Topic: Motosport General discussion tread --- Formula1, MotoGP, WTCC, ETCC, DTM..... - page 163. (Read 143843 times)

Only the first series, Marquez actually looked quite competitive before falling. Unfortunately he had to be injured again and missed the Argentina series. If I'm not mistaken, the finger is broken. This is bad because so far only Marquez can control the Honda.

As for Yamaha, it is true that they did not show good development. Maybe Quartararo will suffer this season because they didn't develop the bike seriously. What's not wrong with Ducati, they are still very strong. Bagnaia even has a fairly wide gap with Vinaless. But it is very interesting, for points because there is a sprint race that is still very influential in the race for the championship at the end of the season.

Not only a mistake, that was actually quite bad and the penalty with a double long lap penalty is very mild, Marquez should not complain about that.

If Bagnaia and Ducati continue like this it could be a rather boring season, it doesn't look like Honda and Yamaha have made much progress over the winter.

I wish the Australia GP was this week but there is nothing to do about it. But still there is not much time left indeed. I wonder what kind of a podium we will see this time. Because for two race weeks we have seen nearly the same podium consisting of Verstappen, Perez and Alonso. Red Bull drivers would of course be on podium most of the time with that very fast car.

But Alonso is a big surprise this season. Aston Martin have made a great progress and Alonso is just benefiting from this situation as much as possible. I wonder if he can be on podium for the third time.

One week left until Australia gp. I think this is going to be one of the most obvious Red Bull races ever, it's a race where even the slightest bad move ends up having a big difference, considering they are already fast, if they make no mistakes and run on track, no sand parts, no out of track positions, just pure racing line all day, then there will be even more people who make a mistake and they may end up lapping half of the grid with the pace they have.

I am not saying that it will happen, there is a chance for it to happen but on the same logic, we could have red bull drivers make mistakes and other drivers catching up thanks to that. However, I really doubt Max would make a mistake, he is just too good.

I don't think so.
He seems not to be the old Marquez anymore after the injured.

Also, the season is very long and I believe that neither he knows if he will race all the GP this year for his situation and if he keeps crashing the situation will not improve for sure.

The F1 drivers have a little rest until the next Grand Prix is driven. Admittedly, it's too early to draw any conclusions, but I think the only conclusion we can draw is the fact that Mercedes still hasn't got things right and won't play any part in the battle for the championship. Disappointing, after last season you would expect Mercedes to come up with a faster car, but the gap et red Bull only seems to have widened. Nice for the racing fans to see that Alonso is back and having a good time.

As I said looks like we are having kinda the same seasons this 2023,both in MotoGP and F1 where Redbull and Ducati are completely dominating the Championships.We are still early as we are just two races in each Championship but the sun can be spotted early in the morning and Bagnaia is in super top form while Max has found some competition in the second race from his team mate which got and won the race,with a bit of luck of course but much more performance than luck.

For Marquez I think he still has chances if he does not screw up and starts thinking logically,by logically I mean to get the second spot while he can and hope that not all the races will be this easy for Bagnaia.

Marquez can't catch a break honestly and I feel so bad for him but today he really did a mistake that indeed might cost him for lung run during this season.

Bagnaia on the other hand is still looking like a strong champ and today he showed a bit of weakness in his duel with Vinales in a slow Aprilla and still managed to be on his tail for most of the race.

Big Mistake for Marquez, and now he is already in a difficult position even if the season is just started with this incredible Ducati.

Bagnaia perfect weekend for him with a win yesterday and Today,

In general, the Japanese manufacturers this season (Honda and Yamaha) will not be very serious competitors for European manufacturers, especially Ducati. But when compared to Yamaha, it seems that Honda is not much better this season so Marquez needs to fight harder for this season. However, what is very unfortunate in this race is that the host rider from the RNF Racing team was the victim of the Marquez incident in this race.

I also think that this season there are no serious competitors to interfere with Bagnaia in defending his championship crown, because this season he is the defending champion. But for next week's race, I only hope that there will be surprises from the other teams in the front row so that there will be a more interesting spectacle in the race that will take place in Argentina later.

Since Marquez is out from the second lap already it means that he is well aware of the limiting in his Honda moto this time and he probably pushed to hard going out of track/crashing,the other Repsol Honda is not doing well also.Bagnaia is dominating the race in these first few laps as we are on lap 7 already and there is Aprilia just up there less than 0.5 seconds in gap.It is early to make predictions but it looks like this season is going to be an easy one for Bagnaia as I don't see any other competitor so far bringing serious trouble to him despite being early as I said,as they say the sun can be spotted already early in the morning.

Today the Portugal MotoGP Full Race will take place soon and my prediction is almost the same as yesterday where the Race will take place fiercely, but from the results of yesterday's Sprint Race I found that Honda Motorbikes this season look very weak and I think Marquez himself is very aware of this so he took advantage of his towing momentum to set the best time and also yesterday he took advantage of another gap on the final lap to get third on the podium when Oliveira overtook Miller at the first corner after the straight.

I think the future is still unwritten and Verstappen is only 25 years old, Hamilton was 36 or something on 2021 when he barely lost, that means people could still be good at later age, and Alonso is 41 and still racing great when given a good car as we can see.

