The thing about MotoGP these days – it is very unpredictable. Even more so for the forthcoming 2017 season, with significant rider changes as well as a new era without any wings.
Who would be bold enough to guess the outcome of the championship?
All the same, as we settle in to the new season, there are some things that will definitely happen. As follows:
1 – Marc Márquez will be penalised – 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 compensate for Ducati’s loss of wings. 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 burden.
3 – Valentino Rossi didn’t buy crew chief Jeremy Burgess a gold watch for long service when he dumped him in 2013 after 14 years and seven championships. But he’ll make up for it this year … buying himself an even bigger gold watch to celebrate having completed his own 21st season. Yup, Valentino came of age as the longest-serving continuous race winner. Perhaps his daddy 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 moustache. Partly a tribute to his dad, the venerable Dek, but more a consequence of losing his sweat-band at Misano last time out. The hirsute appendage will absorb moisture, preventing loss of vision due to a flooded visor.
6 – Andrea Dovizioso will fall asleep on Losail’s long straight – lulled not only by the midnight hour of the season-opening night race, but also his own ultra-conservative riding style.
7 – Maverick Viñales will build a huge mid-season points lead, only to miss race after race suffering from mysterious (and mysteriously repetitive) food poisoning. This will only be cured when he stops sitting next to Rossi for dinner in Yamaha’s hospitality unit.
8 – Bradley Smith will be offered senior lecturing posts 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 and injured even once.
10 – The Espargaró brothers will swap leathers and bikes mid-season, Pol taking Aleix’s Aprilia and Aleix jumping on the KTM. Even though they don’t look much alike, only a few 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 – Héctor Barberá will complain of Rossi, Márquez and Lorenzo following him to improve their qualifying times.
14 – New Moto2 tech rules will specify headlights, indicators, and a homologated sidestand. Riders will be penalised for not indicating, in the event of any overtaking.
15 – In Moto3, in a continued drive to prevent follow-my-leader games, any rider leading such a group will be penalised; and qualifying times will run in reverse order, the slowest at the front of the grid.
16 – A new committee will be formed to monitor and over-rule decisions taken by Race Direction. It will be called Race Direction Direction.
And remember, you read it here first.
By MICHAEL SCOTT
