Jonathan Rea and the Kawasaki Racing Team cranked up the pressure on their championship rivals with a blistering performance, leaving all and sundry reeling in their wake.
The timing at this point in the season and the venue only made the victory sweeter for the Japanese factory team, at the spectacular Autodromo Enzo Ferrari di Imola, in the Bologna region of Italy – Ducati’s home round.
Having qualified on pole position for the sixteenth time in his career, Rea made the perfect launch from the grid as the lights went out, and never looked back. As so often is the case with the 3x world champion, once he’d found his rhythm it was impossible for anyone to close the gap. Even Tom Sykes (KRT) on identical machinery could offer no answer to the pace and consistency of the Northern Irishman. Such was the performance of the Kawasaki ZX-10RR machines, Sykes was able to establish his own commanding lead in second place over the chasing riders behind.
The factory Aruba.it Ducati team will be wondering how their rivals had so comprehensively outperformed them. On a track which their lead rider, Chaz Davies, had secured victory in the four previous races to be held at the circuit. Unlike messrs Rea and Sykes, Davies suffered a poor race start – wheel spinning off the line and becoming engulfed in the mid-pack shenanigans on the run down to the Tamburello chicane. P4 was the best Davies could ultimately manage, but due to the quirky reverse grid format for Race 2, it does mean he will start from pole position tomorrow.
Instead of challenging KRT for honours, the Ducati riders were left to fight amongst themselves for the final place on the podium. Marco Melandri (Aruba.it Ducati) emerged victorious from the in-house fight to claim the final spot on the podium, though not before he had fended off another strong challenge from Spanish rider Xavi Fores on the independent Barni-Racing Ducati. Fores eventually finished in P5 behind the two factory riders, but it was another display which showcased the breakthrough season the 32-year old is having. Behind him came young Italian protege, Michael Ruben Rinaldi (Aruba.it Ducati Junior Team), much to the delight of the home crowd. Despite only entering his third round of the season, Rinaldi has adjusted to life from Superstock racing. Although he faded in the final laps due to tyre wear, his result in P7 (with a fastest lap of 1″47.536) underline his potential.
It was a testing day for the Pata Yamaha outfit with both riders, Michael Van der Mark (P6) and Alex Lowes (P10), unable to hold pace with their front running rivals. The latter in particular had been on the back foot since Friday, after an engine issue forced him to sit out the entirely of the first practice session. Lowes spent the race fighting with the two Pucetti Kawasaki bikes of Toprak Razgatlioglu (P11) and wildcard entrant Leon Haslam (P9).
One team who suffered a complete disaster was Red Bull Honda. Having attempted to ride during Friday morning practice, Leon Camier ruled himself out, still suffering with injuries sustained at Aragon last month. His replacement, flown in from British Superbikes, was Jason O’Halloran. with just one practice session to his name, the amiable Aussie out-qualified American teammate Jake Gagne. However that was to be as good as it got as, early in the race O’Halloran crashed out at the fast Villeneuve chicane and had to be transported to hospital. Gagne (P16), struggling with the front end feeling of the bike throughout the weekend so far, failed to finish in the points.
From the scorching temperatures of race one earlier in the day, where Leon Haslam took victory for JG Speedfit Kawasaki, there was little change for the second British Superbike Championship race of the day with the track temperature still in the forties.
Jake Dixon arrived at turn one first again, and Bradley Ray rode around the outside of Old Hall to take second. Glenn Irwin was third from Haslam, but they soon swapped orders when the pack arrived at Shell Oils for the first time, and Irwin dropped another position to Jason O’Halloran at Hizzy’s Chicane. Shane Byrne had a difficult first lap and dropped back to seventh behind Peter Hickman.
After passing Haslam at the beginning of lap three, O’Halloran moved through on Brad Ray at Lodge on the same lap for second. Meanwhile Byrne passed Hickman for sixth and joined his teammate Irwin in chasing the lead group. Then, Haslam passed Ray for third at the end of lap four, before at the beginning of lap five O’Halloran took the lead from Dixon.
Jason was intent on escaping, and set about it immediately, stretching the elastic band between himself and Dixon behind, whilst Haslam was trying to displace the RAF Regular and Reserves Kawasaki.
At the same time, the PBM Ducatis moved their way past Ray, to demote the Buildbase Suzuki to sixth place, and the championship leader was visibly struggling. That was on lap seven, and at the end of that lap, Haslam passed Dixon for second and pointed his crosshairs at race-leader O’Halloran, and had practically caught him by the end of lap eight, but Dixon was clearly at the limit and could not keep Haslam’s pace.
With half distance reached, it seemed that it would be a difficult task for anyone from this point to challenge O’Halloran and Haslam – Byrne was the only rider who seemed remotely capable of matching their pace but was too far back to be able to do anything about it.
So, it was a duel at the front; Honda versus Kawasaki, and the green bike took the advantage at Lodge on lap twelve. It became clear – Haslam was trying to repeat race one, where he edged away from Dixon tenth-by-tenth in the last five laps.
