VOL. 51 ISSUE 43 OCTOBER 28, 2014 P47
ing stages.
No wonder Marquez raised his
eyebrows when, in the official
post-race Dorna interview, he
said: "Today, the strongest oppo-
sition was the weather."
Rossi's response: "It was sup-
posed to be me."
With Pramac Ducati's Iannone
ruled out after a practice injury,
Briefly...
dling on track. But the mass punish-
ment had clearly made little impact at
Sepang, with huge numbers of riders
dawdling along both straights at the
end of the session, some barely at
walking speed. It was a dismal sight
for TV viewers and spectators alike.
Now Race Director Webb is wrestling
with rewriting the rules to prevent a
repeat of the shaming and potentially
lethally dangerous practice. "I'm in-
censed," he said, on Saturday eve-
ning. "I'm hatching a new rule that will
allow me to penalize riders as I see
fit." But it was impossible at Sepang,
because technically none of the rid-
ers were impeding anybody, and in
terms of the current rule, competi-
tors had been told they were permit-
ted to go slowly, as long as it was not
on the racing line. At Sepang, said
Webb, "over half the field was going
slowly on the straight. Not one rider
was going fast, so under the current
rules nobody could be penalized...
and I strive for consistency. No one
was disadvantaged, but we have to
stamp it out." Any new rule would
have to wait until 2015, to have time
to go through the protocol required
to become official.
Is Moto3 World Championship can-
didate Alex Marquez not just set to
follow in his older brother's footsteps,
but to obliterate them by being even
more successful? He already won
a GP in his first full season, where
Marc had to wait for his second. And
his older sibling told me early last
year: "He is faster than I was when
I was his age." At Malaysia, Marc
expanded on the theme. "We have
a different style," he told the pre-
race press conference. "He is much
more precise than me: always the
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