VOL. 52 ISSUE 26 JUNE 30, 2015 P67
Briefly...
came with them, but managed to
cross the line only after it had gone
green. The jump start was adjudged
"an unfair advantage" by race direc-
tion, and each had his first fast lap
time annulled. This didn't affect the
order, but did hit them in the wallet:
each rider was fined 2,000 Euros
[around $2200]. In a separate hear-
ing, Moto3 Mahindra rider Pecco Ba-
gnaia was given two penalty points af-
ter colliding with Matteo Ferrari in free
practice, causing him to crash.
KTM's MotoGP engine should be
taking its first bench tests in a week
or two, with engineers agog to hear
the exhaust for the first time—and
hopefully to see the right sort of
numbers on the dynamometer read-
outs. The complete bike will not be
ready for another six months, when
former MotoGP rider Alex Hofmann
will exercise the prototype's first roll-
out tests. This was confirmed by
Mike Leitner (until last year was the
long-serving crew chief to Dani Pe-
drosa) who was in The Netherlands
as KTM's representative at the im-
portant MSMA (manufacturers' as-
sociation) meeting on the eve of the
race. Leitner, himself a former GP
racer, could give few details. The
project was still at an early stage,
and next year will be devoted to pri-
vate testing prior to the full-time re-
turn in 2017. The Austrian manufac-
turer has achieved serial success in
125cc and Moto3; however an entry
into MotoGP in 2005 with a 990cc
V5 engine supplied to Team Roberts
proved short-lived, with KTM pulling
out before the end of the season.
Stefan Bradl's difficult transition
from factory rider to the Open Ya-
For Rossi it was elation.
after a slightly sterile bout
of domination by Lorenzo,
whose lone third place was
ultimately almost 15 seconds
adrift. Rossi has been re-
newed again (re-renewed?),
Marquez has returned to
form. He may be a long way
adrift (74 points), but he is
not for giving up. And, as
he pointed out, "now I have
nothing to lose."
The rest of the race was
as exciting—with big battles
for the remaining top 10 posi-
tions.
For Marquez, not so much.
continued on next page
