Team-Mates From Hell

Michael Scott - a regular in the MotoGP paddock since 1984 and familiar to motorcycle racing fans worldwide through his best selling books on the likes of Wayne Rainey and Barry Sheene has been covering MotoGP since long before it was MotoGP. Remember two-strokes? Scott does.

- Michael Scott

The first person you must beat is your team-mate, riding the same bike. There’s no more direct measure.

The old cliché is especially poignant for 2019. The pairing of Jorge Lorenzo with Marc Marquez on the class-leading Repsol Hondas is potentially spell-binding.

In some 40 years in MotoGP, I can’t recall a single example quite so tasty. Trolling through the records, there is at least one surprise … just how often the outwardly calm Andrea Dovizioso’s name comes up in pairings from hell.

Less surprising is that Lorenzo appears on the list regularly. And let it be said that in most of those misalliances, he has ultimately come out on top, one way or another.

The ultimately if indirectly fatal Yamaha in-team battles between Phil Read and Bill Ivy were a signal example in the 1960s. My memory goes to the 1970s, when the ever-vocal Barry Sheene sounded off about the recruitment of Pat Hennen to the Suzuki ranks. He explained his resentment to me. He’d been pushing for his good friend Gary Nixon to take the slot, but the American was badly injured in a pre-season crash. Compatriot Hennen was a last-minute replacement, and Barry resented what he saw as the youngster’s rank opportunism.