Despite Mugello crash, Marc Marquez is still leading MotoGP Championship with 95 points, 23 more than Valentino Rossi. THe Spanish rider wasted a great opportunity to extend his advantage in the standings, but he will have the chance to recover already in two weeks in Catalunya, where he can restart his road to the title ahead of his supporters. Meanwhile, tomorrow he will go to Austria for a special test on a Toro Rosso F1 car.
MUGELLO: ONE TO FORGET – Italian GP was one to forget forMarc Marquez, who scored no points. After few laps the Repsol Honda champion lost the front: he tried to avoid the crash by using his right elbow, but this time he couldn’t save it. Also the crowd played a key role: many people booed Marquez and it was even worse when they did it just some moments after Micheel Pirro’s huge crash, when nobody had news about Ducati test rider’s state of health. “It’s sad to celebrate the fall of a rider, because we all know that it’s dangerous…But I expected it“, said “El Cabroncito”. “I know that many people cheered after my crash, but it’s strange that they celebrated it more than the win of another rider. I understood it all on Friday: a rider was on the gravel and we didn’t know whether he was dead or alive. What did they do? They focused on television footage and booed me, rather than caring of Pirro.”
ENDLESS BOOS AND POLEMICS – Rossi’s supporters did something similar also previously and this represents something closer to football rather than to motorsport. But maybe this is the price to pay when a sport becomes more and more popular and now there are supporters of different riders fighting against each other especially on social media, a fight with no winner and no loser. But in the end who wins is the rider ranking first. In 11 days MotoGP will head to Barcelona and Marc Marquez has already addressed his supporters an appeal: “I hope my fans will never boo anyone. I hope that they really love motorcycle racing and that they respect each rider. This is the most important thing. When you’re happy with a rider’s crash, you have to kep it in yourself. This is racing, this is dangerous. But we cannot control this phenomenon and so the only thing I can do is to ask my fans not to do anything bad to other riders.” These words prove once again that he’s a champion, but polemics will not stop easily, because the aggressive move on Danilo Petrucci (after which he apologized) is very important for “anti-Marquez” aficionados…
F1 TEST AT RED BULL RING – Yesterday Marc Marquez left Italy to go to Austria, where he will have a special test day on a Toro Rosso F1 car at Red Bull Ring. On Wednesday the wheel will shift to Dani Pedrosa and we will see on track also MXGP Champion Antonio Cairoli, getting ready for the upcoming round in France. About ten days ago Marc was at Milton Keynes to test the simulator and measure the size of the seat. The test will start tomorrow morning with some laps on a Formula Renault machine together with former Formula 1 driver Patrick Friesacher. After that, Marquez will show his driving skills on a Toro Rosso car and he will count on Mark Webber’s advice. At Red Bull Ring we’ll see also Niki Lauda, unwilling to miss the event.