The circuit at Aragon might temporarily have lost power, but Casey Stoner and Honda's charge in MotoGP certainly hasn't, says Toby Moody in his latest exclusive insider's view of the MotoGP paddock news and gossip.
Controversial scheme
Casey Stoner won the GP with the one-off-colour-scheme Honda that people seemed to like or hate. The stars went down well, but many said it was the 'marker pen' numbers that were a little harder to get used to. But whatever the livery, it saw the 100th victory for Repsol Honda going back to the start of the 1995 season when Mick Doohan won at Eastern Creek.
Márquez’s race for the line
Marc Márquez came through the mêlée of the Moto2 race to be victorious for the sixth time in seven races, a quite amazing fightback that he's achieved in the aftermath of Silverstone when he crashed in the warm-up and then in the race. He was 82 points behind Bradl then, he's now just six adrift with four races to go. I went to see him after the MotoGP race and he was still in his leathers, still in his garage…
GEPA Pictures/Gold & Goose
Friday goes off with a bang
After 16 years in MotoGP, never before had a transformer failed at a racetrack before it did on Friday afternoon, leaving the locals scratching their heads. A brand new €6.5m electricity system was installed for last year's opener, but sensibly the box ordered an extra transformer to be on standby, “otherwise we wouldn't have a GP at all”. Fixed and sorted for Saturday, there was never another problem, but sure as hell I wouldn't want to be fiddling around in the main control box like those guys were on Friday. Bang!
Photo opportunity
Photographer Andrew Northcott was out on track waiting for the electricity to get back up to power, but drifted back into the pitlane to get to the bottom of the delay. "I was one of the few people who was hoping for a restart as the light at 6pm was just fantastic. It would've given us some truly stunning pictures."
Toby Moody
Too cool for old school
Honda's new truck made its debut at the track at Aragon. It’s for tending to engines and gearbox rebuilds, but a trend was apparent as soon as I saw it. Livio Suppo is a fan of the older colour schemes from HRC's early day and, yes, this was retro. Cool.
Toby Moody
You can stick that
Alpinestars' Chris Hilliard was a surprise visitor in the paddock on Sunday morning after I'd heard he was at the Motocross of Nations in France. He'd just got out of his car, having driven seven hours from MXoN clutching a load of stickers for Casey Stoner. They were a present from Chad Reed…
Toby Moody
Drop the bass now
Aragon is notorious for the lack of hotels in the vicinity of the track, with most idle chat over the weekend soon touching on how far away people were staying from it. I was a little closer this year in a place at the end of a narrow lane in the middle of nowhere, but wow, what a place. Surrounded by olive groves and peach trees in a converted railway station, it turned me and colleague Julian Ryder into old gits over a bottle of red and prompted an early retiring to rooms. There wasn’t a sound at the place, much to the disgust of the Ducati mechanics who were closer to the track but in the far noisier Alcaniz, where massive bass speakers were still banging at 6am. Just when do Spaniards sleep?
GEPA Pictures/Gold & Goose/Toby Moody
Baby, don’t forget my number
And finally… I sat next to Danny Kent on the way home. We ended up seeing what each other had as apps on our iPhones after I'd shown him some timelapse videos that I’d made with said device. Upon handing him mine, he laughed immediately – I had 52 unread emails in my folder, and 52 is, of course, his number for the 125 series…
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