Double victory for Ducati Lenovo with left winner Miller and “Pecco” Bagnaia instead of the fourth triumph for Yamaha with Quartararo – Franco Morbidelli saved the honor for Yamaha once more with 3rd place, just ahead of Takaaki Nakagami.

Fabio Quartararo recently operated on and in good spirits

We had already suspected Arm-Pump in our live blog on Sunday and assumed that the young Frenchman would soon follow Jack Miller’s example. The Australian had undergone an operation immediately after Losail, benefited from the accident of the Monster Energy Yamaha rider in Jerez de la Frontera and won his first MotoGP race in 5 years. It was only the second Grand Prix victory for “Jack Ass” in the premier class. Fabio traveled to Marseille on Monday, where he has already had an operation and reported from the hospital. The operation was successful, and he is looking forward to hopefully being able to compete in his home race at Le Mans with one hundred percent fitness.

The pit signals from the driver’s point of view with Fabio Quartararo (Monster Energy Yamaha), who was falling further and further behind at the Spanish GP, in the middle – the Frenchman clearly led when forearm cramps forced him to reduce his speed.

Are Aleix Espargaró and “Morbido” consistently bullied in MotoGP?

The voices of fans and observers of the scene are increasing that not everything is going well in the premier class. Dorna, Petronas Yamaha SRT and those responsible at Yamaha are doing very little about it, it seems to us. For the second time after the Grand Prix of Portugal, Aleix Espargaró was sensationally strong sixth in Andalusia. But the Dorna seem to simply ignore the fast Catalans. While countless pictures of Marquez and Rossi were made available for the fans on their MotoGP page, none of Aleix was there. With Frankie Morbidelli, after his 4th place in Portimão and 3rd place in Jerez, they could hardly do anything else than post pictures of the Italian. Otherwise, it almost had to be cut out.

Johann Zarco (Pramac Racing Ducati) in front of Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda), which ended up only in 9th place. Everyone spoke and wrote almost exclusively about the returnee, but there was hardly any mention of Nakagami as a sensational fourth and Aleix, although both were much stronger than the six-time world champion.

How Yamaha will deal with the vice world champion is more than questionable
Morbido saved the Japanese honor last year when Quartararo and Viñales began to stumble. He even pulled the coals out of the fire for Yamaha several times. The fact that he was left behind by Yamaha as vice world champion is astonishing and disappointing not only to his former mentor Valentino Rossi. According to the old master, his compatriot has long deserved the best material, but supposedly still drives the 2019 M1. Recently, a Yamaha manager is said to have tried to justify himself by arguing that Morbidelli was getting exactly the material his team was paying for. According to the regulations, you are not allowed to switch to the current model in the middle of the season. That sounds like a bad joke, gentlemen! How Yamaha deals with the vice world champion is more than questionable and why the Petronas SRT can even put up with nobody understands.

Frankie Morbidelli (Petronas Yamaha SRT) – left behind by Yamaha as vice world champion. This shows a strange understanding of sport on the part of the responsible gentlemen of this company.

The opinion of the much too often underestimated Aprilia rider on the Jerez GP

Aleix Espargaró: “I am satisfied with the solidity we show. I did a good job of the race, with a good start and my position in the early stages. The pace was extremely fast. I didn’t have a lot of grip, so I had to adjust my driving style a lot. I was even in the leading group for a long time until I overtook Fabio. It took a little longer than expected and that took me a few seconds. This has been found to be crucial. Still, it wasn’t bad at all. We’re still collecting points and our gap at the front has never been so tight. I also had some problems with my right forearm in the final. It has to be checked and solved in the best possible way, hopefully there is a way to do it.” (The editors: Actually the same as almost all pilots often, with arm pumps, which is exactly why Quartararo went under the knife in France).

Aleix Espargaró (Aprilia Racing Team Gresini) in front of Bagnaia, Takagami, Mir and Viñales – In the end, the fast man from Granollers even left both Yamaha and Honda factory riders as well as all KTM behind him.

The supposed Honda problem is confusing

According to HRC team boss Alberto Puig, who stayed at home in Jerez due to physical problems, there is allegedly a problem with the current Honda RC213V. However, when you consider that Takaaki Nakagami only missed the podium by a tiny 7-tenths in the closing stages of the Spanish GP, this statement seems more than questionable. Especially when you consider that test driver Bradl was extensively tested in Jerez beforehand. The Japanese couldn’t do this and immediately found a setup with which he was at the front. From Friday, he was on P6 after FP2 and after that there would have been time to study his data from the other drivers and to copy their setup based on the example of “Taka-San”.

Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda Idemitsu) in his high-speed crash in Portugal – after he first tried briefly, he had to forego qualifying due to his severe injuries. The brave samurai started anyway on Sunday and finished an excellent tenth.

Lazy excuses don’t work
To complain about an alleged technical problem with the Honda after the race is complete nonsense. Nakagami was even still battered by Portugal and then embarrassed the two factory drivers and Bradl in Jerez anyway. Except for the Japanese in qualifying, all of them were simply too weak. This is likely to be the only problem HRC is currently facing. But it’s definitely not the material. In the previous year, Puig complained when he was asked about alleged performance problems with the Honda RC213V. The fairy tale had been started by Stefan Bradl and some journalists had gratefully taken it up, but at that time Alberto was still vigorously repulsing it. Now that Marquez is back to bring such nonsense on the agenda, many observers see it as an excuse and lazy excuses do not bring Honda anything.

Marc Marquez in front of his completely destroyed Repsol Honda in the gravel bed of turn 7 in FP3 on Saturday morning – this violent fall and another crash on Sunday in the warm-up were the reasons why he did not end up further in the race than in 9th place. Pol Espargaró also had to complain about two violent falls this weekend and ended up just barely in the top ten, while Bradl failed to meet expectations in his wildcard appearance in twelfth place.

Confusing pictures despite the “closed door protocol” again in Jerez

We received some letters from our readers who could not understand this. To be clear, we have no sympathy for that either. As already noted in Andalusia last year and at the GP of Portugal, private individuals were clearly identified in the middle of the action, who were obviously not present in any official function. In countries like Spain or Portugal this is easy to distinguish because without a suit no politician or other important person would appear at such an event. The two men in the plaid shirt, on the other hand, even wore it open and not in their pants. In this respect, such images are in fact simply shameful against the background that all normal fans had to watch from home. What one should think of it is up to each observer.

Despite the alleged “closed door protocol”, strange private individuals cavorted on the starting grid in Jerez, see bottom center of the picture and bottom right. The same picture was seen earlier at the Portuguese GP, for example when Marc Marquez was available for a fan in the middle of the paddock for a selfie in a video-clip, as well as a year ago in Andalusia at the season opener.

The Le Mans weekend is already eagerly awaited

With only 5 left turns and 9 right turns, the Bugatti circuit, like most of the circuits, is clockwise. For the opponents of Ducati it is reassuring that there is no long straight here either. The maximum is 647 m, with which the lightning-fast reds have to wait until Mugello in order to enjoy their strongest triumph. La Chapelle and Garage Vert are somewhat reminiscent of the almost 180 degree curves 6 and 13 of Jerez, but otherwise the characteristics of the Circuit Bugatti are completely different.

The world championship stand in all classes before the 5th round at Le Mans

Le Mans Grand Prix schedule

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