Cycle News

VOL. 51 ISSUE 35 SEPTEMBER 3, 2014 P109 Which all makes sense. What is verging on the bizarre is that he has to look at the bot- tom rung of the Grand Prix lad- der to feed the top step, and that there is nowhere sensible in be- tween where a favored rider can spend a couple of years learning more about racing. But Nakamoto is not the only one. Yamaha is known to be keenly interested in another Moto3 rider, Alex Rins; while the latest reports from Spain have Aprilia waiting in case Miller's HRC deal falls though... also to put him straight into their team for the Italian company's return to MotoGP next year. There have been other names mentioned for a similar leapfrog move: Rins and Alex Marquez. Meanwhile reigning Moto3 World- Champion Maverick Vinales will spend just one year in Moto2 be- fore joining the returning Suzuki MotoGP squad next year. Miller's potential move is not entirely unprecedented. Another Australian, Garry McCoy, went straight from 125s to 500s back in 1998, also on a Honda produc- tion-racer. Two years later he won three races, albeit on a Yamaha. But it is so unusual that it begs the question: Just what is wrong with Moto2? With a couple of ex- ceptions, it has failed signally in the role filled so well by the 250cc predecessors, in developing and highlighting new talent. Moto2 this year is more like a graveyard of talent. Good riders on sub-standard bikes, getting lost in trying to make the differ- ence. I've never been a fan of the class - of any class that calls itself World Championship, while us- ing not just control engines, but control production engines. That was before I'd even heard the ghastly vuvuzela shrieking noise they all make, all sounding identi- cal as they hang on to their widely spaced road gearing. Oh sure, it's been cheap. But sadly the cheapness goes be- yond just the cost. It should also be close, and to be fair it often is... but currently only for lower positions. Seldom do you see the sort of action among the front men that goes without saying in Moto3. Overtired, underpowered, a Moto2 bike may have the silhou- ette of a racing bike, but that is as far as it goes. Gearing is fixed, electronics – in today's context – laughably lim- ited. The horsepower is feeble, adjustability of settings confined to chassis and suspension. And the Honda CBR600 engines are oversize lumps of reliability and limitation. Call this Grand Prix racing? When the bikes are not even as fast as their Supersport 600 counterparts, over in the produc- tion-racing world of the World Su- perbike Championship? I hate to denigrate the talent of the front-runners, but you have to wonder how Vinales was able to win only his second race in the class. Obviously he has an ex- ceptional level of talent to match his exceptional name, but the year before in Moto3 he had won only three, took the title on the last corner of the last race, by only a handful of points, and then to a large extent only because of his rivals' mistakes. The point being... he had some real opposition there. In Moto2 he is a strong third overall, although safely behind veteran Marc VDS teammates Tito Rabat and Mika Kallio. Hardly anyone else in sight. Riders who have made the transition to MotoGP, like Mar- quez and Scott Redding, are charitable about their Moto2 memories, insisting that they learned a lot there. Ask for a list, however, and it is short: they are much more voluble about how much more they had to learn when they moved up: the huge leap in electronics as well as needing to learn how to select appropriate gearing. Pity the lost souls languishing in this downbeat championship. Rejoice in those who have es- caped. Block your ears as they come screaming past. And hope beyond hope that the example of Moto3 will inspire racing's rulers to come up with a better idea. Proper racing bikes would be a start. CN

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