RIDEFAST AUG 21

Joan Mir:
Life hasn’t been so easy for the world champion.
Michelin changed the front tyre allocation for 2021, impacting
many riders, including the Suzuki team.
Mir has mostly kept up the consistency that won him the title last
year, but where the opposition was in a shambles last year, this
year they have their ducks in a row. Mir, Like Zarco, is going to
need more than just consistency.
Marc Marquez:
“The king is back”, shouted his fans when he returned to the
grid after nine months with his arm in a sling.
It’s funny how things change in nine months, including his
Honda, which has gone from a machine he could push to
regular race wins to a bike that keeps biting him.
He’s been gaining strength and confidence throughout the
year until he returned to Sachsenring, where he finally took his
comeback victory.
Then he went to Assen where the Honda high-sided him
spectacularly, and he seemed timid for the rest of the
weekend.
We have to wonder if this confidence knock is a permanent
feature or a temporary setback.
Alex Rins:
Rins has been the opposite of Mir this year – fast but making too
many visits to the gravel trap.
He has crashed out four times in the first nine races, and he
missed Catalunya because he crashed his bicycle.
Rins could be a title contender if he could just stay on.
Miguel Oliveira:
Much like Quartararo, Oliveira is in his third season in MotoGP,
and that seems to be when riders fully take control of these
monster machines.
The year started out for the Portuguese rider with various
setbacks and hiccups, including KTM being sideswiped by
Michelin’s new front tyre allocation.
A new chassis seems to have fixed much of Team Orange’s
problems, especially for Oliveira, who took a win and has
looked strong ever since.
Keep an eye on him for the second half of the season.
Brad Binder:
After his Brno win last year, in just his third race on a MotoGP
bike, we all thought Binder was going on to glorious things.
But MotoGP is a steep and cruel learning curve.
The Michelin front tyre debacle has hindered Binder, a rider
whose most significant strength is his phenomenal late-braking.
But he is gathering speed and gathering confidence. His
methodical learning style will pay dividends.
The second half of the season should see a stronger Binder
taking form. Next year Should be very, very good indeed.
Valentino Rossi:
In our opinion, he is still the greatest thing to ever happen to
motorcycle racing.
Detractors might scoff at this notion, but these scoffs do not
come from a place of objectivity.
More people have started watching MotoGP because of
Rossi than any other element throughout the championship’s
72-year history, and much of the global success of MotoGP is
down to him.
Now, he seems to be reaching the end of this remarkable
career.
Weirdly, it’s not really that Rossi is slow, but the ability to adapt
to changing machines and technology becomes more and
more difficult with age. Especially when youngsters raised in
the ranks of Moto2 with very different riding styles take over
the development reigns.
Rossi bowing out will be an emotional day for the world.
It’s going to happen soon, though. We are sure of that.
But we’ll bet anything you like that we’ll see him involved
somewhere.