VOL. 51 ISSUE 39 SEPTEMBER 30, 2014 P67
The losers? There were many,
especially both Repsol Honda
riders, who had been expected
to dominate. Not only did Lo-
renzo give them an unexpectedly
hard time in the race, but they
both elected to stay out, tiptoeing
along as the laps counted down.
Dani Pedrosa was the first
to fall, having just swapped first
for second with teammate Marc
Marquez, with four laps to go.
Marquez also slipped off the next
time around. Both remounted,
completed the lap, changed
bikes, and returned to claim a
few points. Marquez was 13th
and Dani one place behind; both
sang from the same "it was my
mistake" song sheet.
And, to be fair, it was a difficult
decision. Let Marquez speak for
both, for they said the same thing.
"The lap times on slicks were not
much slower than on wet tires,
and with so few laps left..."
Briefly...
With the announcement in the weeks
after Misano that Jack Miller is to
leapfrog straight from Moto3 to Mo-
toGP next year, riding an open-spec
Honda in an LCR team expanded to
two riders, the rising Australian was
the subject of fevered interest at
the pre-race conference, where he
joined Jorge Lorenzo, Dani Pedro-
sa, Marc Marquez, Valentino Rossi
and Andrea Iannone. All expressed
variations of the same opinion: that
they think Miller will find the transi-
tion difficult, having themselves all
spent time in the intermediate class.
Pedrosa did say that riding 125s and
two different makes of Moto3 that
"he can manage many different kinds
of bike," though "the engine power
is way more." Rossi charitably said:
"I think he is very brave." Miller re-
peated the assertion he made to this
reporter near the start of the season,
that "it's just a bike, with two tires and
an engine;" after saying "I am over
the moon. It's a big step, but with the
right attitude, anything is possible.
And if you get handed the chance,
why not take it?"
Asked how long negotiations with
HRC had been under way, Miller
professed "I don't have a good mem-
ory, but it started at around Le Mans
[round five] or so." Invited to suggest
that his companions at the table had
wasted two years of their careers lin-
gering in the mid-class, he declined
to cast aspersions on a group num-
bering 16 World Championships
between them.
Is it really necessary to serve time
in the middle class? It is only rela-
tively recently that it has become the
norm; every premier-class champion
bar one since Alex Criville in 1999
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