Jorge Martin (Pramac Ducati Racing) was the man of the double race in the Alpine republic – after his victory on the first weekend, the Spanish rookie took another podium in third place and was the most successful driver in Spielberg in 2021.

Dramatic conclusion of the double race in Spielberg

On practically any other track, Brad Binder’s game of poker would not have worked with the onset of rain five laps before the end. Fortunately for the KTM rider, there are actually only three corners on the first three quarters of the course at the Red Bull Ring and only the last part offers “real” corners, starting with turn 4 on the following downhill section. Therefore, the South African’s incredible risk paid off in the end. He also benefited from the fact that a few other drivers had stayed on slicks and were literally in the way of those on rain tires behind him. But Binder’s performance in such an egg dance should not be diminished at this point, because not falling was the most important art in the final phase of the Austrian Grand Prix.

Johann Zarco (Pramac Ducati Racing) before the start of the second race – he was the first in front of Miguel Oliveira with a crash, with which he lost his second position in the World Championships to Bagnaia and Mir and is now only on P4.

Marquez missed his first win in Austria again
As in Le Mans, the six-time world champion was one of the top favourites after switching to rain tires. But Marc Marquez had already crashed twice at the French GP when he was alone in the lead, and now he threw a possible victory away again with a crash. With his pace, he would probably have been the only one who managed to catch the lead KTM driver before the chequered flag. However, this fall was a veritable disaster not only for him, but also for his employer. To explain what is meant by this, it is sufficient to take a look at the following table of the team and manufacturer standings in MotoGP. Here, the world championship team from 2019 is in worse shape in the second Corona year than it has been in decades.

The previous season of the drivers’ championship in detail

The many losers on the second weekend in Spielberg

In addition to Johann Zarco and Marc Marquez, these were mainly Miguel Oliveira, Jack Miller and Maverick Viñales, who was suspended from his team. With the latter, it is not yet clear whether he will be able to compete again on his Monster Energy Yamaha. The Catalan had apologized in retrospect for his reaction of frustration, in which he almost wilfully destroyed his Yamaha at the Styrian GP, ​​but the gap between him and his team had been very deep before that. His crew has had to listen to public criticism from Maverick before, and it will be interesting to see how the story continues. The weekend was anything but forgiving for Alex Rins, Pol Espargaró and Takaaki Nakagami. Just like Miller, having to leave with just a few points is a very frustrating experience for all of them after having shown good results at the Red Bull Ring in the past. With Silverstone, however, there is now a completely different course and, above all, the Suzuki driver has very good memories as the winner of the last rounds of the England GP.

Alex Rins (Suzuki) in front of Marc Marquez (Honda) – both had hoped for a lot more from the second race than the combined three points. Two years ago, the Suzuki Ace beat the Honda Star at Silverstone, which will continue in two weeks.

The world championship in all three classes at a glance

A drama for the fans at home – streaming & reporting

If you want to see MotoGP live, you usually have to pay for it, and the costs are steep. Well over 100 euros for the MotoGP streaming subscription is a proud price. Only the second half of the season costs almost 70 and what is offered for it is scandalously bad. As the Spielberg double race showed, the Dorna servers are clearly regularly overloaded. In live broadcasts, this repeatedly led to stoppages and interruptions. Of course, thousands of paying fans feel taken aback by this, but unfortunately the alternatives are not very refreshing. For German viewers, the takeover of the TV rights has been taken over by Servus TV, which is part of Red Bull Media. Except for Austrian races, they completely refrain from broadcasting all training sessions and warm-ups. The quality of the commentators is mostly catastrophic. In addition, there is constant advertising, based on the example of the Moto2 Grand Prix, when Marcel Schrötter, the only German, fell, and in MotoGP when Johann Zarco crashed. In addition, their media library is one of the worst ever.

The route, which is very unpopular with most pilots, is seen from a bird’s eye view from the north with the two very delicate corners 3 and four in the foreground on the left and right. Turn one in the background (in the middle of the picture) brought Marc Marquez out of the race.

What’s next – in two weeks with the British GP

Mood picture from Silverstone taken by us at the last Grand Prix so far in 2019 – on the last weekend in August, the eleventh round of the MotoGP World Championship is going to be here. There are many nice curves here again.

The combined calendar for MotoGP and WorldSBK

In red letters are the collisions in which, especially in the first three cases, the simultaneous implementation of the MotoGP with the WSBK causes enormous damage to the latter. Hardly any broadcaster is likely to broadcast the WSSP and Superbike World Championship races live. Especially the Malaysian GP in Sepang, WorldSBK Mandalika (Indonesia) and San Juan (Argentina) are still questionable. In this respect, a few more changes in the permanently provisional and chaotic calendar of FIM & Dorna can be expected.

Unless otherwise stated, this applies to all images (© MotoGP).