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 18 / NOVEMBER 10-12, 2017 RICARDO TORMO CIRCUIT / VALENCIA, SPAIN P84 What role did Marc Marquez's mother play in his championship? Well, apart from the obvious, Jo- hann Zarco let slip that on the eve of the Valencia GP, she had entreat- ed Zarco to be kind to her son in the race. "I was on my scooter going to my bed when she stopped me and said: 'Oh, Zarco, take it easy tomor- row.' I said to her: 'Yes, Mother. I will listen to you.'" KTM were the only team to fall foul of regulations limiting engine num- bers, with Pol Espargaro condemned to a pit-lane start to the race after exceeding the allocation. But it was not a question of reliability, but more of collateral damage as a result of the fast pace of development in their first year. Pol Espargaro used engine number 10 in FP2 on Friday after- noon, incurring an automatic penalty for exceeding the allocation—as a new team with "concession" privileg- es, Red Bull KTM have nine engines for the year, as against the seven for established teams. Motorsport director Pit Beirer showed KTM's human face when he explained why Bradley Smith was retained for the second year of his contract, in spite of poor results and a midseason threat to consider his position. "It would not be fair halfway through the year…I knew something wasn't right for him, but how can you perform when each time you ride you are thinking: 'How many more hours do I have in this team?' And since we confirmed he will stay, he had been going better," he said. The first-ever MotoGP eSport Champion was crowned on Friday evening at Valencia, best of the pick of the gamers who had quali- fied to compete on the PlayStation MotoGP17 game. The final had 16 contestants from six countries, running a series of widely televised heats before the eight-strong final. With electronically identical bikes in sundry MotoGP liveries, eight riders made it to the final—and with lap times almost five seconds quicker than the best of the real riders, it made surprisingly good entertain- ment. The winner, who went off with a BMW 240i Coupe, was an Italian operating under the handle Traste- vere17. Whoever that might be. The aerodynamic restrictions on MotoGP, banning wings this year, have born unexpected fruit for Moto2, where all aerodynamics were already banned last year, as KTM brought out a version of their wedge-nose MotoGP fairing for their middle-class bikes. In the premier class, KTM's response was a top fairing profile that was just not quite actually winged, since copied by Yamaha. Now riders Oliveira and Binder, first and second at the last two races (with Oliveira winning again in Valencia and Binder third) were using a smaller replica. Team boss Aki Ajo said the units were still being tested, adding: "We want to get some data in advance of the tests next week." Both riders stuck with the dart-shaped fairings for the race. If MotoGP riders didn't push the limits and each other so hard, "if we don't go to this level—it would be like Formula 1." So said Marquez in Australia, after a bruising and frankly scary front battle, with eight riders up close and personal, and any number of collisions. Suzuki rider Andrea Iannone, one of the protagonists, thinks MotoGP is already too much like Formula 1, however. He gave this opinion to Italian journalists, reported the Italian website GPOne.com, suggesting that the bikes are now more important than the riders. And it wasn't just a veiled critique of his Suzuki. "If the bike doesn't work," he said, "there is not much you can do. "Look at the Yamahas, for example." Their qualifying performance bore him out, with Vinales not even making it into the top dozen in Q2; telling the press it was not the tires, but the bike, that was making it impossible for him to enter corners fast enough to be competitive. Livio Loi became the first Moto3 rider to be punished with a pit-lane start for dawdling in practice and qualifying—earning the sanction as a repeat offender, already fined and docked grid positions earlier this year. He was the only Moto3 rider sanctioned, though both Mir and Japanese rider Sasaki were lucky to get away with what appeared to be a prolonged spell of trying to avoid being followed in qualifying. Moto2 rider Mattia Pasini also incurred the wrath of Race Direction, after slow- ing and gesticulating at the end of qualifying, and eventually stopping out on track to make a practice start "without having passed the check- ered flag." He was fined 500 euros. Briefly...