It is sort of strange sitting here writing about Jerez for the second time in a week. Welcome to the new normal. We usually report an overview of the race with a few snippets here and there, but this week we thought it would be cool to come at it from a different angle.
Fabio Quartararo won the Andalucian Jerez GP, Maverick Vinales 2nd and Valentino Rossi 3rd, with a solid fourth from Takaaki Nakagami. There, we said it. Fabio had struggled a bit in the free practices, but put together the lap he needed to go P1, Vinales P2 and Francisco Bagnia P3.
After, what we might call Jerez 1.0, there was touting around that Fabio’s fabulous win was somewhat diminished, with Marc Marquez sticking it in the kitty litter, then crashing out, big time, with an injury. Fabio’s answer to this, “No”. He raced, and he was there at the end to win, is how we see it. There have been seasons when Marquez has “benefitted” from others not being there at the end, Dani Pedrosa, Jorge Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi, to name just a few. So why in a sense try and take it away from Fabio?
In that ambience, we came to Jerez 2.0. No Marquez, the elbow injury too much to bear, and an injured Rins and Crutchlow. Crashing, sadly, is a part of racing. But to be first, you first have to finish, being there is a big part of it right!
If Jerez 1.0 was a bit sketchy, 2.0 was a crash fest, with some mechanicals thrown in, the 60º Celsius track temperature taking its toll. Turn one, and Binder tagged Miguel Olivera, who took a nasty high side and was out. Bradley Smith also got involved but, he and Binder kept going.
It was, of course, cool to see Valentino Rossi mixing it up again, and the racing was all about Rossi, Vinales and initially Francisco Bagnia.
Iker Lecuona, Aleix Espargaro, Jack Miller, Danilo Petrucci, Brad Binder, Franco Morbidelli, Francisco Bagnia, that was the attrition list of seven riders who did not finish the race. The injured Alex Rins was 10th and, in obvious pain Cal Crutchlow was last.
We told you Fabio won, what we didn’t tell you was that he did so with a 4.495-second gap to Vinales.
The Czech Republic next on the 9th of August. Not a Yamaha track, and they are running out of full accredited engines, so watch this space, but Fabio Quartararo has the fifty points and championship lead, as a confidence buffer.
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Author: Martin Northern
Founder of Bike Directory
