Far west MotoGP. Because in the world championship you fall too much

The races of MotoGP they are turning into rodeos. More than on the track, it seems to be in some old Far West saloon where you don’t bother pulling out your revolvers. On the track we have now gone from bike-to-bike fairings to hands on each other like Pecco Bagnaia and Maverick Viñales did at Le Mans after the collision that eliminated both of them when the race started just five laps ago. Afterwards they will also have returned to the pits together, shaking hands, but the scene broadcast worldwide risks becoming as famous as the one in which Piquet punched Eliseo Salazar on the helmet after an accident in Formula 1.

It’s a World Championship with tense nerves in which, moreover, there is the risk of hurting oneself, as already happened in the first race of the season to poor Enea Bastianini who has not yet been able to get back on track. Eight of them didn’t finish the Grand Prix at Le Mans either. They will also be racing incidents, but when you end up in the gravel so often it’s better to ask yourself a few questions before it’s too late. Carlo Pernat, an old navigator of tracks and racetracks had already warned the other day: “It’s Dorna’s fault, it has introduced an epochal change without telling the drivers: doubling the races means doubling the risk of accidents. They should have started with 6 sprint races, like in F1, and evaluated calmly. Instead, everything and immediately. Too much danger. And too much confusion.”

Bagnaia, the reigning world champion is already third zero in the standings out of five races. Without the Sprint Races he would be behind in the standings, so he still has a one point lead over Marco Bezzecchi who in France won his second race of the season with the Ducati of Valentino’s team. A fundamental victory to climb up the standings and finally be able to trim his mustache as he promised after his first success in Argentina (“I’ll grow it until the next victory”). Three Ducatis in the first three places also at Le Mans mean that the Desmosedicis have something extra, but that none of the three are from the factory team (Wet in the sand, Bastianini at home, Petrucci’s replacement rusty) it also means that, as usual, Ducati have some rider problems. And the refrain already begins: you want to see that Valentino’s true heir is not Bagnaia, but Bezzecchi who confessed to having won following the advice of Vale who would also be his team principal. All while waiting for Bastianini to return to Mugello, another one who was a candidate to evict Pecco from the podium. Whatever happens, there are three Italians who lay down the law while Marquez, who went back to being Marquez for a few laps, in the end couldn’t stand it and made a mistake ending up in the gravel, at least this time without getting hurt.

However, there are always too many falls, above all because they are no longer limited to solitary slips, but often they are real motorcycle clashes with riders who slingshot against each other like in a video game. They may also be racing incidents, but they are collisions resulting from races always lived beyond the limit. You come off a meter later, you never give up an inch on your opponent, you don’t worry about the consequences. The race director, Freddie Spencer, someone who knew how to go on a motorbike, tried to beat everyone without distinction with the result of creating only more confusion. In short, it’s not a glorious moment for the MotoGP even if there would be all the conditions to try and have fun.