Phillip Island, Australia

2018 Phillip Island MotoGP Race Round Up: Flirting With Disaster, And Triumph At Last

Submitted by David Emmett on Tue, 2018-10-30 04:00

Phillip Island is a glorious race track, in a glorious setting, with a history of serving up glorious racing, especially when the weather plays ball. On Sunday, it did just that, the circuit bathed in warm sunshine, almost taking the edge off the antarctic chill which can still hit the circuit in very early spring. And great weather brought fantastic racing, starting with a spectacularly insane Moto3 race, followed up with a thrilling Moto2 race, and finally topped off with an intriguing and incident-packed MotoGP race.

The MotoGP grid arrived at Phillip Island mindful of the lessons of last year. In 2017, a large group had battled for the win for 20+ laps, until their tires were shot. Marc Márquez, having been mindful of his tires for much of the race, made his move in the last five laps, opening a gap over the chasing group of a couple of seconds. Everyone Márquez had beaten last year had spent the weekend concentrating on tire preservation for the last part of the race.

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Stefan Bradl To Replace Injured Cal Crutchlow

Submitted by David Emmett on Sun, 2018-10-28 18:23

Stefan Bradl is to replace Cal Crutchlow on the LCR Honda at the next round of MotoGP at Sepang, a week from today. As HRC's official test rider, Bradl was the easy choice to take the place of the injured Crutchlow.

Crutchlow was ruled out of Sunday's Australian Grand Prix after a huge crash at Turn 1 during FP2 on Friday. His right leg took a beating in the fall, fracturing his ankle in three places. Crutchlow was flown to Melbourne, where an external cage was placed on his ankle to fix the bones in place while the swelling subsides. Crutchlow is due for further surgery on Thursday to have the bones plated.

That rules Crutchlow out of the race at Sepang, and makes him doubtful for the Valencia race in three weeks' time. A decision on Valencia will not be made until much nearer the event, but it is conceivable that Crutchlow will decide to sit out the race, and focus on being fit for the last test of the year at Jerez at the end of November.