MotoGP preview: Catalunya

The 2014 Italian Grand Prix was quite something. While Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) made up for his first-lap crash of last year with a rostrum, the two in front of him, Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha) and Marc Marquez (Honda), were battling hard all throughout the second half of the race, trading places on various occasions and at corners where one would not have expected a pass to take place.

However, it was the same man coming out on top as Marquez made it to 150 points: maximum score for the first third of the season.

There were certainly stand-out performances further back. Pol Espargaro (Yamaha) quietly slipped into the top five for the second race running – Dani Pedrosa (Honda) was fourth -- while the Ducatis of Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone came home sixth and seventh.

As for Aleix Espargaro (Yamaha), the NGM Forward Racing rider described Mugello as his ‘worst race of the year’ so far. Others are looking for a more positive outing at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. At Mugello Bradley Smith (Yamaha) was left annoyed by front tyre choice, knowing even before sliding out of contention that his selection was wrong.

Stefan Bradl (Honda) was highly unfortunate, suffering two spectacular crashes (one in the warm-up and one in the race itself) that saw the German flying through the air, with the second occurring when he was collected by the wayward Ducati of Cal Crutchlow. As for Australia’s Broc Parkes (Paul Bird Motorsport), he will be looking to move into the point-scoring zone.

Last year in Catalunya, Pedrosa set a scorching pace in qualifying – but he has not claimed pole since. On the Sunday, it was Lorenzo who sealed the victory to mark his second in a row at the Montmelo-based venue. The world championship now returns there for a 23rd successive year, with the first 500 race back in 1992 (then labelled the European Grand Prix) having seen that year’s world champion Wayne Rainey beating Aussie legend Mick Doohan by just 0.0057 seconds.

If Marquez wins, he would become the youngest rider (at 21 years and 118 days) to win seven consecutive races in the premier class. Should he achieve it, this is a record he would take away from Rossi, but you can be sure that the likes of Lorenzo, Pedrosa and ‘The Doctor’ himself will do everything in their power to stop the world champion. We’ve seen some close finishes in Barcelona (2007, 2009 and the aforementioned 1992 spring to mind). Maybe another one is on the cards…

Moto2
Tito Rabat will be looking to defend his world championship lead in front of a home crowd. Rabat, who finished third overall in Moto2 last year, has enjoyed an extremely strong start to the 2014 campaign: four pole positions from six, winning half of the races and failing to finish off the podium only once – and even then he was classified in fourth position.

Curiously, last time out at Mugello marked his first fastest race lap of the campaign to date. He now targets a first Catalunya race victory, having finished second last season and tucked tight up behind team-mate Pol Espargaro at the finish.

The only rider other than Rabat who could lead the standings coming out of Barcelona is his Marc VDS Racing Team partner Mika Kallio, who since the Italian Grand Prix has also taken part in a day of testing at Mugello. The Finn currently sits 22 points in arrears of Rabat, meaning that he must win at Catalunya to stand any chance of heading up the championship table.

Other challerngers weil include Maverick Viñales, Luis Salom, Dominique Aegerter, Simone Corsi and Sam Lowes. Austra;lia’s Antony West will also continue his campaign.

From four Moto2™ races at Catalunya, four different nationalities have won the races on behalf of Japan (Yuki Takahashi), Germany (Stefan Bradl), Italy (Andrea Iannone) and Spain (Pol Espargaro). Could another nation have a say this weekend? The likes of Finland and Mika Kallio will certainly hope so…

Moto3
This weekend sees the stampede that is the Moto3 title charging its way towards Catalunya off the back off a record-breaking finish to the Italian Grand Prix two weeks ago.

Remarkably, the finish to the 2014 Mugello race marked the closest ever – in any category of the world championship that has ever existed – for the first three riders over the line: Romano Fenati, Isaac Viñales and Alex Rins were covered by just 0.010 seconds. Perhaps even more incredible is the fact that, when reviewing the list of the ten closest ever top three finishes, no less than 60 per cent of them have occurred at Mugello thanks perhaps chiefly to its long run out of the final Bucine corner.

With Mugello (which itself came after an incredible French Grand Prix at Le Mans) gone but by no means forgotten, Moto3 now heads onto round seven and the start of the second third of the 2014 campaign. Last year in Catalunya, we witnessed a typical 2013 result as race winner Salom was joined on the podium by Alex Rins and Viñales. This year, it is possible that the first change of championship lead could take place since the Qatar season-opener, as Red Bull KTM Ajo’s Jack Miller now holds an advantage of just five points following his costly non-finish of Mugello; incidentally, the Australian was handed two penalty points for causing the crash.

Breathing down the neck of Miller is the aforementioned Fenati, with Rins, Efren Vazquez and Isaac Viñales completing the top five. Alex Marquez now finds himself sixth in the standings and a sizeable 44 points in arrears of the leader, as he was taken out in the Miller incident on the final lap of the Italian Grand Prix.

Matching Miller’s trio of wins for 2014 so far, Fenati has become the first Italian to win three grands prix in a single season of the lightweight class since Iannone did so five years ago. Extraordinarily, after six races this year, the accumulated time between first and second place finishes at all events is just 0.65 seconds: an average of just over 0.1 seconds per race. Barcelona also sports a long run to the finish line -- how much or little may that number increase by?