Well, that was shit, eh? It was always going to be. You were all waiting for the dramatic second round of the European Arm Waving Championship weren’t you? Some dramatic rematch between Rossi and Marquez, destined to explode through the stratosphere in a blaze of shattered carbon fibre and ripped Roo hide?
It was never going to happen. I told you that last week. Didn’t believe me, did you? Marquez is unbeatable in the USA and has been for years. Rossi was never going to get close enough to him for there to be any controversy. Nor was anyone else. And so it came to pass. Marquez easily shrugged off his three grid place penalty imposed for an infraction in Q2 on Saturday and romped away to a comfortable lead in short order, then managed the gap and cruised to an easy win. Just like I said he would.
You hate it when The Tug is right, don’t you? That’s cool with me. I am fuelled by hate, and single malt. It’s the most powerful emotion we humans have next to love, and I certainly don’t want any of that from you, so get over yourselves and stick with hating me. It’s better for everyone that way.
After all the drama of Argentina, all the media musings, all the social media warfare between the various armies of fans, nothing happened, other than Marquez reminding the world that he is simply on another planet to everyone else.
Here’s the brutal reality of it. The only person who can beat Marc Marquez in a world championship in the next ten years is Marc Marquez. They are all his to lose, and only his mistakes will lead to anyone else winning one. So everyone needs to accept that and move on. And hope like hell he screws up.
The only voice of reason in this whole circus that has formed a cloud of resentment over MotoGP in the last fortnight came from a most unlikely source. Jack Miller. He sat at the press conference on Thursday and responded to a question from a journalist who was attempting to bait him into dropping an incendiary comment about either Rossi or Marquez by basically telling the collected media to pull their heads in and stop trying to create stories and fuel hatred. He reminded fans and the media alike that the sport is full of brave young men who have far more on the line than any of the people expressing opinions about them. He reminded them of Marco Simoncelli, not so much to make a point about riding styles (which Marco was often criticised for), but to point out that the sport has far more important things at stake than some bullshit feud manufactured to sell more t-shirts. Bravo, Jack. For the guy known as the loosest unit in the paddock, he’s smarter than many give him credit for. The boy is growing up, both on the track and off.
So what else did we learn from this GP? Lots actually.
Firstly though, I need someone, anyone, to explain to me why it as called “The Grand Prix Of The Americas”. Is there more than one America? I’ve never heard it referred to as “The United States Of The Americas”. What the fuck is that all about? Maybe America has become like that annoying guy you knew at university who always referred to himself in the third person because he thought it sounded cool. What are you doing tonight, Stephen? “Stephen is going out for a latte with some friends”, Stephen would reply. Well fuck you, Stephen, you twat.
I asked some of the other idiot MotoGP Journos what it meant, and none of them knew. So I thought I would use that secret journalistic research tool that all these other spectrum-exceeding muppets in the press room are always using. They call it “Wikipedia”. I’d never heard of it before. I can’t get the internet on my typewriter, so I stole Mat Oxley’s iPad thingy while he was in the shitter. Whoever Wikipedia is reckons “The Americas” is a term that refers to all of North and South America together. So two whole continents. And the Americans think their GP in Texas somehow is the GP for all of those two continents. Which is entirely disrespectful to the people of Argentina who hosted the last round. For those Americans reading this, Argentina is in South America, so it’s just as much in the Americas is you are. And their GP was way better than yours. We know you all think the world ends at Mexico, but calling your GP the one for all of two continents is just up yourself, so just stop it. You don’t see the good people of San Marino claiming the Misano round to be the “GP of Europe” do you? It’s like that whole Baseball “World Series” that only American teams can play in. This is why no-one likes you, America. You’re up yourself. Stop it. Or I will make more jokes about that munted Orangutan you voted in as President.
And while we’re at it, what’s with that shitty race track you call “Circuit Of The Americas” (as if there is only one circuit in the whole of the two continents, you self-aggrandising bell-ends). The joint is so full of bumps that they knew they needed to do something before the bikes arrived. I have heard a secret recording of two Texans who work in senior management at the circuit discussing it before the circus came to town.
In their long Texan drawl, one said “What do yer suppose we should do about all dem bumps, Hal?”
Hal replied, “No problem, I gots me one of dem angle grinders from Walmart on sale last week. We’ll grind dem fuckers down till they all smoove and shiny-like”
And so they did. The Texans brought in some massive industrial diamond grinding machine to take the top off the bumps. What they ended up with was a track that still had massive bumps, but was now covered in cement dust. It stayed that way for the whole 3 days.
Apparently there are no brooms in Texas. Hal should have gone back to Walmart and bought a vacuum cleaner.
So The Americas served up a track that had massive ugly bumps in all the wrong places, and was as dirty as Donald Trump at a party full of strippers. Maybe they should rename it The Circuit Of The Kardashians. At least then having big bumps and being filthy can earn you some coin.
We did learn a few things from the racing too, boring as it was. It was pleasing to see Maverick do well this weekend. Unexciting, but pleasing. Iannone managed to score a podium too. That’s two in a row for Suzuki, so they’ll be well chuffed. Luckily for them the Ducati’s just don’t seem to work well at this track, so that helped. Dovi rode well and used his head to score some valuable points without risking his neck at a track that his bike doesn’t like. He also now leads the championship by a point.
Dovi’s teammate George once again rode like a sook. He complained after the race about a tough move Miller put on him to get past, but Miller explained it by saying Lorenzo had taken some “weird wide line” on the way into the corner and appeared to have run wide on entry. Jack pounced and put in a clean pass. Lorenzo stood his bike up and just shook his head. He was so focussed on the head shaking that he lost another place in the process. George is an idiot who rides like Tinkerbell. He is scared, and has forgotten how to race. This is clear, because he shook his head at Miller for riding, well, like a racer. Ducati needs to send George to the same Psychiatrist they sent Marco Melandri to when he couldn’t ride on Bridgestones. Or shoot him. Knowing the Italians, he’ll be swimming with the fishes soon enough.
Rossi was OK and rode to a nice 4th, but lets be real, he was beaten by a Suzuki.
Crutchlow dealt with the pressure of leading the championship by crashing and losing it. No shock there.
Ride of the day? No, not Marquez.
Dani Pedrosa.
The little big man broke his wrist last week when Zarco Liberace’d him, had surgery a few days later, then toughed it out for a solid 7th place on a circuit that is full of heavy braking zones that are full of bumps, all the things you don’t want when you have a broken wrist. He was only 18 seconds behind the winner. Most people would be in a sling for a month and whimpering for attention. But not Dani. He has proven time and again that even though he has bones that are clearly made of chalk, the rest of him is made of extremely stern stuff.
Make jokes all you like about his diminutive size. I can guarantee he’s a shitload tougher than you are. It’s a shame George doesn’t have some of his ticker.
Next we are off to Europe and Jerez, where the Spaniards on the hills shall rejoice in the Mediterranean sunshine and real championship fight will commence.