Valentino Rossi v Jorge Lorenzo: Why you absolutely must watch the MotoGP finale
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ByEurosport
Updated 06/11/2015 at 10:43 GMT
After a season of twists and turns, everything is still to play for as the 2015 MotoGP season finishes in Valencia this weekend. Two drivers can still win the title ... and they hate each other. Here is all you need to know....
Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi (Yamaha Factory) - GP of Spain 2015
Image credit: Yamaha Racing Corp.
Unlike a certain other motorsport we could care to name, the 2015 MotoGP season enters its final engagement with everything still to play for.
Two riders can still win the individual championship - and plenty of others have a point to prove, as an acrimonious campaign comes to an explosive end.
An ongoing court appeal that would ultimately decide where the current championship leader would start on the grid in Spain has now been resolved (we think), but there remain plenty of riders at the front end of the grid who currently have no time for each other.
Throw into that volatile mix the fact that the historically unpredictable weather conditions at the circuit mean there is a high chance of drama, positional changes and huge momentum shifts throughout the course of the race, and you have a recipe for a riveting finale.
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Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Spanish rider Jorge Lorenzo (R) and Italian rider Valentino Rossi (L) power their bikes during the 2015 MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit on October 25, 2015
Image credit: Eurosport
WHAT’S THE CURRENT SITUATION?
Sit down, because this could take a while. Nine-time world champions Valentino Rossi is the current championship leader, holding a seven-point advantage over Yamaha teammate Jorge Lorenzo – but that paints anything but the full picture.
A seven-point advantage would seem pretty helpful – if two-time past champion Lorenzo comes first or second then Rossi will still win if he finishes a place behind him, and beyond that he can be a few places adrift and still take the main prize – but it is not that simple.
As things stand Rossi will start Sunday’s race from the back of the grid, as a result of the punishment he received for a racing incident during the previous grand prix in Malaysia. The Italian appealed that punishment – to the European Court of Arbitration for Sport, no less – but on Thursday the court dismissed his application, seemingly leaving Rossi out of options.
If he starts at the back, it will take something special for him to fend off Lorenzo.
WHAT HAPPENED IN MALAYSIA?
To cut to the core of the matter: Rossi forced a rival off his bike.
If you don’t need any context beyond that, then please move on to the section. But if you do want some sort of stab at an explanation, read on.
During the race in Malaysia, Rossi managed to remove Marc Marquez from his bike – with it pretty hard to argue that the Italian did not engineer the situation with that deliberate intention - as they both rounded turn 14. Before, and indeed after, the race Rossi accused Marquez of deliberately trying to impend him at times in order to aid compatriot Lorenzo’s title challenge – pretty much laying his motive for the incident right there on the table.
Marquez, for what it is worth, has received criticism in some quarters for his persistence in delaying and competing with Rossi during the race in Malaysia, with many observers believing he did not really observe an unwritten rule that riders out of the title race do not unduly interfere with those who are.
Some feel Rossi was within his rights to make a point, although not quite to the extent that ultimately unfolded.
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Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Italian rider Valentino Rossi (L) chases Repsol Honda Team's Spanish rider Marc Marquez (R) during the 2015 MotoGP Malaysian Grand Prix at the Sepang International Circuit on October 25, 2015
Image credit: AFP
Lorenzo was clearly not impressed with the whole thing – he refused to celebrate his win on the podium afterwards as Rossi toasted his finish – and neither were the stewards. Although they stopped short of endorsing Ducati's claim that Marquez had been "kicked" off his bike, they nevertheless found Rossi to have driven dangerously and negligently, and duly imposed three penalty points on him.
This is where things get complicated. It takes four penalty points for a rider to suffer a grid penalty, but Rossi already had one penalty point on his record from a previous incident – so with the new punishment he duly triggered that threshold. As a result, he will start from the back at Valencia.
Considering that would be a hammer-blow to his title chances, Rossi unsurprisingly appealed – and dramatically went to CAS in order to get those penalty points reduced, removed or suspended. On Thursday they dismissed his plea, so barring another late wildcard move his grid fate is sealed.
He will have to cut through the field in order to prevent Lorenzo pipping him at the post.
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Valentino Rossi (Yamaha Factory) - GP of Japan 2015
Image credit: Yamaha MotoGP
WHAT ARE THE RAMIFICATIONS?
