There are a lot of statistics floating around about the Austrian GP. Some are interesting, and some are not. If you’ve been following MotoGP since this time last year then you’ll know how good the Ducatis are around this track. The Ducatis have an advantage with straight line speed, making the Red Bull Ring the perfect place for the Desmo’s. That’s exactly what happened last year, when Andrea Iannone took his first ever GP victory and gave Ducati their first win since the Australian GP in 2010 with Casey Stoner. Not only that, but Iannone’s then-team mate Andrea Dovizioso took second place, making the 2016 Austrian GP the first Ducati one-two since the Australian GP in 2007, when Casey Stoner won from Loris Capirossi.
Now Iannone has departed the team, it is left to Jorge Lorenzo to fly the flag in his place. While Dovizioso has won this year, Lorenzo hasn’t and this would be the perfect place for him to take his maiden victory on the Ducati. For him to carry on the Ducati one-two into another year would be something pretty special, but whether he can do it is another story. He notoriously struggles in the wet and ever since the riders touched down in Austria, it has rained. If the rain continues into race day, Lorenzo may not have his time to shine. Only time will tell, but we know that he is more than capable of winning – he has three MotoGP titles, of course he’s more than capable of winning a race.
But there are too many characters that you can never rule out. One of those being current championship leader and five time World Champion, Marc Marquez. He’s picked himself up from the rough start to his 2017 season and he’s back to his winning ways. He pulled off a magnificent victory in Brno last weekend – where he won the flag-to-flag race by twelve and a half seconds. Last weekend’s race truly was a tactical masterclass by Marquez, as he pitted earlier than his rivals to make sure he was on track and pulling a lead before they came out of pit lane. Last year he finished fifth, eight seconds behind fourth place man Valentino Rossi. Marquez leads the championship by fourteen points, and he’ll be rooting for a better finish than last year.
Maverick Viñales is the man in second overall, and the fourteen point gap is his largest points deficit to the championship leader so far this year. A strong start to the season saw him shoot to the top of the standings, but he has since faltered and is falling into the grasps of Dovizioso in third. Viñales finished sixth in last year’s Austrian GP, just over two and a half seconds behind Marquez. He’ll need to keep the Honda behind him at all times if he wants to stop Marquez from pulling a lead at the top of the standings.
Something a lot of people constantly do is rule out the Doctor – Valentino Rossi. And every time they rule him out, the Doctor proves exactly why we should never discount him. Rossi sits fourth in the overall standings, only one point behind Dovizioso in third. Last year he finished in fourth, 3.8 seconds behind Iannone who won. The Red Bull Ring is the only circuit on the calendar where he hasn’t achieved a premier class podium, and if he manages a rostrum finish here this weekend he will equal Mick Doohan’s record of finishing on the podium at the most different circuits in the premier class. A pointless stat, but cool none the less.
And finally the ‘Baby Samurai’ himself, Dani Pedrosa. Like Rossi, he has never stood on the podium at this track in the GP class and he needs a podium more than ever to close in on the top four. Although he isn’t far from Rossi in the overall standings – nine points, in fact, every little helps and a win in Austria could send him to second in the standings (providing Viñales, Rossi and Dovizioso don’t finish, which isn’t really likely but never say never).
You can catch all the MotoGP action from tomorrow, starting with FP1 at 9:55am.
