier in the year. "Maybe in September, we will make a step," said Joan Mir. "Not the definitive one, but probably a big one, and we will also understand the direction for next year. That is the thing: the direction that they want to take is very interesting. So, this season, we've been a bit unlucky, because with one engine character that [looked] pretty good in Sepang test, then was giving us a lot of unexpected problems. So, we had to come back. The engi- neers had to work on that, not on developing it, and we lost a bit of time there." Mir also admitted he is close to extending his stay at Rep- sol Honda for another two years. "I still have the feeling that if I leave, I will be failing on this project, be- cause when another rider from the past left this project, he had some good results in the past, and it's not my case. I don't have a good result with this team, and I would have a different feeling if I left." MOTOE Thanks to a beautiful last-lap pass, Hector Garzo (Dynavolt Intact GP MotoE) came out on top in a phenomenal race one in the MotoE World Championship battle at Assen. Alessandro Zac- cone (Tech3 E-Racing) crossed the line in second, but he was disqualified from race one due to a tire-pressure penalty, moving Oscar Gutierrez into the runner- up spot. Zaccone came back to win race two over Oscar Gutier- Briefly...