Round 7 - Moto GP 2011, Assen

[jhansen]

Racing resumes this weekend at the cathedral. Although not as spectacular as it used to be, Assen is still a great race weekend. Stoner will be the favorite and I suspect Super Sic will do well also. Dovi is a good bet for a podium. Pedrosa is still out, and it seems sure that Aoyama will take his place on the Repsol bike for this event. That sums up the Honda riders, since it’s useless to talk about Elias. Can Yamaha make a dent? On paper this seems like a good track for them, but then again we thought that at Lemans. Both Tech 3 are walking wounded with Crutchlow giving it a go this weekend.

It’s getting interesting over at Ducati (read frantic). Ducati are bringing a frankenbike for Rossi in the form of the GP11.1, which is the 2012 chassis mated with the 2011 engine. This will be interesting to watch. It also means they are essentially testing in public, which quite frankly they might as well given their current form. Hayden doesn’t get the 11.1 due to his engine allocation trouble. He should get it at Laguna. He does get some additional parts though.

[skells22]

full lot of feild as I type this and yesterday all classes loss a session due to a moto2 engine blowing up but today it was made up and as we speak qualfying is taking place. fastest in today free practice is Simocelli. I wonder whoever cause the delay from yesterday might had everyone moan at him!

[skells22]

down 1 again. this time the crash happen during qualfying. so do not epect to see bike 65 this time around on TV (injury reason unknown at this time)

[skells22]

i think i done a typo on the expect but i now know of the injury that will rule out Capirossi for this race. this time the injury is in the right shoulder and rib cartilage in his crash.
pole man is Simocelli for this race and i notice that there is a bit different livery on two of those bikes

[GORDON STREETER]

Well I suppose with Simoncelli on pole it will be worth watching for a couple of laps at least
Has Rossi gone off the boil ?

[chunder]

Sadly having to watch teh BBC red button feed.

Please Mr Nick Harris, you have been in this game for decades, PLEASE learn how to pronounce riders names properly! Faaaabel, there is a bloody UUUUU in his name you stupid little man! GARdea, its bloody GADea you cretin!!!

[ghinzani]

Temper Chunder! I like Nick FWIW, at least he doesnt bark on about Twitter 24/7...

[Andy77]

Great race by Vinales
I must say I prefer the BBC comentary over the German at Sport1 over here. The co Alex Hofmann does a great job but it all gets destroyed by screamin' Miehlke who only sees german riders really. Add to that commercial breaks every few minutes and you might understand my dislike of the german coverage. After all it is a miracle they broadcast the 125cc and Moto2 live today coz usually they find some replays of football talk shows way more important to broadcast

[ghinzani]

No Red button issues then Andy? Good show!

[chunder]

Agreed Ghinz, I just get very annoyed by a bloke who cant get peopls names right! Especially when the bloke in the box with him does!

I do also now get fed up with the Moody/Ryoder/Spalding twitter fest, especially when if you knew how close I was to gettting a job at MCN because Spalding cant write for toffee!!

[Andy77]

No Issues but I have to admit that I only caught a glimpse of the 125cc race as the Porsche World Cup race at the Nordschleife was on as well

[chunder]

I didnt realise the VLN stuff was on this weekend Andy, is it the 24hr race? Seen some pics and all the Manthey cars and BMW are there

[Andy77]

Bradls performance looks weak. I guess Kiefer gambled setup wise into either dry or full wet direction so Bradl can't get more out of the bike. Good show by Bradley Smith and Westi so far

Yeah the it is the 24h starting in about 2h 25min

[Andy77]

Great race by Marquez. Although I feel we were robbed of a greater battle to finish thanks to Takahashis crash but great finishes for Smith and Sofuoglu too.
Kalex and Bradl had a pretty bad day I'd say. The team gambled for a setup instead of taking a conservative route and Bradl, well he threw it away. Not impressed really as it reminds me too much to how he rode prior to this season

[chunder]

As usual, turned off 10 laps from the finish

What a load of garbage, I would rather watch speedway!, come to think of it I would rather watch the TT, this is complete, utter, total rot and shwos disrespect to every manufacturer, spectator and sponsor involved.

[GORDON STREETER]

Mmm another boring Moto GP after the first lap, I fully expected Lorenzo to stick one on Simoncelli but to be fair it was a racing incident and Lorenzo obviously put too much trust in Marco running that close when anything can happen on the first lap. Of course it would happen to those two !
Well done to Ben on keeping the gap to the end.

[gomick]

Well done to Ben on his 1st win - should get a lot of confidence out of that. Jorge will be looking over his shoulder now...
Be good if Marco could keep the bike upright for a change in the race - atleast fall off after 20 laps of entertaining racing!

Mugello next - anychance of a rocketship Ducati???

[Dani Filth]

well .. at least 125 was good

[chunder]

Really have no interest at all in watching MotoGP races anymore aftre that rubbish yesterday, I found myself getting angrier by the minute sitting listening to on boards of riders cracking the throttle open befoe they are into the corner and just hearing a ton of stuttering and multi hundred thousand dollar Marelli rubbish ruin a perfectly good bike race.

Just a poor show all in all, dont care about Spies winning, he is more boring than Pedrosa!!

[EGG]

I think he's less boring than Pedrosa so far, and who knows, if he wins more and solidifies his place in the team (and leaves mum at home), he might turn Colin Edwards on us and start telling us what he really thinks

It really is a shame Colin isn't at the pointy end of the field more often, he makes the press conferences much more interesting.

[gomick]

They are motorcycle riders - if they come with a personality, great... If they dont, who cares! You want to see them race, not talk...

[chunder]

You might not be interested in image Gom but right now with no footie or many other sports around its the perfect time for GP to start making new fans.

Robits like these guys are just no fun and hard to promote. I do also pay to see riders ride, but these days you are jst watching a Marellis techniciian making a bike ridden by a robot.

Sorry to say but GP is losing fans worldwide and most of my mates who used to watch dont anymore. certainly not live anyway.

[gomick]

New fans, haha - there are plenty of new fans... Why do you reckon they go to Losail - packed grand stands there!

[ghinzani]

The Ant West fans remain glued, and Sunday again showed us why...

[chunder]

West fans are just old Gobert fans!

Qatar never gets a crowd, thats why it's so great the World Cup is going there! Such a great decision.

Regarding viewing, it is a worry that someone like Barbera is struggling to beat Akiyoshi, and when I see that kind oif thing and him being lapped I start to believe this series is struggling.

People compare it to the late 80's and yes the field was strung out then. But you had about 12 factory bikes and everyone else was on three cylinder Hondas and yonk old RG500 Suzuki's, not like today when they are all on decent/current GP tech.

It's just a very poor show on bikes that look boring, sound boring and are basically computer programns with a weight on board, the rider.