SEPTEMBER 28, 2022
Sunday, September 25, 2022 at 11:41AM
(Photo by AE Special Contributor Whit Bazemore)
Jack Miller (No. 43 Ducati Lenovo Team) dominated the Motul Grand Prix of Japan, but fellow Francesco Bagnaia’s (No. 63 Ducati Lenovo Team) MotoGP™ World Championship hopes have taken a huge blow with a final-lap crash. ‘Pecco’ was locked in battle with Fabio Quartararo (No. 20 Monster Energy Yamaha MotoGP™) over eighth position when he hit the deck, while Aleix Espargaro (No. 41 Aprilia Racing) also failed to score points after a technical problem before the start at the Mobility Resort Motegi. Second on the day went to Brad Binder (No. 33 Red Bull KTM Facory Racing) and third to Jorge Martin (No. 89 Prima Pramac Racing Ducati), while Marc Marquez (No. 93 Repsol Honda Team) turned his first pole position in almost three years into fourth at the checkered flag after 24 frenetic laps. Watch the race highlights here. (Thank you to MotoGP.com)
Inside Motegi.
By Whit Bazemore
Bend. The ever-popular Japanese GP held at Honda’s ‘home” corporate race track in Motegi made its return to the MotoGP calendar after two years of pandemic induced absence. A typhoon (Nanmadol) hit the Southern portion of Japan on Tuesday of race week, just when the MotoGP circus and freight was arriving from the previous weekend in Aragon. As a precaution, Friday’s early morning scheduled practices were canceled, a disruption and inconvenience to all the teams given the technical advances made to the bikes since the last Motegi race, won by Marc Marquez in 2019.
If one serious typhoon during race week wasn’t enough, on Saturday, qualifying day, another typhoon hit the island nation, this time disrupting qualifying with torrential rains. But Friday’s lone MotoGP practice session, crucially, had been dry, and was a precursor for Sunday’s race. Jack Miller — the “underdog” or “under-performer of the year” depending on your perspective, was winless so far in 2022, while Ducati teammate “Pecco” Bagnaia has four wins and is a close second in the Championship to Fabio Quartararo — dominated the dry Friday practice session, but qualified only seventh in the wet conditions. Miller fared better than the two leading Championship contenders, Quartararo and Bagnaia, who were 9th and 12th respectively. The other top contender, Aleix Espargaro, qualified 6th. All three were separated by only 17 points.
Marc Marquez qualified on pole, showing that his motivation, skill and, well everything about him, has not suffered or changed one bit since serious injury and four major surgeries to repair his heavily damaged right arm since the previous Motegi race. It was almost as if the 2019 race was yesterday.
Race day was bright and sunny. Jack Miller wasted no time in getting to the front and he opened a gap — up to 5 seconds at one point — to ride away to the victory. It was an incredible performance from the likable and opinionated Aussie, but a performance rarely seen from him. Miller is a huge talent, no question, but he has been overshadowed by teammate Bagnaia for the past two seasons. Jack has had a habit of throwing away great results, but this time he was perfect. Literally perfect, not an apex or braking point missed.
Behind him, the Championship contenders were all facing trouble of one kind or another. Espargaro, who had a very real chance to win this race, or at least score significantly more points than his title rivals and put himself back up into serious contention (as opposed to “just having a mathematical chance”), suffered a mechanical (software setting mistake) on the sighting lap, and had to change bikes on his way to the grid. This meant a pit-lane start which effectively killed his Championship hopes, barring huge bad luck for both of the leaders. Aleix is nothing if not a tremendous fighter, and he made his way from last up to 16th at the finish — but still out of the points — the Aprilia team blowing an opportunity not likely to come their way again this season. But then again, this is MotoGP and anything can and will happen.
Quartararo was stuck mid-pack in 8th, not making much progress, and seemed resigned to damage control, protecting his 10-point lead over Bagnaia (and Enea Bastianini) both of whom spent the race behind him. With five laps to go in the 24-lap race, Bagnaia made an aggressive move on his Ducati teammate and Championship rival Bastianini - still no team orders from the usually stoic Ducati team management — to move in behind Quartararo. This was getting interesting.
Today’s MotoGP bikes have become notoriously difficult to overtake on, due to ever increasing aerodynamics, (sounds all too familiar, doesn’t it?) and the last lap battles of late seem to only feature one or two (at the most) perfectly timed and executed passes for the win. A few years ago, some last lap battles were back and forth affairs with passes into every corner and on every straight. That was the real beauty of MotoGP, however, at least for now, sadly, those days appear to be long gone.
