Argentina was today paralyzed by a general strike, the streets of the capital, Buenos Aires, were deserted apart from the odd riot-police-versus demonstrators scuffle. The reasons? According to the BBC, about one-third of Argentinians live in poverty. In the area around Rio de Termas Honda it looks a lot nearer to one-hundred per cent.
None of which stops the town giving every impression that it enjoys having the MotoGP circus visit every Spring. I reckon it might be a difficult place to visit of you’re a vegetarian, but everyone else loves Termas despite the 24-hours-plus most Europeans take to get here.
As well as the general strike, the weather has been doing strange things. The vast, man-made lake by the track has been swollen by intense storms and even though all the sluices at the nearby hydro-electric dam are fully open the beach road-cum-carpark used in previous years is currently very wet, as in underwater.
Surprisingly, the track seems in better condition than in previous years, although Friday will probably look more like track sweeping than practice for a GP. However, with the forecast for the weekend being for lots more rain there may be a need to press in FP2 as that could be the session that seeds the MotoGP men through to the second qualifying session, or not.
Expect the unexpected, but do expect Crutchlow and Miller to be happy as well as all the Ducati riders except you know who.