But O’Halloran would not be dropped, he struck to the back wheel of Haslam until the last lap, but was clearly on the limit. It looked like the Honda had enough to be able to stay with the Kawasaki but not enough to get by. O’Halloran tried, for sure, but finally could not get past Haslam – he might have been able to out-brake him at Lodge on the final lap but Leon held the inside well, got a good run out and got to the line ahead to take his first double of the year and third win in succession. The victory took him to the top of the championship both in the general standings and in the podium points, where he moved clear of Bradley Ray for the first time. It was important, too, for Haslam in other respects, because in most circumstances in the past the Kawasaki has not been able to make the soft rear tyre last the race distance, but in both races at Oulton, where the soft rear was the only option, Haslam made it work, and this could be ominous for the future.
O’Halloran took his second podium of the season after race one at Brands Indy, and fought until the end for the victory. This is an important step for the Aussie, and for the Honda Racing team, because finally it seems that the bike is capable of fighting for the title. He will be disappointed to have missed out on the victory, but the podium is an important result nonetheless, and he was eager to point out that this will not have been his only opportunity to take a win this season. Snetterton is next, where O’Halloran took his first BSB victory back in 2016, and he will be going there with the goal to do the same. For him it is a shame that he has to wait for six weeks.
Jake Dixon took his second podium of the day, and season, with third place as he held onto the final box spot under pressure from Byrne at the end. It is probably fair to say that Jake’s season started on Monday.
Shane Byrne. Image courtesy of Ducati.
The fourth place of Shane Byrne was not what he would have expected, especially after a distant third place in race one. But the position gave him important points towards Showdown qualification, and he, like O’Halloran will be keen to get to Snetterton where he has gone well in the past.
Glenn Irwin can be satisfied with his fifth place, which somewhat made up for his crash in race one. The most important thing now for Glenn is to stay safe in the Northwest 200 (easier said than done), take some confidence from it and arrive in Snetterton after the break in a good way, ready to fight for podiums and victories, and make the Showdown.
Josh Brookes completed a double of his own on Monday. Not the one he would have been after, two 6th places, but considering his problem this year has been rear grip it is perhaps not a surprise to see him missing from the front group with nearly fifty degrees track temperature.
Bradley Ray. Image courtesy of suzuki-racing
It was a disappointing result for Bradley Ray. After his fourth place in race one, the Suzuki rider would have wanted to get back on the podium, but he was unable to do so. This marks three races without a podium for Ray, and it is perhaps a little bit strange that he should struggle at Oulton, where he took his first BSB podium last season. However, that podium came in October, with maybe fifteen or twenty degrees of track temperature, not forty or more. When you also consider how strong Ray was in the biblically cold Donington round on Easter weekend, it might not be such a leap to assume that the Suzuki does not work so well in hotter conditions – perhaps it suffers from the traditional Kawasaki trait of not being able to hang onto a soft rear tyre. But, not working well in warmer conditions and excelling in the cold might not be such a bad thing, after all this is the British Superbike Championship.
Danny Buchan had a strong ride in eighth place. He caught Brookes at the end but the Aussie’s advances on Ray made it impossible for the FS-3 Kawasaki rider to get through, and in the end he was only half a tenth away from stealing Ray’s seventh place.
Ninth place went to Richard Cooper, who had been fighting with Buchan in the middle of the race but could not keep up towards the end when Danny upped the pace. Tommy Bridewell completed the top ten.
Peter Hickman finished eleventh, ahead of James Ellison who would have hoped for more out of this weekend, Michael Laverty who will be hoping Snetterton is kinder to him, Taylor Mackenzie and Ryuichi Kiyonari who profited from Tarran Mackenzie’s fall to be able to take a double points finish on his return to BSB – fifteenth and the final point for Kiyo in race two.
Sixteenth place was awarded to Martin Jessopp, who was three tenths ahead of Kyle Ryde, who at one stage looked like he might have been on for points. One thing I can see from watching Ryde (and if I can see it, it must be fairly clear) is that he doesn’t carry any corner speed. In Donington, I stood at the Schwantz Curve and looking into McLeans, and he was standing the bike up a lot more aggressively and a lot earlier than all the other riders, who were carrying more speed throughout the corner and carrying more lean angle when they opened the throttle. It was visible again in Oulton Park race two, when the attention of the TV director turned to Ryde’s battle with Jessopp, and Martin was almost running into the back of Kyle because the difference in corner speed was so vast. Finishing in seventeenth place when he is riding as though he has no front end is quite impressive from Kyle to be fair, but if he wants to progress in superbike he needs to work out why he can’t carry corner speed and fix it – if he does he can be very quick indeed.
Dean Harrison finished eighteenth, Sylvain Barrier nineteenth, Shaun Winfield twentieth and Connor Cummins twenty-first and last of the finishers.
There were seven DNFs: Mason Law, Luke Mossey (a retirement possible due to his bike not being properly fixed after race one), Gino Rea, Carl Phillips, Tarran Mackenzie, Jakub Smrz and David Johnson.
Now, BSB takes a break for the roads season which gets underway in the coming days with the Northwest 200, before the Isle of Man TT which begins at the end of the month. For the riders who are not taking part in the roads, now is an important time to reflect on the opening three rounds, before Snetterton sees the resumption of the season, and try to work out where they can improve, and how to do so.
After Friday’s practice and qualifying on Saturday, it was Lorenzo Baldassarri who was the favourite to take victory in the fourth round of the 2018 Moto2 World Championship, at the Spanish Grand Prix from Jerez.
