The 2006 champion is the most human and likeable MotoGP rider by a massive margin. You can’t help wanting him to do well, even though he hasn’t won a race since 2006. And that only brought his grand total to three.
To be honest since the switch to 800s his results have been little better than average. So too were the Hondas he was riding. Nicky being Nicky, everyone cut him some slack, and hoped for the best.
We can still do the same after his Sepang test put him tenth to Stoner’s first, 1.4 seconds slower, though it’s getting harder all the time. Especially since he was one place behind satellite Duke rider Mika Kallio, a first-timer to MotoGP, as well as to the Desmosedici.
The beautiful Duke is a much harder mistress than the functional and unemotional Honda. We’ve seen how she punishes those she doesn’t like. Such as Melandri who last year fought over last, while team-mate Stoner was doing the same over first. Marco told me he’d known from his very first test lap the bike just didn’t suit him. He rode from then on with that in mind. And it showed. Now, with a little help from Kawasaki, it looks like his topflight career is over.
Nicky is made of sterner stuff. If he felt the same after his first Duke outing, and from his expression he did, he kept his lip buttoned.
As a raw dirt-tracker, he’d taught himself how to race on tar, then how to take on the best in the world. By effort of will and many hours spent testing and testing, he learned how to preserve his tyres, how to keep the wheels more in line, how to race in the wet, how to play tactics. All those things.
Taming the Desmo-shrew-dici is just another job, and Nicky’s not one for giving up trying. But the gap to Stoner yawned uncomfortably, and Nicky’s face was as solemn after three days of trying as it had been after the first.
Racing is always about shaving the margins. Seldom is there a great leap forward. Improvements in performance come little by little. Lap times are also whittled down in the same way.
From this year, there is a new target for the carving knife. Money.
This is the new face of racing, shown in tests at Sepang. Teams, manufacturers and Dorna spent the days debating possible purse-tightening measures. The riders played their part too. They dedicated at least as many laps as usual to their own economy drive, achieved by saving track time.
Stoner was fastest, Rossi a shade slower: the Ozzie Groaner ran a time of 2:01.043 – 1.716 seconds faster than his best time of last year. That’s an improvement of 1.3979 percent, which means much less track time and a lot less wear and tear on the bike. If that won’t save money, what will?
Everyone in racing, except the top handful of riders, will have to tighten their belts in the new racing. Including you, the spectators.
The riders will get less laps – four hourlong practice/qualifying sessions are to be slashed to 45 minutes. Friday morning practice is to be canned.
And less revs – engines will have to last two and later three races. Honda’s satellite teams were rejoicing after acquiring the pneumatic-valve-spring engine until HRC told them they had to keep them down to 18,200 rpm, well below the 19,000-plus used last year, and barely higher than the old steel-spring engine.
Obviously spectators will get less spectating. With the riders in their motorhomes and the paddock barred to all, there will be nothing to watch for most of the day. And don’t think there will be a discount on ticket prices.
The rich get richer and the poor get babies. Does this mean diapers at dawn for John Hopkins and his British Bride?
The luckless Hopper not only lost his job when Kawasaki put its toys away. He also, days later, lost his backing from Monster energy drinks, the wiggly green logo on his helmet.
And guess who got it instead? Valentino Rossi, to the tune of several million more. As if he needed the money.
The hardest blow has fallen on the mechanics. Over the years they have come to expect to travel
everywhere business class. I’m afraid that’s over guys. From now on even Valentino Rossi’s renowned crew will be at the back of the plane with the rest of us.
I do hope they don’t lower the economy class tone as much as they did on the other side of the curtains.
