Opinion

Looking Back At 2013 - Rating The Riders: 7th, Stefan Bradl, 7/10

Submitted by David Emmett on

Continuing our look back at 2013, we come to seventh place man Stefan Bradl. Here's how he fared in 2013. To read the rest of our reviews of last year, you can read part 1, Marc Marquez; part 2, Jorge Lorenzo; part 3, Dani Pedrosa; part 4, Valentino Rossi; part 5, Cal Crutchlow; and part 6, Alvaro Bautista.

Stefan Bradl LCR Honda
Championship position: 7th
Score: 7/10

In his first season of MotoGP, Stefan Bradl did exactly what was expected of him, learning slowly, building speed, and getting better week after week. He impressed his team, crew chief Christophe 'Beefy' Bourguignon expressing admiration at his calm and intelligent approach after the first test on the bike. He did not crash too often, finished inside the top six on a regular basis, and even got close to his first podium.

After such a strong start, he was expected to do even better in year two. The target was the occasional podium, and to be the best of the satellite riders. Strong support from Honda meant that Bradl had the tools to do the job, though starting the season using Nissin brakes instead of Brembo put him at a slight disadvantage, the Nissins offering fractionally inferior brake release.

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Looking Back At 2013 - Rating The Riders: 6th, Alvaro Bautista, 7/10

Submitted by David Emmett on

In part six of our series looking back at 2013, we reach Alvaro Bautista. Below is our view on Bautista's season in MotoGP. You can catch up with the rest of this series here: part 1, Marc Marquez; part 2, Jorge Lorenzo; part 3, Dani Pedrosa; part 4, Valentino Rossi; and part 5, Cal Crutchlow.

Alvaro Bautista Go&Fun Gresini Honda
Championship position: 6th
Score: 7/10

Alvaro Bautista is arguably MotoGP's most underappreciated rider. A former 250cc champion, the Spaniard has been on a downward trajectory since moving to MotoGP, through no real fault of his own. First, he signed with Suzuki, making him a factory rider with MotoGP's weakest factory. After Suzuki left, Bautista moved to Gresini, where he rides for a pittance, and is forced to earn his keep as a test rider for Showa and Nissin. Left to fight against the industry standard Ohlins and Brembo on his own, Bautista does not get the recognition he deserves even when he is punching above his weight.

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Looking Back At 2013 - Rating The Riders: 5th, Cal Crutchlow, 8/10

Submitted by David Emmett on

The fifth part of our series looking back at 2013 sees us turn to Cal Crutchlow. Here's a perspective on his 2013 season. You can catch up with this series here: part 1, Marc Marquez; part 2, Jorge Lorenzo; part 3, Dani Pedrosa; and part 4, Valentino Rossi.

Cal Crutchlow Monster Tech 3 Yamaha
Championship position: 5th
Score: 8/10

In 2011, Monster Tech 3 boss Herve Poncharal cursed the day he signed Cal Crutchlow to a two-year contract. The 2010 World Supersport champion was struggling to get to grips with MotoGP, finding the tires harder to deal with and the level of competition higher than he expected. In 2012, Poncharal's took back most of what he said about the Englishman, and in 2013, Crutchlow rewarded Poncharal's patience in spades.

This was the year of the great British motorcycle racing revival. Cal Crutchlow looked like being the first Brit to win a premier class race since Barry Sheene in 1981, and Scott Redding looked like being the first British Grand Prix champion since Sheene in 1977. Neither man would succeed in their objective, but they generated a surge of enthusiasm for the sport back in their home country.

Crutchlow was brilliant in the early part of the season, taking podiums at Le Mans, Mugello, Assen and the Sachsenring. In Germany, he tore up his forearms after crashing in the gravel at Turn 11, the fast right hander which caught so many riders out in 2013. He would carry that injury for the rest of the year, fluid building up in his forearms over the course of each race weekend, and never really draining properly.

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Looking Back At 2013 - Rating The Riders: 4th, Valentino Rossi, 8/10

Submitted by David Emmett on

In the fourth part of our series looking back at 2013, we take a look at Valentino Rossi's season. To catch up with previous instalments, you can read part 1 on Marc Marquez, part 2 on Jorge Lorenzo, and part 3 on Dani Pedrosa.