But it was Alex Marquez who made it to turn one first, and took the initial lead as he looked to take his first win of the season at his home round. But it was not long before Lorenzo Baldassarri claimed the lead for himself, and from there on it was a question of tyres. With Miguel Oliveira making a stunning comeback from fourteenth on the grid, it soon became an opportunity to see whether KTM still held their advantage over Kalex in tyre consumption, and considering the prowess of the Pons HP40 team in setting a bike up to save its tyres, it was sure to be an intriguing battle.
Miguel Oliveira ahead of Alex Marquez – image courtesy of KTM media
Oliveira was able to get close to Balda on many occasions, but in the final eight to ten laps, the Italian just slowly stretched the gap on the Portuguese with sublime consistency and outstanding pace, to finally take victory after over 18 months since his first win at home in Misano. The win for Lorenzo was an important one, for him and the team. Pons HP40 had not won since Alex Rins went to Ecstar Suzuki in MotoGP for the 2017 season, and suffered last year with their rider pairing of Fabio Quartararo and Edgar Pons. Even this year, not many people expected them to challenge with Baldassarri or his teammate Hector Barbera, and if people did expect them to challenge, they expected it to be Barbera at the front and not Balda. But, ultimately, they are a championship winning team, and they belong at the front, and that is precisely where Baldassarri has taken them. Equally, Baldassarri had a difficult 2017, and failed to make the podium as he, along with then teammate Luca Marini and their VR46 management, conflicted with the Forward Racing team for whom they rode. Sito Pons took a big gamble to take on Baldassarri for this year, and thankfully for the pair of them it seems to be paying off, Baldassarri sits just nine points off the championship leader, his flatmate Pecco Bagnaia, and looks as though he may be able to challenge for this championship.
Miguel Oliveira on the podium with Lorenzo Baldassarri. Image courtesy of KTM Media
Miguel Oliveira’s ride was stunning. In five laps he had gone from fourteenth to six and a few minutes later he was second and chasing down Baldassarri for the lead. It is entirely possible that the fight through the pack took too much life out of the rear Dunlop on the KTM, and that that is why Miguel failed to sustain his victory challenge. Aki Ajo said on the grid that Oliveira was back for Sunday, implying that the Portuguese had had an ‘off day’ on Saturday, hence his poor qualifying position. Either way, the points taken by Oliveira on Sunday were crucial for his championship.
They were even more important considering he took points out of his deficit to two-time race winner this season, Pecco Bagnaia, who started and finished third. The Italian struggled to keep the pace of Baldassarri all weekend, as did most, but did well to take a podium, his third of the season. It is true that he would have missed the podium without the mid-race crash of Alex Marquez at turn two, but mistakes are what win and lose championships – it is not the fault of Bagnaia that Marquez made the mistake. Moreover, the number 42 will be content knowing that next up is Le Mans, and he showed great pace at the French circuit last season, whilst the KTMs struggled.
It was not a comfortable podium for the championship leader, though – he was pushed all the way by Xavi Vierge on the Dynavolt Intact GP Kalex, as he continued his solid form of late, and Mattia Pasini rounded out the top five. Paso seemed like he could have had the pace for the podium had his qualifying been better, as he was matching the pace of Vierge and Bagnaia at the end, but was just too far back to make it matter.
Brad Binder had a difficult race in sixth. The South African looked good at the start and seemed as though he could challenge for the victory, especially if the KTM was going to keep good life in its tyres until the end of the race, but after five or six laps he started to drop back and looked very loose on the rear. It was a shame for Binder because for the first time this season he had qualified at the front and was in a position to challenge, but for whatever reason it never happened. The positive for Binder is that he proved that he can have the pace, and surely his first Moto2 victory is not far away.
Marcel Schrotter made a good comeback in the race from 20th on the grid after a three-place grid penalty to finish seventh and ahead of the winner of the 2016 edition of this race, Sam Lowes, by half a second. Ninth place went to Iker Lecuona, who was another rider to make a decent comeback in the race after starting eighteenth, and Fabio Quartararo rounded out the top ten.
Joan Mir, undoubtedly held back by his stomach bug from Saturday, finished eleventh, ahead of Simone Corsi, a somewhat impressive Tetsuta Nagashima in thirteenth, Hector Barbera and Andrea Locatelli who took the last point in fifteenth.
Sixteenth place was taken by Bo Bendsneyder, ahead of 17th placed Jorge Navarro who was recovering from lap one after he was taken out by Luca Marini at Dry Sack. It looked like Marini had out-braked himself and dived to the inside to avoid Sam Lowes directly in front of him, but could do nothing to avoid cleaning out Navarro. Marini should have gone to the outside to avoid Lowes, really, like Andrea Iannone should have done in Barcelona with Jorge Lorenzo in 2016, but things are a lot easier in hindsight. Khairul Idham Pawi took eighteenth place, in front of Isaac Vinales, Lukas Tulovic, Federico Fuligni, Xavi Cardelus who tested the MotoGP Avintia Ducati on Monday and was frighteningly slow, Hector Garzo and Jules Danilo who crashed early in the race but got back on to finish one lap down in 24th and last place.
There were quite a few retirements, perhaps owing a large part to the lack of grip in the searing Spanish heat. Marini was the first to go after his collision with Navarro, then Eric Granado went on lap three, Romano Fenati on lap seven, Stefano Manzi on lap nine, Zulfahmi Kharrudin (who has since been sacked) on lap ten, Danny Kent went with thirteen to go, the same lap as Alex Marquez crashed out of podium contention; Joe Roberts fell with just five laps to go and Steven Odendaal with two.
