The Thai MotoGP from Buriram brought us a mixture of surprises and total lack of surprises. The word “Gulf” featured prominently, so lets classify the winners and losers based on their similarities to various gulfs of the world.
Gulf of America
The world’s newest gulf didn’t even exist until a few weeks ago. Since then, The Gulf of America has rapidly risen to be the world’s leading gulf. This is why Colin Edwards has been cutting pictures of the Gulf of America out of newspapers and pasting them into his kids’ biology textbooks, covering up all that commie BS about evolution. Which riders merit being compared to this exciting new gulf?
Ai Ogura
The normal-sized Japanese rider (miniature by Western standards) was awesome at Buriram. Not only was he rocking a kick-ass Gulf colour scheme, but he was kicking ass on his Trackhouse Team MAGA Aprilia with outrageous 4th and 5th place finishes in the two races. The best part of this was that literally every single MotoGP journalist had dismissed him as an also-ran in their pre-season previews. This made them look like just as big a bunch of fannies as they did when they all said that Joan Mir would be great on a Honda, or that Luca Marini would be great on a Honda, or that shilling for dodgy Malaysians was a good way to get paid. An outstanding debut for the reigning Moto2 World Champion.
Jack Miller
When Jackass showed up at Buriram, everybody was baffled as to why he’s NOT residing in the “Where Are They Now” file. But the Bogan Bullet has always been wickedly fast on a motorcycle. He’s just struggled with trifling stuff like setting them up, conserving their tyres and staying on board for more than about 8 laps without losing focus and lowsiding into the scenery. Jack qualified in a stunning 4th place, leading Fabio Quartarararo to claim that the Aussie had “taken his brain out” for his qualifying lap, and leading everyone else to reply, “How can you tell???”
In the Sprint race, Jack did his trademark impression of the Lowes Brothers by pointlessly lowsiding out of a decent position for no apparent reason. In the feature race, he raced strongly until dropping back late on. But it turned out that he hadn’t chewed his tyres up or lost concentration whilst trying to count the handlebars. His bike’s fairing had come loose. Soft foreigners would have immediately pulled into the pits, crying and waving their arms around, because there are very few possible outcomes to a fairing suddenly flying off at 200mph, and literally all of them involve an air ambulance. But Jack just said, “Naaaah, she’ll be right!” and carried on, holding the bike’s flailing bodywork in place with his knee. He was still the first Yamaha across the line in 11th place. It was a truly breathtaking display of cast-iron balls from Jack, who punched even further above his weight than he did that time Uccio spilled his pint.
Persian Gulf
The richest and most powerful Gulf in the world. If you live in any country on the Persian Gulf that isn’t called Iran, then the Yanks will cruise missile the hell out of anyone who so much as looks at you funny. It’s by far the strongest of all the world’s gulfs. Which MotoGP stars can compare?
Marc Marquez
It wasn’t surprising that the Spanish Antichrist won the races. And finished fastest in every session. And it barely merited a raised eyebrow when he dropped behind his brother to pump his front tyre back up. (Unless you were one of the bird-brained commentators and journalists who were shocked by it). #93 destroyed the field, as expected. Marc is so talented that it’s hard to find words to describe how good he is. He’s like a non-moaning version of Casey Stoner.
Gigi Dall’Igna
Ducati MotoGP bikes are like Star Trek movies. Stick to the even-numbered ones, because the odd-numbered ones are bloody awful. The GP22 went full Wrath of Khan, being so good that everybody who even looked at the bloody thing won a MotoGP race (except for Vale’s incredibly smart and likeable but shite brother Luca Marini, of course). The GP23 was Search for Spock terrible and only won the title because Gigi showed it in 4K and gave everyone else a 3rd generation VHS copy of the GP22. Then Gigi’s ground-breaking GP24 became The Voyage Home. It’s so damn perfect that the factory Ducati Lenovo riders refused to ride the Shatner-directed GP25 Final Frontier and insisted on swimming with whales on the GP24 again. Last year’s Ducati is going to win the MotoGP world title 2 years in a row, which is truly outrageous in this day and age.
Gulf of Alaska
Cold, cold, cold. This is the gulf that nestles below the Aleutian Islands and down the Pacific side of Canada to the woketard Pacific Northwest of the USA. So which MotoGP riders were freezing their pistachios off in the heat at Buriram?
Pecco Bananas
Yikes. Not only did Pecco get his arse handed to him by his team-mate, he also got bitch-slapped by his team-mate’s less talented brother, on an older bike in a team with about 15% of the Ducati Lenovo budget. Pecco has been Ducati’s golden boy for the last few years because he’s A: Italian and B: Does exactly what Gigi tells him. But now that he’s teamed up with one of the best motorcycle racers in history, the mopey, crappily-bearded, drunk-driving tit of an Italian is in serious trouble. Ducati are the Mean Girls of the paddock. They only like the cool kids. If you’re hugely talented but don’t win the title, they’ll cold-shoulder you faster than a teenage girl ditches her good-looking friend who’s wearing last week’s fashions. Just ask Dovi.
Pedro Acosta
Oof. The Supreme Teenager Of All Time has really fallen from grace since he arrived in MotoGP. He’s hands-down one of the most naturally talented racers of the last decade, but it’s all going “nipples skyward” for the Southern Spaniard. A terrible weekend, especially since he’d be finishing on the podium if he’d signed for a satellite Ducati squad instead of ending up on the pile of cack firesale KTM.
Gulf of Guayaquil
Q: Wait, where the hell is the Gulf of Guayaquil?
A: Exactly!!! Nobody knows where the hell the bloody Gulf of Guyaquil is!
(It’s between Ecuador and Peru. Apologies if you’d already Googled that before you got to this bit). So which MotoGP riders had to be located by search parties at Buriram?
Alex Rins
Wait, I thought he was supposed to have nearly recovered from his Crutchlowed leg? Nope. He was nowhere.
Miguel Oliveira
The moody Portugee is sporadically brilliant, but only once or twice a season, and only in the wet. Terrible at Buriram, and completely destroyed by his team-mate Jack Miller.
Maverick Vinales
The KTM is a pile of crap, but Mav had a bad day even by his standard of high highs and low lows.
Enea Bastard
Vaguely half-decent in the sprint, but vanished without trace in the feature race.
Conclusion
Everything about Buriram was fascinating, apart from the bloody races! Let’s see what happens at the next round in Argentina, a country which is located [checks notes] somewhere to the left of the Falkland Islands, apparently.