Valentino Rossi Yamaha Factory Racing
Championship position: 4th
Score: 8/10

Valentino Rossi left Ducati at the end of 2012 with a palpable sense of relief. At last he would be back on a bike with a front end he could trust, and could get back to being competitive. The goal was to test himself, to see if he could still run at the front with the Jorge Lorenzo and Dani Pedrosa, he repeatedly told reporters in the preseason.

Testing looked promising. Rossi was a little way behind the Hondas, but so was his teammate Jorge Lorenzo, and that was the man he had to measure himself against. At the first race, Rossi was straight onto the podium, dishing out a lesson in racecraft to Marc Marquez along the way. It looked like he was finally back in business.

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Looking Back At 2013 - Rating The Riders: 3rd, Dani Pedrosa, 9/10

Submitted by David Emmett on

In part three of our series looking back at 2013, we review the performance of Dani Pedrosa last season. If you missed the first two instalments, you can read part 1, Marc Marquez, and part 2, Jorge Lorenzo.

Dani Pedrosa Repsol Honda
Championship position: 3rd
Score: 9/10

At the end of the 2013 season, some sections of the media took great delight in writing off Dani Pedrosa, after he failed yet again to secure a MotoGP title at his eighth time of trying. Surely Pedrosa's days at the Repsol Honda team were numbered, as he consistently fails to deliver on the promise he showed in the 125 and 250 classes?

It is easy to dismiss Pedrosa as MotoGP's 'nearly man', and consign him to the dustbin of history, but to do so is to ignore Pedrosa's actual results. Dani Pedrosa won three races in 2013, was on the podium a further ten times, moved ahead of Kevin Schwantz, Wayne Rainey and Kenny Roberts in the all-time MotoGP rankings, and now has the same number of second- and third-place finishes as Valentino Rossi. After Assen, Pedrosa was leading the championship by 9 points.

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Looking Back At 2013 - Rating The Riders: 2nd, Jorge Lorenzo, 9/10

Submitted by David Emmett on

Continuing our look back at 2013, here is the second part of our rating of rider performances last season, covering championship runner up Jorge Lorenzo. If you missed part 1, on Marc Marquez, you can catch up here.

Jorge Lorenzo Yamaha Factory Racing
Championship position: 2nd
Score: 9/10

After as close to a perfect year as you can get in 2012, Jorge Lorenzo faced a major challenge in 2013. Defending his 2010 title, Lorenzo found himself pushing right at the limit to try to match the pace of Casey Stoner. He had hoped defending his 2012 title would be a little easier, but that would prove not to be the case.

Ironically, Lorenzo ran up against the same problems in 2013 that he had faced in 2011: a game-changing newcomer at Honda, on a bike developed specifically to beat the Yamaha. In 2011, the game-changer had been Casey Stoner; in 2013, it was Marc Marquez.

Lorenzo started the year well at Qatar, but raced at Austin knowing he could not beat the Hondas. At Jerez, he got a rude awakening, when Marc Marquez barged him aside in the final corner. His worst finish since his rookie year at Le Mans was followed by two wins, Lorenzo regaining his confidence and feeling he had the championship back under control.

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Looking Back At 2013 - Rating The Riders: 1st, Marc Marquez, 9/10

Submitted by David Emmett on

As 2014 gets underway, we start our build up towards the upcoming MotoGP season. This starts all this week with a look back at the performance of the riders in 2013, rating the top ten in the championship, as well as exceptional performers last year. Later this month, we will start to look forward, highlighting what we can expect of the season to come, both in terms of riders and the new regulations for 2014. The new season starts here.

Marc Marquez Repsol Honda
Championship position:  1st
MotoMatters Rating 9/10

How would Marc Marquez fare in MotoGP? It was the question on everybody's lips at the start of 2013, as the young Spaniard left the class he had dominated to play with the big boys. It would be Marquez' moment of truth: throughout his career in the junior classes, he had always been in the best teams. Many outside observers also claimed he had been on the best bike in Moto2. In 2013, Moto2 teams who had competed against him were free to concede that Marquez had won despite his Suter, not because of it.

