THE MOTOGP ROUND-UP -23 AUGUST - AUSTRIA TWO :HOW MAD CAN IT GET?

I’m loathe to say that this season has been interesting because of the absence of Marc Marquez, but it’s a difficult assumption to refute. Without his presence, have those who would have measured their performance against him seized the opportunity to occupy the top dog position, leading to an escalation in self-belief, were it even needed?

-  Harry Fishe

The question has to be asked, however, would we have been spared the drama that has unfolded before our eyes over the past two weeks if Marquez was there? Was everyone pushing that much harder in the absence of the King?

If Austria One wasn’t dramatic enough for us, Austria Two gave us more of the same which was scarcely believable. No-one - not the teams, the riders nor the spectators - could or would have believed that racing could have got any more dramatic second time around in Spielberg. But it did!

Yet again, the drama unfolded without serious injury to anyone which, if you witnessed what happened, is a miracle in itself. As serious as the incident was, it was, this time, no fault of the track, unless you count the demand placed on brakes as the track’s fault, which noone is. The simple truth of the matter is that the Yamahas lack straight line speed, to counter which they brake later into the corners.

Brembo is certainly not to blame as they brought stronger equipment to the party knowing this, which Viñales didn’t use, saying that it didn’t give him the feel that he needed. We cannot read anything into the fact that all the other Yamaha riders chose the uprated calipers; as a rider, you plough your own furrow and work with the data from your last race. Viñales’ data told him he would be all right running the ‘standard’ set up.