Humanity adores the sweet embrace of stagnation as consistency is the key to a stress-free life. Change? Perish the thought – it’s far better to complain endlessly about the same old traffic jams, outdated software, and that one coffee shop that switched to oat milk.
This is probably why the Malaysian GP at Sepang was so unnerving. Nothing felt right.
Here’s our top four most discomforting things that happened, but shouldn’t have. Welcome to the upside down.
Bagnaia is great again
Pecco Bagnaia has recently come out as ultra-binary – he either wins or comes last. Sometimes even ‘real last’ behind Chantra.
So what bearded binary force turfed up at Sepang? Was it the one that spends the sprint races going backwards faster than a French boomerang whilst shaking his head? Or the rarely sighted Baggers that pretends he’s straddling a GP24 and runs away at the front?
A win from pole in the sprint race suggested the latter!
However in the main race Baggers looked set to come out as none-binary as he trotted around in third place but unfortunately picked up a puncture from one of Valentino Rossi’s toenails that came loose in 2015 when he definitely didn’t kick Marquez off.
Aprilia are rubbish again
Last week, according to the press, Aprilia had ‘categorically overtaken Ducati’ in the MotoGP performance stakes. Any bike that could power the gloomhaven-faced Raul Fernandez to victory had to be a very special bit of kit. Aprilia, who are quantum-entangled as Piaggio’s half-cloned, thrice-removed step-sibling—thus simultaneously being 37% owned by Vespa and Moto Guzzi who themselves are owned by Derbi that somehow is a parent company of the aforementioned Aprilia, arrived at Sepang looking to rack up more wins now that they’d finished off Marc Marquez for the year.
But instead they were utterly rubbish. Like the Aprilia of old. Suddenly it was 2013 again – an era when Jorge Lorenzo was almost-popular and Nelson Mandela started to look ‘a bit peaky’.
Mir didn’t fall off
If there’s one thing you can set your watch to, especially when the clocks go back so you can spend an extra hour in bed before the race, it’s that Joan Mir will fall off. According to Wikipedia the Spaniard was once MotoGP world champion – we’re not sure that’s true but we all know that his fine collection of ‘gravity’s greatest hits’ definitely exist.
But for some reason in Malaysia Mir didn’t add any extra frequent-flyer miles to his helmet. Sure he fell off in the sprint race – let’s not get carried away here – but in the main race he didn’t fall off even one and wasn’t knocked off by a rider ‘re-addressing the balance of the universe’.
But that’s not where the 180 degree-madness ended. Joan was also tremendous. The hot-mothered Spaniard managed to somehow force his Honda nail onto the podium – a result that left everyone both joyous and slightly scared.
Bezzecchi is a bit rubbish
Marco Bezzecchi has been a missile of late – especially if you ask Marc Marquez who took a ‘heat-seeker’ right up his exhaust port. For the past few months the mullet-harbouring Italian has looked like the rider Aprilia thought they were getting when they coughed up for Jorge ‘Mr Glass’ Martin. Indeed Bez’s stella performances saw him take third in the championship last time out as he high-fived Bagnaia on his way down.
But in Sepang it all fell apart for Marco faster than a Buell Blast. As mentioned above Aprilia were having a bad day causing Bezzecchi to struggle badly all weekend. It ended on a low when Bez finished the main race behind the Aprilia satellite rider Ai ‘one good race then a load of crashes’ Agura.