The dominance in this race from Baldassarri surely puts him into the frame for a championship challenge, especially with the miniscule gap that currently separates him from Bagnaia. Le Mans is next up, where last year the KTMs struggled, so there could be an opportunity in a couple of weeks for the Kalex riders to make a big difference in the championship, and it is not an opportunity that they can pass up if it arrives.
03/03/2018 has been an unsurprising day in the world of MotoGP: Johann Zarco has signed for Red Bull KTM for two years. This news comes one day after Pol Espargaro was confirmed to stay with the Austrian manufacturer for the next two years.
On the face of it, the move is a good one for both sides. Last year, KTM showed a tremendous development rate, as they accelerated through the midfield, whist Zarco has proven since he came to MotoGP at the beginning of last year that he has the potential, if given the right equipment, to fight for the world title, which ultimately is a goal he shares with KTM.
Zarco, Valencia Moto2 2016 – image courtesy of KTM.
Perhaps, though, the move is a better one for the employer than the employee. KTM get a double Moto2 World Champion, 2017’s MotoGP Rookie of the Year and one of the smoothest, yet most aggressive riders on the grid. But what is perhaps more valuable than all of that to KTM is that Zarco is the first ever Red Bull Rookies Cup Champion, a title he won back in 2008. One of KTM’s goals when it entered MotoGP was to obtain a better retention rate of their Red Bull Rookies graduates, as an alarming amount, such as Jorge Martin, Fabio Di Giannantonio and Ayumu Sasaki had ended up on Hondas in Moto3. Zarco moving back to KTM represents an opportunity for KTM to prove to their young riders that staying with KTM is an option – that you don’t have to be on a Honda, Yamaha, Ducati or Suzuki to win in MotoGP.
KTM at work. Image courtesy of RedBull Content Pool
So, whilst KTM get their original road racing golden child, what does Zarco get? Well, he gets a team assembled, in part, of the minds that powered KTM to three of the first five Moto3 World Championships and, in part, of some of the people who developed the MotoGP projects of some of KTM’s rivals. In addition, he gets an RC16. What exactly an RC16 actually is, is difficult to determine, because it changes configuration almost every half-hour. But, for certain, it was the most improved bike of last year, as well as probably the most disappointing bike of 2018.
Bradley Smith and Pol Espargaro at the 2018 RedBull KTM launch. Image Courtesy of Redbull Content Pool
Of course, KTM aren’t sprouting a fifth RC16 for 2019 for Zarco to pilot, they are sacking Bradley Smith. This is not a surprise. Smith did well to avoid being replaced by Mika Kallio for this season, and it was pretty much inevitable that he would not be riding a factory KTM in 2019. His options aren’t endless, either. He might be able to get himself a seat at Tech3 on one of their KTMs, but Avintia will likely keep hold of Rabat to partner Simeon, Marc VDS will remain with Morbidelli and bring in Alex Marquez or Joan Mir to go alongside the Italian, Angel Nieto will probably keep what they have (but may switch bikes) and Aprilia would probably prefer Iannone or a Moto2 rider to replace Aleix Espargaro or Scott Redding (or both), if it came to that, which is somewhat unlikely. It seems Smith’s MotoGP career is done.
Finally, since the other option for Zarco other than KTM was Repsol Honda, the Frenchman’s move to KTM almost confirms Dani Pedrosa’s safety on the second Repsol Honda.
The last race before the all-important Indy 500 had a lot more drama than anyone was expecting after last year! There were incidents for Simon Pagenaud and Josef Newgarden, amongst others, and late cautions altered the order but, ultimately, it was Will Power who triumphed over the rest to finally take his first victory of 2018 after a horrendous run of luck.
Power drove an almost faultless race to take Penske’s 200th win as a team and his first since Pocono last year. After taking pole by the smallest of margins over Robert Wickens, Power led off the initial start and then again off the restart after the first caution, brought out by Pagenaud and Jordan King coming together. He proceeded to build himself a lead over the remainder of the stint however, he then had to switch onto the less favourable Black Firestones, allowing Wickens, on the faster Reds, to pass and extend a lead of his own. Power came out behind Wickens after the second stops but it was only a matter of time before he sailed past him after the compounds had been swapped. Despite the late caution and an unexpected charge from Scott Dixon, Power held out to take his third win at the Indy GP.
Wickens was arguably one of the strongest forces in the race but he struggled more than most on the Blacks in the second stint, dropping him back into the clutches of Alexander Rossi. The third instalment of the Wickens/Rossi battle was somewhat hairier than the second but they, just about, managed to keep it clean after spending the majority of Lap 67 side-by-side. Rossi seemed to only have one challenge and, after that was unsuccessful, he slowly dropped away from Wickens, eventually being caught and passed by Sebastien Bourdais.
In front of that battle was Dixon who, after starting way down in 18th, made an excellent recovery to finish in second. Despite the headline finish, Dixon made a less than great start, finding himself further down in 21st just under one quarter of the way into the race. The #9 Chip Ganassi managed to stay under the radar for the majority of the race, just quietly making progress and, after some very clever strategy, appearing in third at the final restart. Wickens in front was still struggling for pace, despite being back on the Reds, so Dixon was in prime position to take advantage, passing the Schmidt Peterson driver for second at nearly the first opportunity. This weekend could’ve been dire for Dixon but, with that recovery, he now sits in fourth in the championship.
