MotoGP shocked everyone at Jerez by producing a genuinely exciting sprint race. There were a lot of talking points, but the main one was Marc Marquez’s incredible ability to find new rules to break using his Legality Distortion Field.
What’s a “Distortion Field”?
The phrase comes from former Apple head honcho Steve Jobs, who was said to possess a “Reality Distortion Field” that made people in his immediate vicinity think that he was some kind of visionary genius. In reality, Steve was just another turtleneck-shod tech industry TED Talk tosser who got great results by screaming abuse at his staff until they produced things that Xerox or Nokia had been doing for years, but with rounded corners and much more expensive.
OK, so what is Marc Marquez’s Legality Distortion Field?
Marc has an incredible ability to make Race Direction think that he’s done something legal when he’s done something obviously and objectively illegal. Somehow, Marc’s mere presence induces diplodocia of the eyeballs in the officials, causing the rule book to go all blurry. This makes it look like he didn’t break any rules, when any outsider can see that he clearly did.
How did the Legality Distortion Field manifest itself in the Sprint Race at Jerez?
When it started raining, Marc dropped his Ducati in the last turn, after passing the pit entry. He then picked the bike up, rode across the track and bumped across the grass until he arrived at the pit lane.
That’s blatantly illegal! If you miss the pit entry then you have to go around for another lap!
No, it’s only blatantly illegal if you’re someone like Johann Zarco or Jack Miller. Either of them would’ve been penalized immediately. But with Marc Marquez’s Legality Distortion Field, it’s not illegal at all.
Ummm, whut?
You see, viewed through the Legality Distortion Field, the rules say that ackshully you can take an illegal shortcut across the track after pit entry because ackshully the pit lane doesn’t ackshully start until the pit lane speed limit line, and ackshully only the left hand white line counts as a boundary for the purposes of illegal shortcuts so you can ackshully achieve an “undocumented advantage” by riding over the right hand white line whenever you want.
But if pit lane doesn’t start until the speed limit line, then what the hell is the thin area of tarmac leading from the track to the speed limit line? A spaceport??? The mosh pit at a Barry Manilow concert???
Under the Legality Distortion Field, that area doesn’t exist at all!
Doesn’t that mean that if pit entry was on the outside of the corner, Marc’s actions would’ve constituted an illegal shortcut, but since pit entry at Jerez happens to be on the inside of the corner, what he did was perfectly legal?
Now you’re on the trolley! Marc simply broke the intention, spirit and meaning of the rules. He didn’t break the letter of the rules at all!
That’s total BS! Why didn’t Race Direction didn’t just man the hell up and penalize Marc?
They’re terrified of Davide Tardozzi. And rightly so. If you stuck an orange wig on Ducati’s loveable but dangerously insane attack chihuahua, he’d basically be an Italian version of Chucky from the Child’s Play movies.
Well, that’s reasonable enough. But what are the authorities going to do about it going forward?
They’ll “clarify” the rule by rewriting it to have the exact same intention, spirit and meaning, but slightly different wording. This will give them a fig leaf of credibility when they penalize Zarco or Miller for trying to do exactly the same as Marc did.
Oh, FFS! What else happened in the Sprint? Was Bez awful?
Well, duh! But Jorge Martin retired with a front brake problem while the race was still dry. Aprilia said it wasn’t a Brembo problem, it was a procedural problem in the team… But they didn’t burst into tears and apologize profusely to Martin for destroying his sprint.
Which means that the procedural problem probably consisted of the perennially hospital-housed howler monkey on the bike “mis-handling” his front brake adjuster until the pads were dragging on the discs?
Almost certainly. Anyway, Brad Binder almost won, but crashed as he’s unfamiliar with winning on wet tyres in the wet. He ended up 4th.
Ugh, Binder’s Tech 3 contract in MotoGP for next year is looking more and more like turning into a satellite Yamaha deal in WSBK. What else happened?
Pecco almost won, but Marc tried to ram him into the grandstand just for fun in a pointlessly aggressive overtake for the race lead and victory. Pecco had to settle for 2nd place in the Sprint and 1st places in the Worst Beard and Cutest “Uccio” competitions. Oh yeah, and Morbidelli ended up on the podium!
Now you’re pulling my plonker!!! Morbidelli on the podium??? Do you think my head zips up at the back???
Honest Royal Enfield, it really happened! The Sprint Race at Jerez was the most unpredictable, most exciting and best MotoGP race in years!!!
Was there a full length race the next day?
Not to the best of my recollection.
