I am a bit baffled about the outcome of the latest Moto GP event at Assen. So much so that I thought I would jot down a few things for everyone to ponder. Let me start off by saying that I am a huge fan of Rossi and Marquez so there is no favoritism on my part what so ever.

Last I checked this is racing right? When you take these two with 13 World Championships between them, was it to anyone’s surprise at all that they made contact in the final chicane? Even before reading both their takes on it I had my own view, and honestly, I haven’t wavered. As the final lap unfolded you could see Marquez was building up to make a last gasp effort at the famous set of turns that lead onto the front straight at the iconic Assen circuit. I have been lucky enough to race there and it gets very tight once you’ve tipped into the right.

Before we go further I have to say that when these two came together at Argentina I sided with Rossi. Why?
Because he held track position and if you watch closely, Marquez runs into the backside of Rossi’s bike. The throttle works both ways and Marquez who was getting caught at .7 a lap was desperate to fight back. If you’re going to fight back against Vale, you better make sure the cards are in your favor. Haters tried to say Rossi cut back across Marquez line but he had the track position and was setting up for the very fast next left.

Sorry but Vale didn’t do anything wrong in my opinion.

Now onto Assen last weekend, Marquez says he did all the right things and feels he won the race? Puzzles me. Had he not run square into the side of Rossi he would never had made the turn. If you go back and watch, he barely made the right as it was. Two things bum me out about Marquez comments:

• Sounds like Rossi shouldn’t have tipped into the corner

AND

• Rossi was supposed to just give up the corner

What if the shoe was on the other foot. What do you all reckon Marquez would have done? He would have closed the door, been hit, run off and sprinted to the line the winner. Had that happened his post race interview would have been of him smiling saying that racing is racing and he was happy to have won.

After all, Marquez doesn’t mind a little last lap contact, ask Lorenzo.

What Rossi did was show his experience. There was no way he was making the corner after the contact. It is a very short run to the line out of the chicane so he did what any racer would have done, he pinned it. What made it worse for him was how fast he went through the gravel.

Have you ever run off a track into 2-3 foot of gravel and slowed down? You have to go fast to stay on top of the stuff. Marquez could have ran off also on the grass and still tried to out drag Rossi to the line. If it happened all over again, I assure you he would. In this case there is zero chance Rossi is just going to let Marquez run into the side of him and go onto win. Race direction didn’t even investigate it and why should they? They have their 2 marquee riders running into each other in the last corner on the last lap of an epic GP. They could only hope every race is that close and surrounded by a bit of controversy. Had this been Stoner or Lorenzo there would have been some serious pouting in the winners compound after the race. Marquez and Rossi being the champions they are smiled, congratulated each other, did their interviews and spoke their peace. Fair play and roll onto the next round.

Do you think we would be talking about this if it would of happened on any other lap? Of course not.

Even if Rossi gained an unfair advantage and had to let Marquez by, he would have had to come to an absolute stop on the circuit before the start/finish line to let him go by. Then we would have seen the little scroll across the bottom of our screen reading “contact between 46 and 93 under investigation” just to add to the drama of the race.

I loved every part of the race. We have two guys riding at their best, how does it get any better?

Final notes:

• Lorenzo was a little off but it was just a bad race for him, he still grabbed a handful of points. He is going to be hard to beat but Rossi has closed the gap to his teammate it seems as far as set ups go.
• If Rossi continues to qualify strong he will make his job easier come race day.
• Marquez is running as spoiler for the Championship at this point, going to get interesting.

I’m just waiting till two Yamaha’s come into the final corner somewhere this year…………………

Cheers and ride safe,

JP