Bourdais was another one to stay out of too much drama in the race with his only incident coming as a result of a more than optimistic lunge from Newgarden. After initially passing Wickens, the positions were soon reversed on the restart with Bourdais then dropping back to the cars behind. Bourdais struggled on the Blacks in the second stint meaning that a frustrated and faster Newgarden was closing in on him. After waiting for all of a lap after catching Bourdais, Newgarden went for a gap that was never really there on the inside of Bourdais. The #1 Penske driver subsequently clipped the kerb and spun, narrowly missing Bourdais but wrecking his own race. It was an uncharacteristic moment from Newgarden that’s cut his championship lead down to just two points over Rossi.
Some of the biggest news coming into the weekend was the return of the very successful and much-loved Penske driver of Helio Castroneves. Despite being a catalyst of sorts in the Pagenaud/King incident, Castroneves ran an otherwise clean and confidence boosting race. While it was not the win or podium that he’d potentially dreamt of, a solid sixth place finish in one of the most competitive fields in motorsport is nothing to be ashamed of. This race, however, was never the focus for Castroneves who is targeting a fourth Indy 500 win in a few weekends time.
The most unfortunate driver of the race was, once again, Pagenaud who was caught up in an incident which, through no fault of his own, compromised the rest of his race, eventually coming home in eight. Pagenaud was running alongside Castroneves going into Turn 1 and was moved aside by his returnee teammate. This put Pagenaud into the path of King who was then going too fast to avoid hitting the back of Pagenaud’s Penske, putting King in the gravel and dropping Pagenaud down to the back of the field. It was deemed as a racing incident so no penalties were dished out but the other incident on the first lap, between Spencer Pigot and Takuma Sato, did warrant a penalty. Pigot was running alongside Sato when the former got onto the kerb, taking flight and then T-boning the side of Sato. Pigot took the blame for the collision and was handed a drive-thru penalty which dropped him way down the order.
Next up for IndyCar is the Indy 500 for which practice commences on the 15th May before qualifying starts on the 20th. The race itself isn’t until the 27th so there’s a lot of build-up to go until then!
This weekend, the Superbike World Championship heads to Imola in Italy, for the fifth round of the 2018 championship. Tom Sykes comes into this round on the crest of a wave after his victory in Asses two weeks ago, but it is his teammate, Jonathan Rea, who leads the championship.
But Sykes’ victory in Assen showed that this season will not be as easy for Rea as the previous ones, as it was the first time Rea had been beaten at the Dutch circuit since he joined Kawasaki back at the end of 2014. And Imola is a strong circuit for the 2013 World Champion, too, and one where he has strong support from the Italian fans – who can forget Sykes’ rage-fuelled pole lap in 2014 on race tyres when his initial lap on a qualifying tyre was disallowed because he crossed the line after a red flag was thrown. In addition to that, he scored a double win in Imola back in 2013, which proved critical for the title race as his championship rival, Sylvain Guintoli, retired from the first race. If Sykes can keep hold of his tyres this weekend, a traditional weakness of the number 66 but one he seemed to be able to remedy at an unusually warm Assen, he could be difficult to beat.
But if anyone could do so, it would likely be his teammate, Jonathan Rea. The Northern Irishman won both Imola races in 2014 on the underpowered Pata Honda. However, Rea hasn’t won at the San Marinese circuit since 2015, when he also did the double. Despite a test at Brno, on the way into this weekend Rea has claimed that he is still missing something to take the maximum from the 2018 ZX10-RR. But, like when Marc Marquez said the same thing about his Honda RC213V after last weekend’s Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez, it is difficult to take this statement from Rea as one which perhaps put him under threat. If anything, it just serves as a worry to his fellow competitors, and there is no doubt that the reigning champion will be in the fight for the victory this weekend.
Chaz Davis. Image courtesy of Ducati.com
However, Imola is Ducati’s home, near to their Borgo Panigale base, and they will be eager to bounce back after a difficult weekend in Assen where they scored only one podium. Chaz Davies, though, has won the last four races at Imola, doing the double in the last two years on the #7 bike, and it will be important for the Welshman to do the same this weekend to maintain his championship challenge – his fifth place in Assen race two did not help his situation.
It was the other factory Ducati rider, Marco Melandri, though, who made the big progress at the Brno test. The Italian has suffered with straight-line instability all season, and it didn’t get any better in Holland, despite the outward appearance seeming significantly improved. The Italian will be hopeful of repeating his Phillip Island performance from February this weekend at his home race, although he has not won in Imola since he won the 125cc Grand Prix there in 1999.
The Yamaha riders had contrasting fortunes in Assen. Alex Lowes took pole, but his weekend got significantly worse from there, with the wrong front tyre being fitted to the bike (his second bike) for race one, and then, after starting from tenth due to his poor race one result, he crashed out of sixth place in race two, although he remounted to take 2 points for fourteenth. The 2013 British Superbike Champion will be hoping for better luck in the races this weekend and that, combined with recent improvements on the part of the bike, could get him back on the podium this weekend.
It was an almost opposite weekend for the #60 Yamaha of Michael van der Mark. The Assen home hero had a difficult qualifying, ending up seventh, but took second in race one and third in race two, challenging Rea on both occasions. Although, van der Mark has never been on the podium in Italy. He should have won race two in Misano last year, but his tyre failed causing him to crash – he will be hoping to correct that this weekend, although in the past Imola has proven a tricky circuit for Yamaha – they haven’t scored a top five since their return in 2015.