This means that there is at least 10 to 15 years of Verstappen we can watch, maybe not as dominating as right now, but the kid is on his way for a third title at 25, which means only 4 titles left and it is not unheard of for someone to have a dominating car and be that good. I am not saying that he will get 7 titles as well, but he definitely has a chance, and will work towards to make that happen and it is a possibility.

I disagree with you.
I'm sure that Verstappen can very well catch up and even pass any driver's mark.
Verstappen is still only 25 years old, so it is possible to say that the Dutch driver should still be on the tracks for at least another 10 years (I believe), and that gives him chances to conquer important records. Not to mention that Vertappen is in a very strong team, which is certainly capable of giving him all the necessary chances to be very competitive and reach his goals.
One of the records he can win is the number of consecutive seasons with at least one victory, because if he wins in F1 this year, he will jump to the top-5 in that regard, reaching eight championships in a row with triumphs. Michael Schumacher and Lewis Hamilton won races 15 years in a row. so Verstappen has another 10 years to conquer the other 7.
Verstappen already has a metric that is better than Scumacher and Hamilton... last year he climbed to the top of the podium 15 times, Germans who won only 13 races.

As I said... Verstappen is a very young driver, he has many races ahead of him and I believe he will certainly become a great F1 legend.


I agree however, when you spoke of Senna.
To this day, I haven't met any F1 driver who was as formidable as he was.
Unfortunately he left us too early, so his feats were stopped early and other riders had "the chance" to overtake them.

Bagnaia won the 1st ever sprint race in MotoGP and this will stay on the books forever.
Ducati seems to be stronger, especially on long straights.

Marquez was with Ducati only for 2-3 laps and after that, he couldn't compete.

Expecting the same tomorrow during the race.

And that's why I say that he can, deserves, and will even pass Schumacher and other seniors in F1. He has built his confidence to compete to be the best. And it will be possible that this season he will be the winner again, considering that his performance in the previous 2 races was quite good and he was able to overcome various problems with the car.

2026 will definitely decide if Verstappen will be as great or not. First of all the fact is that all of these "greats" had great cars as well, if you give Mick Schumacher the same car that Max has, maybe he wouldn't be as good, but he would have won a lot, or maybe Vettel switches from Red Bull to Mercedes in 2014, can you imagine Vettel racing with that type of dominance for 8 years in a row? I think he would have shattered all the records ever, there wouldn't be a chance for Hamilton to win in that case, his best ever teammate was Nico who won just one, he was never teammates with anyone as good as Vettel. This means cars decide who is the best driver ever, if you give them haas or some other car, they wouldn't be winning anything. On the other hand 2026 will see a HUUUGE change, we had some small change last year, but in 2026 we are going to have the biggest ever change since 2014, it will be an insane change and everything will look differently and I think if Red Bull could come out of that as the best car, like the one they have now, then Max will win 8 or more.

Lmao never?  Do you know how old Verstappen is right now?  He's just 25 years old, hasn't reached his prime as an F1 driver yet.  I think we'd have to wait 10 years more before saying 'will never reach the level of Schumacher.'.  It's kinda funny how you already closed the guy's door to greatness when we have already seen a lot of potential from such a young age.  It's also not just about his potential, he really is a good driver and he's getting better as time passes.  And he's in the right team to boot.  Like it or not, it's currently the Verstapen era until the engine change...  And maybe even after.

Today Marc Marquez managed to take advantage of towing from Q1 to Q2. at Q1 Marquez managed to make a towing to his teammate Joan Mir by setting a new record lap, and then it was broken by Jack Miller in Q2 and after that Jack Miller's time record was also broken by Bagnaia. But in the final minutes of Q2, Marquez managed to make another towing to Bastianini so he (Marquez) managed to set a new record time which was a new lap record at Algarve Portugal today so he (Marquez) became the pole position today. Looks like today's Sprint Race will be fierce and amazing.

Qualifying results for Moto GP.

Marquez is back on his spot

1   Marc Marquez   SPA   Repsol Honda (RC213V)   1'37.226s   8/8   341k
2   Francesco Bagnaia   ITA   Ducati Lenovo (GP23)   +0.064s   6/8   344k
3   Jorge Martin   SPA   Pramac Ducati (GP23)   +0.228s   7/8   344k
4   Miguel Oliveira   POR   RNF Aprilia (RS-GP22)   +0.295s   7/7   344k
5   Jack Miller   AUS   Red Bull KTM (RC16)   +0.323s   2/5   342k
6   Enea Bastianini   ITA   Ducati Lenovo (GP23)   +0.358s   8/8   346k
7   Maverick Viñales   SPA   Aprilia Racing (RS-GP23)   +0.372s   6/8   345k
8   Marco Bezzecchi   ITA   Mooney VR46 Ducati (GP22)   +0.390s   6/8   344k
9   Luca Marini   ITA   Mooney VR46 Ducati (GP22)   +0.396s   8/8   343k
10   Johann Zarco   FRA   Pramac Ducati (GP22)   +0.654s   6/6   343k
11   Fabio Quartararo   FRA   Monster Yamaha (YZR-M1)   +0.694s   7/7   343k
12   Aleix Espargaro   SPA   Aprilia Racing (RS-GP23)   +0.910s   7/7   343k

Source: https://www.crash.net/motogp/news/1022560/1/2023-portuguese-motogp-portimao-full-qualifying-results