VOL. 51 ISSUE 28 JULY 15, 2014 P75
Briefly...
this then why not learn on that. But I
don't think it's gonna happen."
The Marc VDS team's other damage-
control exercise concerned ill-fa-
vored Moto3 rider Livio Loi, whose
"attitude and commitment" were
questioned by the team at Assen.
This engendered a storm of criti-
cism at home: both team and rider
are Belgian, and there were cries of
"unfair" after he was switched from
a Kalex-KTM to a hastily assembled
near-works KTM for the Dutch race.
It was certainly no help to the 17-year-
old, whose fourth place in Argentina
has been followed by a dire spell of
back-of-the-grid qualifying and re-
sults. At Assen he qualified 30th and
finished 25th. Now he is expected
to be dropped in the summer break,
and another lengthy written state-
ment from Bartholemy prepared the
ground. The race results were disap-
pointing, he said, but "what is even
more disappointing is how much crit-
icism the team came in for after As-
sen." The switch to KTM had been "a
bid to help Livio rediscover his confi-
dence. But the situation is very clear.
We're in Moto3 to race and Livio
needs to start producing the goods
and getting the results that he, the
bike and the team are capable of
(or)… we need to take a long hard
look at the feasibility of continuing
in Moto3. Unfortunately, that's the
harsh reality of the situation, when
racing at this level costs more than
half-a-million Euros a season."
Marc Marquez stretched his luck
as well as muscles and ligaments
in his neck when he crashed in the
first 10 minutes of first free practice.
It was a nasty flick-off highside in an
unexpected place… just where you
drosa again had to be happy to
settle for second. Marquez also
ran wide once, but claimed fast-
est lap to underline triumph num-
ber nine.
Rossi had been leading the
pursuit, but succumbed to his
teammate Lorenzo on lap nine,
and took one more lap than him
to get by Bradl. Enough to lose
touch. Lorenzo was back to his
metronomic best, and said: "I
was disappointed when it rained,
because I think I had the speed
to go with the Hondas here, and
even challenge Marc."
It was his first podium in three
races.
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