Jake Gagne. Image Courtesy of Hondanews.eu.
Honda have a difficult situation. Whilst Jake Gagne is fit for the whole weekend after missing days two and three of Assen, Leon Camier has only been given clearance for FP1 on Friday morning. It is good to have the pair of them back after there were no Ten Kate Hondas on the grid at their home race, but Camier will only decide if he will ride after the first session once it is completed. If Camier should decide to not continue with the weekend, BSB’s Jason O’Halloran, who took the Honda Racing CBR1000RR SP2 Fireblade to second place at Oulton Park last weekend in the British championship, is ready to take over for the weekend.
Eugene Laverty is back too, after he missed Aragon and Assen due to the injuries he sustained in Thailand when he was hit by Jordi Torres’ MV Agusta after he crashed the Milwaukee Yamaha. The Northern Irishman is back one round ahead of his plan, so it will be interesting to see his competitiveness – hopefully he will be okay to make the weekend with a good pace, and maybe he can make two good results in the races on Saturday and Sunday.
Leon Haslam is back in World Superbike, too, after his three successive wins in BSB, including a double win last weekend at Oulton Park which fired him to the top of the general standings. Haslam will be riding a retro Elf livery on the Puccetti Kawasaki, one similar to that his dad, Ron, used to ride, albeit on a Honda. Haslam, of course, took a podium in race one at Donington last year when he finished second, behind Tom Sykes who won thanks to Jonathan Rea’s tyre failure. Whether Haslam can replicate that result this weekend, on a track which he has not ridden since 2015, when he struggled a bit on the Aprilia, remains to be seen. And, of course, the Kawasaki in World Superbike is significantly different both to the one he rides in BSB, and that which he rode last year at Donington – most notably the maximum rev drop that Kawasaki has been suffering with so far this season will be a factor in Imola.
2017 FIA World Rally Championship Round 07, Rally Italia Sardegna 05-11 June 2017 Day 1 Portrait Thierry Neuville Photographer: Helena El Mokni Worldwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Thierry gives his thoughts after five rounds of this year’s world rally championship. After three podium finishes including a win in round two in the snow-covered stages of Sweden, he’s now just ten points away from championship leader Seb Ogier with Rally Portugal next week.
2018 FIA World Rally Championship Round 05, Rally Argentina 26-29 April 2018 Photographer: Helena El Mokni Worldwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
Warren Nel
Thinking about Day one of Rally Argentina, how hard is it the judge the pace to drive at when you’re second on the road?
Thierry Neuville
Its not more hard than before, but you know that due to the road cleaning you are losing time, but that’s part of the game so you try your best you have to take some times a bit more risk, but the Friday is the most important day because it influences your road position for the upcoming days so you have to give it everything.
WN – Day two of Rally Argentina saw some foggy stages. Can you give an idea how hard it is to drive fast when faced with this?
TN – Really tricky, especially when there were no trees- was really really tricky, but had to say I had good pace notes, I was confident, I was decided to make a difference in that stage, to try to make a gap with Kris Meeke, and I was able to do it, kept Dani Sordo behind, Ott Tanak was on the same speed as us, but we have done pretty well.
WN – Sunday saw you win the power stage and score another podium this year. When we spoke at the Autosport Show in January you said you were aiming for a consistent approach to the results throughout the year. Would you say that was working so far?
TN – Of course, it’s working so far, no real big mistake, good points couple of podiums, a win so I’m satisfied, there were only some issues we had in Mexico which made us lose some points, but other that this we are really consistent, we never gave up, even in difficult conditions and scenarios like in Mexico with the powersteering and the fuel problem, but we kept it going and were still able to score important points.
WN – Leading the championship heading into Rally Mexico meant that you opened the road on day one. How did you approach the creation of the stage notes taking this into account?
TN – No different approach, you just need to be mentally prepared, you won’t be the fastest, it’s not possible, but still we were driving well, obviously we got some issues, but yeah, my approach is the same, try to do your best, make no mistakes, and obviously so far always try to keep Ogier behind.
WN – With eight rounds of this year’s championship left you’re ten points behind Seb and Ott is now third. Do you think the championship fight will just be between you three, or will someone else join the fight?
TN – Ah yes, I think so. We are three drivers, we are clearly always fighting for podium positions. Yep, it’s going to be between us. Maybe Mikkelsen can join at some point as well. But for sure the wins in upcoming events that won’t be us, we have Hayden joining with a very good road position, Kris Meeke, Jari-Matti Latvala, who are quite far in the standings as well, Lappi a bit behind, so all those guys going to fight for wins on the next events so we going to try to survive with our road position and try to make podium out of it.
2018 FIA World Rally Championship Round 02, Rally Sweden 15-18 February 2018 Thierry Neuville, Nicolas Gilsoul, Hyundai i20 Coupe WRC Photographer: Austral Worldwide copyright: Hyundai Motorsport GmbH
A big thank you to Thierry for answering my questions. Also, a big thank you to the PR of Hyundai Motorsport, Nicolette Russo for sending these to Thierry, and finally our own PR, Julia for setting up the interview.
