Michael Scott | August 11, 2018
2018 Austrian MotoGP Saturday News
Yamaha says sorry… to its riders!
Yamaha surprised the Red Bull Ring paddock with an unexpected press briefing to apologize to factory riders Valentino Rossi and Maverick Vinales, in a surely unprecedented public feast of humble pie.
Vinales struggled on both days, though at least he made it straight into the top-ten Q2, where he qualified 11th, behind one of the pair who had made it through from Q1.
Valentino Rossi had been unable even to do that; placed fourth in the “junior” Q1, to start from 14th, in the middle of the fifth row of the grid.
Independent-team Monster Yamaha rider Johann Zarco qualified sixth.
Joined by a solemn-faced Lin Jarvis, MD of Yamaha Motor Racing, the factory’s Project Leader Kouji Tsuya made a formal confirmation that today had been the worst qualifying performance for the beleaguered factory pair.
“Today was very difficult for us – we are struggling with acceleration performance and power delivery,” he said, “at a track that we know is difficult for us.
“We couldn’t address the power delivery more precisely, and we have to apologize to our riders.”
Vinales had suffered additional sensor problems in the dry FP1 and FP4, he continued.
“But now we are working as hard as ever to find the solution. We have a test at Misano before Silverstone, and one after the British GP at Aragon as well.”
His comments follow increasingly exasperated pleas for help from the factory from Rossi and an increasingly difficult atmosphere in Vinales’s pit between the rider and his crew chief Ramon Forcada.
At the same briefing Marketing and Communications manager William Favero said: “We owe our riders and also the media an explanation;” adding: “We hope it’s the very bottom of our crisis, and we are confident we will be able to get out of this crisis soon.”
Yamaha’s last race win was at the Dutch TT at Assen last year, 20 races ago.
Petronas-Yamaha almost complete
The new satellite Petronas-Yamaha team is expected to be confirmed in two weeks at the British GP at Silverstone, with the line-up as already reported.
Rossi protégé and reigning Moto2 champion Franco Morbidelli will be joined by late-flowering Moto2 race winner Fabio Quartararo.
The new squad, to be managed by current factory-team rider coach Wilco Zeelenberg, will take over the grid slot currently held by the Aspar-owned Angel Nieto Ducati team.
This will expand the Petronas/SIC (Sepang International Circuit) presence in grand prix racing to all three classes, with one grid slot in Moto2, currently fielding Finnish rookie Niki Tuuli, after the voluntary withdrawal of original Malaysian rider Zulfahmi Khairuddin; and two in Moto3, where Malaysian Adam Norrodin and Ayumu Sasaki ride Hondas.
The Malaysian cadre is understood to be seeking a second Moto2 grid slot, with either Thomas Luthi or Sam Lowes possible candidates for a championship campaign; while John McPhee is expected to join the Moto3 team next year.
Moto2 silly season begins
After months of fevered silly-season reports in MotoGP, it’s now the turn of the smaller classes, with Moto2 the target for Swiss former 125 champion Thomas Luthi after his unsuccessful MotoGP debut this year.
As above, last year’s Moto2 runner-up is a candidate for an expanded Petronas/SIC squad but has also approached the Dynavolt Exact squad with a view to replacing Xavi Vierge. The Spaniard is to replace his compatriot Joan Mir at the EG-VDS squad when Mir moves to the Suzuki MotoGP team.
More news broke in Austria, that current evergreen veteran Mattia Pasini is set to lose his seat at the Italtrans team. Manager Robertino Pietri told Dorna that “we need some younger riders in the team, and hope to make an announcement soon.”
The candidate for the ride, Pietri confirmed, was current Moto3 race winner Enea Bastianini.
Bautista to WorldSBK?
Displaced MotoGP rider Alvaro Bautista has been unable to find a ride, in spite of coming into a strong run of form on the Angel Nieto Ducati – but his career might yet be rescued by the Ducati factory with a Superbike ride.
The Aspar-owned Nieto team is pulling out of MotoGP next year.
In Austria, Ducati sporting director Paolo Ciabatti confirmed that Bautista is being considered for the factory team in SBK, alongside Chas Davies, who has already been re-signed.
Should it come to pass, it would be at the expense of current second team rider Marco Melandri.
Double take outs
After an almost crash-free first day in Austria, in spite of an afternoon cloudburst that delayed practice, there were more mishaps on Saturday … though none that could be blamed directly on track condition.
Two remarkably similar incidents in Moto2 replicated a spate of Turn 1 crashes last year but were down to rider error rather than poor grip.
The first was in morning FP3 when the track had dried. Rising Spanish rider Iker Lecuona had been shadowing new championship leader Miguel Oliveira, but lost control under braking for the slow corner, and wiped both of them out. It is the second time this year that Oliveira has been clobbered from behind—the first was by Simone Corsi after the end of the race in Catalunya. On both occasions, he was lucky to escape injury.
There was a replay of the incident early in qualifying when NTS rider Steven Odendaal ran into the back of fancied runner Xavi Vierge’s Dynavolt Kalex. The innocent Vierge was not so lucky—taken to hospital with fractures in his right hand and wrist, and out of this race and possibly the next one or two as well.
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