Table of contents:
- Honda and Márquez have a hard time at Mugello
- Ángel Nieto won the first race of the World Cup in Mugello
- Rain threat for Friday and Saturday
Video: The reconquest from home: Andrea Dovizioso and Ducati will seek the comeback from Mugello
2024 Author: Nicholas Abramson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2024-02-10 16:41
The MotoGP World Championship comes to Italy after a French Grand Prix in which Marc Márquez began to mark distances in the World Championship. After dominating almost every race to date, The question is whether Márquez will also send in Mugello. If he does so, he will practically have his sixth MotoGP title in the pot.
Mugello will host for the 28th consecutive time the Italian Motorcycle Grand Prix, although it will be the 31st in total. The Italian race has been held on this track since 1992, although also in 1976, 1978 and 1985 the World Championship ran in Mugello. This year the uncertainty about what can happen in this race is maximum and crucial.
Honda and Márquez have a hard time at Mugello
At first Ducati and Andrea Dovizioso should be favorites at Mugello. Borgo Panigale's men have been minimizing losses all season, waiting for more favorable races to come, and this one from Mugello should be the one that marks the beginning of the reconquest. Ducati has won the last two races held at this track, three in total if we add Casey Stoner's in 2009.
Furthermore, a priori it is not the most favorable circuit for Marc Márquez. The Spanish rider has only won at Mugello once in the premier class, in 2014, the year that swept. He also only has one more podium, second place in 2016. Therefore, if this year Márquez also wins here, it will be a sign that he has too much superiority for Ducati to be able to fight for the title.
To top it off Honda is also not doing well Mugello. They have only achieved two wins in the last fifteen years, the one mentioned by Márquez and another by Dani Pedrosa in 2010. It is to be expected that this time it will be the Japanese who will have to minimize damage, but the performance of the Honda this year puts it in doubt.
More unknown is where the Yamaha will be this weekend. In practice, this is one of his fetish circuits, and so history marks it with ten of the last fifteen victories, but the team's situation is not the best. Maverick Viñales continues to suffer a lot, especially in the race, and Valentino Rossi has a hard time getting all the juice out of the bike, although he will have the passionate support of his fans.
The performance of Suzuki, which continues to have a lot of problems in the rankings And they don't usually go too well at Mugello, although last year they were on the podium with both bikes. But it is urgent that they solve their problems on Saturdays so that Rins does not have to do a scramble going back every Sunday.
Another point of interest will be to continue monitoring Jorge Lorenzo's progression. The Spanish driver seemed to take a step forward at Le Mans, but in the race he was again caught in the middle of the peloton. In Mugello Lorenzo also tends to go very fast, in fact he won last year And he has done it five more times in MotoGP, but this is nothing new compared to Le Mans and Jerez.
Ángel Nieto won the first race of the World Cup in Mugello
Mugello's history in the Motorcycle World Championship began in 1976, when the Italian race was still referred to as the Grand Prix of Nations. In fact the first race of the World Championship held in Mugello was won by the long-awaited Ángel Nieto at the controls of a Bultaco in the 50 cc category.
The rider who has won the most times at this circuit is Valentino Rossi, with a total of seven wins in the queen category to which we must add another two in the smallest. The Italian won all the races at Mugello between 2002 and 2008, but has not done it since, now the domain is Spanish.
In fact Spanish drivers have won eight of the last nine races held at Mugello in the premier class, with the sole exception of Andrea Dovizioso's triumph in 2017. This has allowed Jorge Lorenzo to be the second rider with the most victories at Mugello, seven, two more than Mick Doohan.
For those who do see that this is usually a tougher Grand Prix, it is for Suzuki, the fourth in contention among the world championship contenders. The Japanese brand has only won twice at Mugello and to find the last one you have to go back to 1992, when Kevin Schwantz won. The other was in the first 500cc race held here, in 1976, when Barry Sheene won.
Rain threat for Friday and Saturday
The Mugello circuit consists of 5,245 meters of rope and is made up of fourteen curves, of which nine are to the right and five to the left. The circuit record is held by Marc Márquez since 2013, his debut season, in a time of 1: 47.639. We will have to be careful with the rain, since although it seems ruled out for Sunday it could affect the sessions on Friday and Saturday.
Marc Márquez arrives at Mugello as the leader of the MotoGP World Championship but only with an eight point advantage on Andrea Dovizioso, who could well be the leader in this race. Fewer options have Alex Rins and Valentino Rossi, who are already 20 and 23 points respectively behind the leader in the world championship standings.
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