FIM, who oversee MotoGP, have barely hidden their disdain for Rossi’s conduct throughout this, although they have had to go silent recently as CAS deliberated on the matter. Lorenzo seems unimpressed with Rossi and Marquez is positively angry at having had his own character questioned, although the Italian remains convinced that he is the one being persecuted in all of this.
CAS's decision will hardly change that conviction, although the best Rossi can surely hope for now is that the burning sense of injustice he feels helps power him to one of the rides of his life.
It is a scene Quentin Tarrantino would dream up – everyone there in the paddock, pointing their guns at each other and throwing accusations, with no-one willing to take a step back. And now we enter the final scene where the winner will take it all.
SO WHAT ABOUT THE RACE ITSELF?
Ah, actual racing. What people watch Moto GP for. A novel question, and one we appreciate.
To be completely frank, we won’t know the broad dynamic of the race until it is absolutely confirmed where Rossi will start. If he has to go from the back of the grid, as the CAS verdict presumably ensures, that obviously puts Lorenzo in the proverbial pole position - but it still will be far from straightforward for Lorenzo.
Lorenzo and Rossi are the focus, but Dani Pedrosa has won a staggering six of 13 races around Valencia during his career – finishing on the podium 10 times in total. Yet he isn’t even among the top three bookies favourites for the race, with the resurgent Marquez (giving up his title to someone at the end of the weekend) top of that particular list.
When he hasn’t been palmed off his bike, the Spaniard has been in strong form over the second half of the season, with his own title challenge only undermined by his early-season struggles with his Repsol Honda. Marquez has crashed out five times this season – it’s pretty hard to sustain a title challenge that way.
Lorenzo will have to negotiate those two fine riders, both of whom will be wanting to make points of their own, in the knowledge that every position down the order he finishes makes Rossi's catch-up job slightly easier (if he finishes fourth, for example, Rossi 'only' needs to scramble to ninth) .
Then there is the likes of Andrea Iannone and Andrea Dovizioso, looking to end the season in style and give themselves momentum heading into 2016. You feel the drama on the track will match everything that has come before it.
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Movistar Yamaha MotoGP's Italian rider Valentino Rossi (L) gestures the thumbs up towards Repsol Honda Team's Spanish rider Dani Pedrosa (R) after the Malaysian Grand Prix MotoGP motorcycling race at the Sepang International Circuit on October 25, 2015
Image credit: AFP
ANYTHING ELSE WE NEED TO KNOW?
Well, it is probably worth mentioning that the late-autumn weather in Valencia is anything but stable, with the prospect of rain showers, pressure changes and sweeping winds meaning race conditions are invariably gloriously unpredictable.
In the past Pedrosa has won from the pit lane after gambling on different tires to the rest of the field, while most races involve a higher-than usual number of collisions and crashes as subtle changes in the atmospherics affect riders already pushing with everything they’ve got for pace and position.
Put simply, the weather will be another factor in what is already a hugely complicated race weekend – and might ended up having as big a say as anyone on who is finally left standing atop the podium.
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Jorge Lorenzo (Yamaha Factory) - GP of Australia 2015
Image credit: Yamaha Racing Corp.
THE BETTING
The race
Marc Marquez – 6/4
Jorge Lorenzo – 7/4
Dani Pedrosa – 5/2
Valentino Rossi – 9/1
The championship
Jorge Lorenzo – 5/11
Valentino Rossi – 15/8
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Yamaha Team's Italian rider Valentino Rossi looks on in the pits during the Moto GP first practice session ahead of the Aragon Grand Prix at the Motorland racetrack in Alcaniz on September 25, 2015
Image credit: AFP
THE CONCLUSION
In modern sport it is always something of a rarity to see a genuinely unpredictable conclusion to a sporting championship, but this just might be it.
The whole thing is almost perfectly poised – Rossi has the points advantage but the sporting disadvantage, Lorenzo has the ground to make up but the preferred position on the track – and the accusations and counter-accusations that have rumbled around the paddock in the build-up have elevated things to an even higher level of intensity.
There is genuine animosity involved now, to go along with the natural theatre of a title decider.
Regardless of where your personal affinities lie, this should be a race not to be missed.
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