Well, that all went according to the script. Jorge Lorenzo won his fifth race of the year, and in all of them he has led every lap. Marc Marquez’s only question was how long he could hang on to Jorge. At Indy the answer was very much to Marc’s liking; at Brno it was six laps. After that, he was watching the gap back to Rossi in third, not wasting brain space on the gap to Jorge.
Valentino wasted his second front-row start of the year and got entangled with the Ducatis. When he extricated himself from the Andreas, he was a long way back. Around half distance Vale lapped faster than Marc for the first time. The gap was over five seconds, but Marc responded instantly. No way were we in for a repeat of Argentina.
That put the Yamahas equal on points at the top of the table with Jorge top by virtue of is five wins to Valentino’s three – the first time Rossi has been off the top since the start of the season.
My abiding image of Brno this year is not of Jorge’s awesome perfection, it is of the the three typically efficient and helpful ladies of widely differing ages behind the reception at my hotel as I checked out on Monday. Is it true, they asked anxiously, that MotoGP was coming back to Brno next year.
You could be forgiven for thinking it is if you read the press releases. What has actually happened is that Dorna have agreed to talk with a consortium of local, regional and national government bodies to secure the event for the next five years. As the Czech Republic’s minister for Youth, Education & Sport, Katerina Valachova, was at the track, presented a trophy and appears in the press release photo with Carmelo Ezpeleta, the impression of a done deal is reinforced. Can the national government, the Central Moravian regional government and the City of Brno authorities work together on this? As the Czech national pastime is having an argument, it is possible they could mess it up but it is less and less likely. However, it is very noticeable that no mention has been made of the circuit and the lease holder, Karel Abraham Snr. One or two problems to still be sorted there but the ladies at my hotel, and the 138,000 race-day spectators, can go to work this week with a spring in their step and hope in their hearts.
