Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
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MOTOGP FIM MOTOGP WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP ROUND 2 / APRIL 10, 2017 TERMAS DE RIO HONDO / SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO, ARGENTINA P76 charge through, Romano Fenati (Rivacold Honda), who set best lap of the race; and Japan's Tatsuki Suzuki (SIC58 Honda). Guevara (KTM) led the next gang, from rookie Kaito Toba (Hon- da), erstwhile front-runners Aron Canet (Honda), Darryn Binder and Nicolo Bulega (both KTM), from rookies Marcos Ramirez (KTM) and Tony Arbolino (Honda) taking the last of the points. Maria Herrera (KTM) lost out by half a second. Luckless Niccolo Antonelli (KTM) was knocked off by Fenati in the early stages, with no sanction applied. Rodrigo, Di Giannantonio and Bastianini also crashed out. Mir obviously leads the champi- onship on a clean 50 points from McPhee (40) and Martin (32), then Migno (21) and Fenati (20). CN MotoGP 1. Maverick Vinales (Yam) 2. Valentino Rossi (Yam) 3. Cal Crutchlow (Hon) 4. Alvaro Bautista (Duc) 5. Johann Zarco (Yam) Moto2 1. Franco Morbidelli (Kal) 2. Miguel Oliveria (KTM) 3. Thomas Luthi (Kal) 4. Lorenzo Baldassarri (Kal) 5. Xavi Vierge (Tech3) Moto3 1. Joan Mir (Hon) 2. John McFee (Hon) 3. Jorge Martin (Hon) 4. Phillip Oettl (KTM) 5. Andrea Migno (KTM) Ducati riders Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso both tested the twin-tunnel Ducati aerodynamic fairing at Jerez in the break after the opening round at Qatar, but only for a handful of laps, with the company saying there is still plenty of development to come before they will homologate their second fairing for the rest of the season. Ducati said the fairing had too much drag in its original form. "We need to do more work," said team boss Paolo Ciabatti. Meanwhile, it has now been confirmed that the Ducati's "lunch-box" under the rear of the seat contains the elec- tronics, freeing up space in the nose for aerodynamics, while add- ing weight at the rear to perform a chassis damping function. Determined to avoid the farce of last year—with a compulsory pit-stop race after the collapse of Michelin's rear tires—Race Direc- tion took a novel approach to de- termine whether the 2017 rubber will be good enough. A decree to all MotoGP teams made it com- pulsory for every rider to run at least five consecutive laps at full race speed on the hard tire option on the first practice day. Anyone failing to do so would be penalized by six places on the grid. The tires passed, with Vinales running nine fast laps without problems in the afternoon. Valentino Rossi rounded out one of his established records at Argentina—lining up for his 350th GP. He had already outdistanced Alex Barros, who retired in 2007 after 276 races. Of the current rid- ers, Dani Pedrosa, is lining up for his 261st race, Andrea Dovizioso his 260th, and Jorge Lorenzo his 251st. This was the 888th GP, meaning that Rossi has taken part in almost 40 percent of them. It helps, of course, that when in the early years there were only six races a year, and nowadays 18. "The number of races is not very important," said Rossi. What mat- tered was "the quality—the number of victories and podiums." With 114 in the bag in all classes, he is still short of Agostini's record of 122. After a disappointing start to his first Ducati season, Jorge Lo- renzo admitted it may be his fault that they got off on the wrong foot, after hoping he had made a bit of a breakthrough in Friday's third free practice. What they found was "a new riding position"—a simple rais- ing of the seat. He told pressmen that when he'd first tried the bike at Valencia, "I felt it was quite high compared with my previous bike." He asked for a lower seat. "This was probably a mistake." Valentino Rossi's distant hopes that a stiffer-construction front tire might have helped to get his season on track were dashed by a general strike that delayed delivery of a fourth tire option to the Argen- tinian circuit, and then by the rid- ers' decision not to use the extra tire when it did arrive. His hopes were slender, however. Although the tire, first seen at Valencia last year, has a more robust carcass, the compound made it an extra softer option to the three already available from Michelin. Briefly...