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Puig vs Alzamora: The Dangerous Power Struggle Inside Repsol Honda

Submitted by David Emmett on

The 2013 Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island - likely to be known henceforth as 'The Debacle Down Under' - taught us many things. It taught us that tire companies need to find ways to test at newly surfaced tracks (especially when a newly retired world champion and now Honda test rider lives in the same country), that pit stops in dry conditions are potentially dangerous when each stint is less than 10 laps, and that hurriedly changing rules and race lengths are far from ideal when trying to organize a MotoGP race. Those were the lessons that were immediately obvious to anyone watching.

There were more subtle lessons from Phillip Island as well. Marc Marquez' disqualification was not just a failure of either strategy or his ability to read a pit board, it was also a sign of growing tensions inside the Repsol Honda box. The reactions of the various members of Marquez' crew after he failed to enter the pits to swap bikes at the end of lap 10 (shown in an excellent free video on the MotoGP.com website) suggests a deep-seated failure of communication among the entire crew. Most of his crew appeared to be surprised and shocked when Marquez didn't come in to swap bikes, but Marquez' inner circle, Emilio Alzamora and Santi Hernandez, appear unperturbed as he races by on the lap that would lead to his disqualification. Cristian Gabarrini, formerly Casey Stoner's crew chief and now HRC engineer assisting Marquez' team, is immediately certain of the consequences, the cutting motion across the throat showing he knows it's over.

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Where's The Innovation? Why Moto2 Churns Out Identikit Bikes

Submitted by David Emmett on

After the initial disappointment at the death of the 250cc two strokes, the advent of the Moto2 class raised hopes that Grand Prix racing would enter a new era of chassis innovation, as the teams spent the money saved on engine development on exploring novel solutions to the problem of hustling a motorcycle around a circuit is the shortest time possible. The first set of designs unveiled did little to feed that hope, with most bikes being of the aluminium twin beam variety which is standard in most sports and racing machinery, with a couple of tubular trellis frames thrown in for good measure.

Even that variety did not last. The trellis frames were the first to go - mostly as a result of the extra weight the design created - and the number of chassis manufacturers dropped from 13 in the first year to 6 in 2013. Even that figure gives an inflated picture of the variety in the paddock: 28 out of the 32 permanent entries form Moto2 this year use either the Kalex, Suter or Speed Up chassis. The bikes vary in stiffness, in aerodynamic detail and in aesthetics, but other than that, they are virtually identical.

So why is there no real innovation in the Moto2 paddock - or MotoGP or Moto3, for that matter? The answer is simple, and has been discussed here many times before. The attitude which characterizes the paddock in technical terms is not one of the fearless pursuit of knowledge and innovation. It is not a hotbed of blue sky thinking and adventurous engineering. It is a place of conservative evolution, of cautious refinement, where proven concepts are polished to as near perfection as possible. 

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When Will Yamaha's Seamless Gearbox Arrive? Probably Not This Season

Submitted by David Emmett on

Why did the factory Yamaha team head to the Motorland Aragon circuit to join Honda and Suzuki at a private test? Was it perhaps to give Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi their first taste of the seamless gearbox Yamaha have been developing, to counter Honda's advantage? That is the question which many fans have been asking, and in recent days - and weeks - I have been inundated with questions about the seamless gearbox. Well, question, singular, actually, as it all boils down to just the one: When will Yamaha finally start to race their seamless gearbox?

It is a question I have been trying to pursue since the start of the season, since rumors first emerged that they may have used the gearbox at the first race of the year. All inquiries I made, at all levels of the Yamaha organization, received the same answers: Yes, Yamaha is developing a seamless gearbox, and is testing it back in Japan. No, Yamaha has not yet raced it, and has no plans to race it. And no, it is not yet ready to be tested.

Of course, the answer given to you by someone in the pay of Yamaha cannot always be taken at face value. The answer you receive from a member of any factory team to a specific question is nearly always part of the carefully controlled corporate line, which means that while most of the time, the answer is something close to the truth, sometimes that answer is spin on the facts, or a deflection from the facts, or sometimes a downright, well, let's not call it a lie, let's call it being economical with the truth. So it behooves you to check, through whatever other sources are available.

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