IndyCar is back from its quick breather, meaning the Month of May can start in earnest. We’ve already had the Rookies and Refreshers test along with the first open test, both in preparation for the Indy 500 but before that gets underway, IndyCar go racing at the road course for the Indy GP.
IndyCar were at Barber Motorsports Park last time out with the rain-hit and eventually rescheduled race being won by the championship leader, Josef Newgarden. Newgarden started from pole, in both attempts at the race, and led the vast majority of the laps to take his second win of his title defence. Ryan Hunter-Reay followed the #1 Penske of Newgarden home to be lead Andretti for the first time this season. In fact, that was the first time that Alexander Rossi wasn’t the first Andretti home, with the American finishing down in eleventh. Elsewhere, the Schmidt Peterson duo of James Hinchcliffe and Robert Wickens finished third and fourth respectively, showing that both have championship potential.
While it was a Chevrolet winner, Honda were, once more, the stronger of the two with Honda locking out positions two through to eight. That performance, and those of the previous three races, has left Honda with a 67-point lead over Chevrolet in the Manufactures Standings.
Last year, the Indy GP was won by the so-far unbelievably unlucky Will Power who was one of only two leaders of the race, Helio Castroneves being the other. Scott Dixon followed Power home in second from Hunter-Reay and the other thus-far unfortunate Penske of Simon Pagenaud. It was a fairly clean and, for IndyCar’s standards, uneventful race last year with the only two retirements coming from mechanical issues for Sebastien Bourdais and Charlie Kimball.
This track has always been a Penske stronghold with the only non-Penske win coming back at the track’s inaugural race in 2014 where Pagenaud, then with Schmidt Peterson, won. That 2014 win is still Honda’s only triumph at the Indy road course to date, a record they’ll be hoping to set straight this weekend.
As with the previous two races, IndyCar is on another street course so usual qualifying procedure applies with the two groups going into the fastest twelve and then the Firestone Fast Six.
There have been quite a number of driver changes since Barber, some scheduled, some not. Pietro Fittipaldi was down to take the wheel of the #19 Dale Coyne however, after his monster, leg-breaking crash at Raidillon during qualifying for the 6 Hours of Spa, he, quite clearly won’t be racing. Dale Coyne have announced that Zachary Claman De Melo will be in the #19 in his place but they are still looking for a replacement for the Indy 500 and Texas. Kyle Kaiser is taking over the solo Juncos from Rene Binder as planned while Castroneves will make his much-awaited return to IndyCar with Penske, fielding his #3 car once more.
As always, predicting anything for the weekend is rather difficult! Given their form at this track so far, you’d expect Penske to be strong but, after the starts both Power and Pagenaud have had, the safe money would have to be on Newgarden. Equally, you can’t count out any of the Andrettis, nor the Chip Ganassis or the Schmidt Petersons so really, it’s anyone’s guess!
Practice and Qualifying will be streamed on IndyCar’s channels as usual and the race can be found on the BT Sport/ESPN channel. The whole Mazda Road to Indy lot will also be there with all of Indy Lights, Pro Mazda and USF2000 sessions available to stream in the same place as IndyCar.
The IndyCar timings, in BST, for the weekend are as follows:
Friday
Practice 1 – 2:15pm
Practice 2 – 5:30pm
Qualifying – 9:30pm
Well, who else needed the last fortnight to get over Baku? What a race weekend that was!
It amazed me how much action was served up in Azerbaijan, despite the teams experiencing the chaos of the street circuit last year. However, speaking of tracks that should be well known yet still provide the thrills and spills of a newbie; the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya is Formula 1’s next stop.
Final lap, 40+ second lead… what could possibly go wrong?
Although the teams and drivers spend lengthy spells at the home of the Spanish Grand Prix over the winter, as well as of course summer testing and the upcoming race weekend, the 2.8-mile course still offers many difficulties.
If the mixture of high and low-speed corners doesn’t catch you out, or the new track surface, the unpredictable crosswinds probably will; meaning once again it is set to be a challenging three days for the drivers.
The next #F1Esports qualification race gets underway at 20:00 BST! ⏰
Ten drivers. Three Pro Draft slots. One race on @Formula1game ?
Turn 1, in particular, will be an exciting contest – with it one of the few overtaking hotspots, although the latter stages of the circuit are seen as the most tricky – with maximum speed vital yet hard to come by in the final two corners.
The Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, overall, is known as a place where teams struggle to reach their optimum set-up, with the high tyre wear a significant factor in that.
With that in mind, Pirelli has allocated the medium, soft and supersoft tyres – a softer trio of compounds compared to last year due to the new surface, with the latter making its debut at the Barcelona track.
“This year, Barcelona isn’t exactly like going to a new circuit for the teams: but the changes to the surface are still significant enough to alter some of the track’s fundamental characteristics,” Pirelli’s Head of Car Racing, Mario Isola, told Formula 1’s official website.
“We too have made a change by reducing the tread depth on the slick tyres to reduce the risk of overheating, as we will also do for Paul Ricard and Silverstone, but it’s not a change that any of the drivers will notice in terms of performance or stint length.
“The teams already have some knowledge of the new asphalt from pre-season testing, but the weather is now much warmer, the cars considerably faster and there will also be some ageing of the surface.
“This year, we bring the supersoft to the Spanish Grand Prix – effectively, two steps softer than the softest nomination in 2017, as all the compounds are a step softer anyway – so the homework done in free practice will be particularly important.”