Instead, the passing rider now must more carefully calculate the move because the added aero load on the front tire causes higher wear and higher tire temps (which means higher tire pressure — which means less “feel” and significantly less traction). Not to mention, the now common “ride height devices” which lower the rear of the bike on the straights (reducing the angle of attack of the front wings in a straight line) result in higher straight-line speeds, which technically should result in longer (better for racing and passing) braking distances. But it hasn’t worked that way, as under braking, the ride height device pops back up to normal, so the wings have their full angle of attack in the braking zones. And the wings in this position actually help significantly increase braking power (more load = bigger footprint = more traction = shorter braking distances) which, of course, makes overtaking more difficult and riskier.
Add to all of this is the heat generated from each 300HP bike, which when following closely actually heats up the front tire as well, making the high tire pressure problem even worse. And… the wings also create nasty turbulence which makes drafting closely down a straight at 220 mph a big balls contest. (All intelligent readers of AE are probably now asking “… and why do they need these wings?” Answer: they don’t. It is beyond stupid to have them.)
So, the excitement came from wondering what Bagnaia might do. He had the pace to pass Fabio for 8th place. But could he? Would he? One championship point was a stake. One. Risk vs. reward is something all professional racers become very good at calculating, for obvious reasons.
Going into turn 1 on the last lap, and Pecco is right behind Fabio. But no pass attempt is made. At turn 3, Pecco makes his move to the inside and almost immediately loses the front end under braking and crashes. His bike narrowly misses Quartararo. Bagnaia’s race is over. It is a disaster for his Championship. He was down and out in Japan. All of which now puts more pressure on Ducati and Bagnaia. This was their best chance for the Championship, and real Champions do not and cannot waste an opportunity. Perhaps his mistake in Japan will end up being the title decider. One can hope not, but it was a huge mistake. Huge.
Fabio finished 8th and consequently increased his Championship lead to 17-points over second place Bagnaia.
Brad Binder on the KTM had a great race — a last-lap pass on Ducati rival Jorge Martin gave him a well-deserved second-place finish.
And what of Marc Marquez? Facing a race where he mentioned he might not even be able to physically finish due to muscle weakness in the repaired right arm, Marquez rode an excellent race to finish fourth. His result was on-par with Miller’s. Just perfect. The next best Honda was down in 12th. As great a racer as Championship leader Quartararo is — and he is stupendously quick while also being unbelievably mistake free at the limit — Marquez is already proving that at full fitness next year, he will once again be the guy to beat.
So, on to Buriram, Thailand, for this week’s race, the third of three in a row. The fight will continue…
(BMW images)
The BMW M Hybrid V8 was presented to the public in its racing colors for the first time at a launch event at the Petersen Museum in Los Angeles on Thursday (9/22). The first prototype developed by BMW M Motorsport in 25 years will sport an avant-garde livery that leverages the iconic BMW M colors when it competes in the GTP class of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship in 2023. The four core drivers nominated for the two BMW M Team RLL cars were also announced at the Petersen Museum. They are BMW M works drivers Connor De Phillippi (USA), Philipp Eng (AUT), Augusto Farfus (BRA) and Nick Yelloly (GBR). When the car makes its race debut at the 61st running of the Rolex 24 At Daytona (USA) on January 28-29, they will also receive assistance from IndyCar series driver Colton Herta. Guests at the event in Los Angeles included BMW M CEO Franciscus van Meel, Head of BMW M Motorsport Andreas Roos, IMSA President John Doonan, and the owners of BMW M Team RLL: Bobby Rahal, David Letterman and Patrick Lanigan. The Look? Like the camouflage livery that adorned the BMW M Hybrid V8 during the testing phase, the design of the livery for the 2023 racing season also comes from BMW Group Designworks under the program leadership of Michael Scully, Global Director, Automotive and Advanced Design. The works livery represents a future-facing coat of arms comprised of modern, bold, fractal blocks of the iconic M colors and the M logo. “These elements have been deconstructed to form what at first might appear to be an abstract triangular pattern across the BMW M Hybrid V8, but when viewed from the side, the M logo clicks right into place. – M reconstructed, if you will.” Scully explained. It looks good, needless to say.
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