Analysis

Jonathan Rea leads Michael Ruben Rinaldi into Turn 1 at Aragon - Photo WorldSBK

Jonathan Rea just keeps ticking boxes in his title defence. Another weekend and another victory, but crucially also another three podium finishes. Consistency wins championships, and in the history of the Superbike World Championship he has no equal in this regard.

Motorland Aragon was a case in point. With back-to-back rounds at the Spanish circuit, this was a prime opportunity for his rivals to take points away from him. Instead Rea extended his title lead to 34 points by a mixture of risk-taking on track and conservative strategy in the garage.

Aragon is historically Ducati territory. The long straight clearly plays to the strength of the Panigale V4R, its horsepowers. When riding on board with Rea throughout the race weekend we could see where his bike excels: through Turn 10 on the edge of the tyre with the throttle pinned and the rear sliding but still able to find drive grip. There’s more than one way to skin a cat, but giving up so much acceleration on the straights meant the Kawasaki rider had to push incredibly hard everywhere else.

Lessons learned

Martin's Mirth

Minutes after repeating his brilliant lights-to-flag feats of the Austrian Grand Prix for a second time in as many weekends, initial race winner Jorge Martin was shown the runner-up slot in parc fermé. His crime? Running over a sliver of green paint that follows the kerb on the outside of turn eight as he fought resolutely to fend of Marco Bezzecchi’s ever-threatening late race advances. The FIM Stewards demoted to second despite crossing the line 0.060s second ahead.

“Losing out this way is painful,” Martin sighed from that same parc fermé. “In the last lap I think I didn’t touch it. Last week I touched it but they (the FIM Stewards) said it’s OK. Today wasn’t the day to touch. We won in an amazing way. For sure Bezzecchi at the end had a little bit more but he didn’t arrive to the battle. Me and my team really deserved this victory.”

So, were the Stewards wrong to penalize him? Well, after the controversy surrounding Augusto Fernandez’s last lap victory at Misano last year, when he passed Fabio Di Giannantonio at turn 14 moments after exceeding track limits on the exit of turn eleven, Dorna published a clarification on a tightening of the rules regarding track limits.

Qualifying at the Red Bull Ring proved as exhilarating a spectacle as ever, but like Banquo's ghost at Macbeth's banquet, an absent specter took some of the attention away from a celebration of racing. A little over an hour after qualifying finished – delayed because Jaume Masia tore the fairing from his Leopard Honda Moto3 bike after crashing in Q1, then rode back to the pits dumping oil and water all over the track – a press release from the Repsol Honda team reminded us of the absentee champion.

Marc Márquez, the press release announced, would be out for another two to three months, to allow him to recover fully from the broken humerus he suffered at the first round of MotoGP on July 19th. Of course, the problem wasn't that break, but the aftermath: Márquez had an operation to plate the humerus a couple of days later, he was doing press ups the day after that, and tried to ride again on the Saturday after breaking his arm. It went OK for one session of practice, but he felt an unpleasant twinge in his arm, and a lack of strength, and so stopped.

A week later, and back in the same place. Plus ça change pas... The same riders are back at the same track, in the same situation. So we should have the same result, right?

That's not quite what the data from Jerez says. Sure, the first two places were the same in both races. But behind that, the results were completely different between the two races, a week apart on the same circuit. Only 9 of the 22 riders on the entry list of the first race finished both races, three of them ending up injured in the carnage of the two opening rounds.

Only Pol Espargaro crossed the line within one place of his finishing position in the second race, ending sixth in the first race, seventh in the second. Only Johann Zarco's finishing position varied by two places, crossing the line eleventh in the first race, ninth in the second. The rest of the field either finished three or more places out of position, or crashed out – and there were a lot of riders who didn't cross the line one way or another.