Race one for British Superbikes at Oulton Park got underway in blistering Cheshire heat on what was the hottest early-May bank holiday on record. The heat meant that the soft rear tyre was a must, and for the majority, medium fronts were the order of the day. The heat also meant that grip was at a premium, and there were several crashes early on, with Michael Laverty crashing out on the first lap at Lodge, Glenn Irwin joining him on the side lines not too much later at Island Bend, and many more falling victim to the greasy Oulton asphalt.
But it was Jake Dixon who grabbed the early lead at turn one, and he kept it for most of the race, unchallenged. But, with about five laps to go, Leon Haslam made his move at Lodge corner on the inside and began to stretch away from the RAF Regular and Reserves Kawasaki. The two were out front on their own thanks to a fairly large gap that appeared between the then second-placed Haslam and third-placed Brad Ray, when Irwin hit the deck. After Haslam took the lead away from Dixon, he took minimal amounts of time out of the youngster over the final laps, and eventually won with a gap close to one second. It was Haslam’s second consecutive win, and first dry weather victory of the season – one that catapulted him to second in the championship. A welcome result, then, for Haslam, after struggling in the dry at least with the JG Speedfit Kawasaki in the first two rounds of the season.
The second place of Jake Dixon was an important one too. It had not been a spectacular start to the number 27’s season with results below his expectations in Donington and race one at Brands Indy, and a crash in the second race at round two. This result in a way, marks the proper start of Dixon’s season and it seems the first 2018 victory is not too far away for him. It will be interesting to see whether he can go one better in race two.
Shane Byrne. Image courtesy of ducatiukracing.com
Shane Byrne took third place, after a tough move on Jason O’Halloran at Hizzy’s chicane towards the end of the race. The move allowed him to quickly set his sights on Bradley Ray, who was seemingly struggling with rear grip towards the end. His overtake on Ray was somewhat less on the limit than the one with O’Halloran; clean as you like, in fact, and after that the Suzuki rider had no response, giving Byrne an important podium in the quest for podium points ahead of the Showdown. The podium was not enough for Shakey to hold second in the championship, which went to Haslam, but the 41-year-old is now just seven points off the top of the championship. After the race he complained of chatter, and it will be that which he and his PBM Ducati team will seek to fix for the second race.
Brad Ray came home in fourth. He made a great start from ninth, but got very detached after the crash of Irwin which happened directly in front of him. It looked from quite an early stage as though he was struggling with the rear tyre, but that could just have been him pushing on trying to keep Byrne and O’Halloran behind, whilst catching the leaders. Ultimately, he failed on two out of three counts, and will hope to have a better pace in the second race. Interestingly, Ray was the only Suzuki rider to choose the hard front tyre, everyone else was on the soft front. Whether that could be the difference maker this afternoon remains to be seen, but Ray will be keen to return to the podium to continue to build his tally of those all-important podium points.
O’Halloran took fifth place. After the move Byrne put on him, he became very detached from Shakey and Ray. To compound that, his CBR1000RR Fireblade developed a gearbox issue towards the end of the race. The positive for O’Halloran is that before the incident with Byrne he had a good pace, so he has something to build on for race two.
Josh Brookes took his best dry result of the season so far in sixth place. With that in mind, his claims of progress in the Oulton Park test just over one week ago are valid, but he also clearly still has more work to do to be able to challenge for podiums and victories.
Seventh place went to Danny Buchan on the FS-3 Kawasaki, ahead of Tommy Bridewell’s Halsall Suzuki, Tarran Mackenzie’s McAMS Yamaha and Richard Cooper’s Buildbase Suzuki. Mackenzie’s ride was impressive in just his fifth BSB start, and at a circuit where he has been struggling somewhat through the weekend, and also at the test. There is a lot of potential in Taz Mackenzie on a superbike, and it could be quite frightening when he begins to unlock more of it.
After a first lap excursion at Hizzy’s that dropped him to pretty much the very back of the pack, James Ellison took eleventh place, although he will be eager to improve a lot on that in race two after a difficult start to the season, if he wants to make the Showdown. Ryuichi Kiyonari perhaps surprised a few people with his twelfth-place finish on his BSB return, replacing Dan Linfoot. He was battling for most of the race with Gino Rea (13th) and Jakub Smrz (14th), ahead of Mason Law who took the final point, and his first in BSB.
The first of the non-point-scorers to cross the line was Sylvain Barrier, ahead of Dean Harrison who has had a cracking weekend, Martin Jessopp who would have been in the points but had a big off-track moment towards the end of the race at Cascades, David Johnson, Shaun Winfield and Connor Cummins, who was the 21st and last finisher, on his first outing on the new Fireblade as he prepares for the big road races coming up.
Retirements were aplenty, with Luke Mossey having a fairly large tip off at Druids, Taylor Mackenzie falling at Lodge, Glenn Irwin (aforementioned) crashing out at Island, Carl Phillips going down, Peter Hickman getting away with a high-side at Cascades, Kyle Ryde who made the Craig Fitzpatrick Yamaha a fixture of the local forestry at Druids and finally Michael Laverty (aforementioned) who crashed at the end of lap one.
The track temperature for race two should be somewhat cooler than for the first race of the day, so the casualty count should be smaller in the second outing. But the big question is whether anyone can challenge Leon Haslam, and whether it can be someone other than Jake Dixon.
