Michael Scott | January 18, 2017
That’s the thing about MotoGP. It is utterly predictable. You always know who is going to win. It’s Rossi.
Whoops. Mistake there. My memory slipped a decade and a half. Now I recall, the opposite is true. MotoGP is, nowadays, thoroughly unpredictable, and most times Rossi doesn’t win.
It is especially unpredictable for the forthcoming 2017 season, with significant rider changes at all levels. A new entry from KTM. And new rules banning wings.
Who would be bold enough guess the outcome of the Championship?
All the same, as we settle in to the new year, there are some things that will definitely happen. Here is my list:
1 – Marc Marquez will be penalized—back of the grid and several penalty points—for kicking Rossi and causing him to fall off. Tit for tat. It’s only fair.
2 – Jorge Lorenzo will join the spirit of Ducati’s technical adventure by making up for the red bikes’ loss of wings under the new regs. Cleverly hinged knee-sliders will have the same effect. For faster tracks, a profiled visor and shoulder-guards as well. The wind will be his new burden. Although not as heavy has his wallet.
3 – Valentino Rossi didn’t buy ex-crew chief Jeremy Burgess a gold watch for long service when he dumped him without ceremony back in 2013 after 14 years, 80 wins and seven championships. But he’ll make up for it this year—buying himself an even bigger gold watch to celebrate his own 21st season. Yup, Valentino comes of age in 2017 as the longest-serving continuous race winner of all time. Perhaps his dad will buy him a sports car.
4 – Andrea Iannone’s season ticket to the Clinica Mobile expires, and the renewal fee will be doubled. This is a special concession, resulting from his switch to the sweet-handling Suzuki. Had he stayed with Ducati, it would have been trebled.
5 – Cal Crutchlow will grow a handlebar mustache. Not so much to look like his dad, the venerable Dek, but as a consequence of losing his sweatband at Misano last time out. The hirsute growth will absorb the sweat, preventing loss of vision due to a flooded visor.
6 – Andrea Dovizioso will achieve a major first, when he falls asleep on Losail’s long straight—lulled not only by the midnight hour of the season-opening night race, but also his own conservative riding style.
7 – Maverick Vinales will build a huge midseason points lead in his first year on the Yamaha, only for it to be squandered thereafter as he misses race after race suffering from mysterious (and mysteriously repetitive) food poisoning. This malady will only be cured when he stops sitting next to Rossi for dinner in Yamaha’s hospitality unit.
8 – Bradley Smith will be offered a senior lecturing post at a number of universities, after demonstrating the detail of his engineering understanding and gift for clear explanation, in his always articulate debriefs describing the shortcomings of the all-new KTM.
9 – Dani Pedrosa will retire at the end of the season, looking as bemused as he feels after a whole year of racing when he didn’t get knocked off even once.
10 – The Espargaro brothers will swap leathers and bikes midseason, Pol taking Aleix’s Aprilia and Aleix jumping on the KTM. Even though they don’t look alike, only Spanish people will notice.
11 – Sam Lowes will abandon the crash-or-win style that blighted his otherwise impressive Moto2 season last year. Now on the Aprilia MotoGP bike, it will perforce be crash-or-not-win.
12 – Jack Miller will topple off the podium in distress at Qatar, after drinking the compulsorily non-alcoholic “champagne” from another rider’s boot by mistake.
13 – Hector Barbera will complain of Rossi, Marquez and Lorenzo following him to improve their qualifying times.
14 – Eugene Laverty will start winning races straight away in World Superbikes, and likewise Stefan Bradl—suggesting that MotoGP made a big mistake in letting them go.
15 – New Moto2 rules will be announced. With immediate effect, all machines will have to have headlights, indicators, and a homologated sidestand. Riders will be penalized for not indicating, in the event of any overtaking.
16 – In Moto3, in a continued attempt to prevent follow-my-leader groups in qualifying, any rider leading such a group will be penalized, and qualifying times will run in reverse order, the slowest at the front of the grid.
17 – India and Indonesia will be promised places on the GP calendar soonest. But we’ll still have at least three races in Spain.
18 – A new committee will be formed to monitor and if necessary over-rule decisions taken by Race Direction. It will be called Race Direction Direction.
And remember, you read it here first. CN