VOL. 51 ISSUE 37 SEPTEMBER 16, 2014 P57
this season that one or both
has not been up front. It was an
omen, at a circuit that favors Ya-
maha over Honda, for reasons
that nobody, at least none of the
riders, were able to explain.
Lorenzo made the jump from
the start; Marquez bullied his
way through the first corners to
secure third behind Rossi. Pe-
drosa was seventh, behind not
only the Ducatis of Iannone and
Briefly...
with the road circuits of the past.
"You couldn't take so many chances
then. Now they have to ride at ten-
tenths all race. That means nearly
crashing at every corner." But, he
added, "Kids are getting braver
now."
Marc Marquez has rejected the no-
tion of switching to the 2015 Honda
RC213V for the rest of the season,
after breaking the Brno lap record
on the bike in tests after the Czech
Republic GP. "I liked the bike a lot
and enjoyed the laps on it, but we
decided that we should not make
any change, and continue with this
bike for the rest of the year," he said.
The most significant improvement
was in better corner speed, he said:
Honda's major (only?) weakness in
comparison to the Yamaha.
The Avintia Blusens team is to
make an early switch from the cur-
rent Kawasaki-based MotoGP bike,
with rider Hector Barbera getting an
Open-class Ducati for the final rac-
es. The Spanish team had already
announced they were to switch to
Ducati next year, after continuing
struggles with the upgraded former
CRT bike has kept them at the back
end of the results. The team has
developed its own pneumatic valve
springs for the motor, but one prob-
lem reported by riders Barbera and
Mike di Meglio is that the produc-
tion-based engine crankcases can
ground out at high angles of lean.
Another casualty of Valentino Rossi's
ruthlessness is Vittoriano Guare-
schi, dropped from running Valen-
tino's Sky VR46 Moto3 team. His
place will be taken by Rossi's long-
time friend and boon companion
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