Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 7 FEBRUARY 18, 2015 P119 This predictable outcome makes a nonsense of the oft-quoted line: "always expect the unex- pected." Which, according to sundry sources, dates back to 500 years BC to the ancient Athenian sage Heraclitus. In this instance, he was wrong, and has been for two-and-a-half thousand years. Always expect the expected. The result also led to some yawns around the racing community. I am here, however, to try to eliminate the ennui, and to cheer up those disappointed by the fact that (for example) new boy Jack Miller didn't come out of the box fast- est (he ended up 20th); or that the new Suzuki didn't do something similar. I mean, really, what did you expect? Perhaps the real film reference, in any case, is to "Groundhog Day." That cinematic ordeal of the 1990s, when the hero was condemned to relive the same day, over and over again. Every morning started with Sonny and Cher's grue- some ballad "I got you babe." With Dani Pedrosa cast as the groundhog, obviously. So if we've seen it all before and would have preferred something different, where exactly does the good cheer come from? Because we haven't seen it all before. Just look at the numbers. Prior to the tests, the official best-ever lap at Sepang was 1:59.791, last year's pole time. In fact, this was marginally slower than the fastest time at 2014's pre-season tests: a 1:59.533. You can guess which rider it was who ran these times. It wasn't the groundhog. This time, the same rider went almost a full second quicker. More than that, the others went with him. The top five were all inside the official best lap. Something has changed, in spite of all ap- pearances to the contrary, and in spite of all attempts by Dorna to dumb everything down. They've gotten faster again. All of them. Most especially the fast guys. There were some other points of interest. Ste- fan Bradl, demoted from Factory Option ranks to a year-old "Open" Forward Yamaha was right up there, eighth-fastest and barely a second off Marquez, as well as quicker than his Factory Honda replacement Cal Crutchlow. The next- best Open bike was HRC tester Hiro Aoyama, placed 14th on one of the upgraded production Hondas, another second away. And those new Suzukis may still be in search of reliability, but not only did Aleix Espargaro slot into an impressive tenth, but class rookie Mav- erick Vinales was just two places and less than half-a-second down. This, however, is not enough to counter the predictability at the front. But please be of good cheer. Over and over I am reminded of a plangent comment by Mick Doohan, one of many during his long years of overarching dominance. Taxed with the notion (actually, he had even expressed himself) that racing had become boring, his response was memorable. "What do you want me to do about it? Slow down?" To some, the answer would be: "Yes," point- ing at Rossi's understanding, in those years when he was able to win as if by right. The great showman would do exactly that, making sure that even if the result was a foregone conclu- sion, it didn't necessarily look that way until the closing laps. Not to me, however. And surely not to any admirer of racing excellence. Of excellence in any field. Instead of yawning, when we see Marquez raise the standard yet again, we should be grateful, and appreciative. Surely racing gets better not because it is closer, but because it is faster. CN

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