Bon soir! MotoGP continues its garish traipse around the empty racing circuits of Europe with a weekened stopover at the historic and slightly unpleasant Le Mans Bugatti circuit in the Grand-Ouest of France. The Bugatti circuit, MotoGP’s website informs us, first hosted a Grand Prix in 1969, in which Giacomo Agostini lapped the whole field and presumably some closer racing was had in the other classes. (Would you look at that! There’s some footage on Youtube.) If you’ve seen one of these before you know about the Bugatti circuit: it shares big circuit’s pits and goes on as far as the Dunlop Esses before turning off 180 degrees and doing its own thing, which is a series of short straights and awkward hairpins and S bends before joining up again at the Ford chicane. That’s the Bugatti circuit! With its tight corners and short straights, like Motegi it tends to favour bikes and riders who can get leaned over, turn, stand up and go in as short a time as possible. None of this mid-corner speed malarkey. The best thing about it is that round the back it does indeed look like rural France. Anyway here’s a map:
Has anything remarkable happened here? On two wheels, and for a period of time less than 24 hours, that is. For some reason my main memory is the late and very much missed Marco Simoncelli absolutely wiping out Dani Pedrosa who had done nothing to deserve it at Chemin aux boeufs (I told you, rural France). Weird stuff tends to happen when it rains: Chris Vermeulen won Suzuki’s first(?) Grand Prix on a four-stroke(?) in a 2007 race also led by Sylvain Guintoli and Randy de Puniet, area man Louis Rossi got his only notable Grand Prix result in 2012 with an FTR Honda (remember all those odd Moto3 bikes?), and last year Danilo Petrucci(!) held off Alex Marquez(!!) get a final, vengeful win for Ducati. This was back in early October when Fabio Quartararo still had a championship lead. Quartararo had a championship lead until halfway through the last Grand Prix in Jerez too, but the demon arm pump cast his evil spell on the Frenchman’s right arm and he tumbled down the order, leaving Jack Miller to score a long-awaited (by those who hadn’t given up waiting, that is) second Grand Prix victory for Ducati. Points-wise his teammate Pecco Bagnaia was the chief beneficiary, but Quartararo has had surgery/an exorcism and comes to his home Grand Prix (not really his home, he’s from Nice) with high expectations. And then there’s the whole rest of the gang. Marc Marquez? Suzuki? Can Aleix Espargaro do anything with the promising-looking Aprilia? I don’t know. We’ll need to watch the race.
Anyway, you want business! When are the sessions happening? I’ve got it covered. Look down below. These are local times (heures francaise). If you’re in the UK remember to subtract an hour to get the BST version.
Friday, 14 May
9am: Moto3 practice 1
9.55: MotoGP practice 1
10.55: Moto2 practice 1
11.50: MotoE practice 1
1.15pm: Moto3 practice 2
2.10: MotoGP practice 2
3.10: Moto2 practice 2
4.50: MotoE practice 2
Saturday, 15 May
9am: Moto3 practice 3
9.55: MotoGP practice 3
10.55: Moto2 practice 3
11.50: MotoE practice 1
12.35pm: Moto3 qualifying
1.30: MotoGP practice 4
2.10: MotoGP qualifying
3.10: Moto 2 qualifying
4.10: MotoE qualifying e-pole
Sunday, 16 May
8.20am: Moto3 warm-up
8.50: Moto2 warm-up
9.20: MotoGP warm-up
10.05: MotoE race
11: Moto3 race
12.20pm: Moto2 race
2: MotoGP race
Great! See you all tomorrow for practice. If you’re in the UK, the most exciting thing of all is that for some unexplained reason Sunday’s action in all three classes is live on freeview’s ITV4 (where the touring cars are). So you have no excuse, except possibly an Indianapolis road course related drinking binge, or indeed any other drinking binge. Anyway. Nobody wants that. Enjoy!
Terrifying!
