SBK Report Cards Semi-Series What a beard, what a bore, what a bore, what a beard…

Sunday
Debs: Mari, Mari breathes. Come on. The worst is over...courage...on...
Mari: We will all die, we will all die!!!!!
Debs: Breathe…it's okay…breathe. Is Sunday. MotoGP has passed…
Mari:anf…anf…anf…anf…
Debs: courage... courage... drink the chamomile and let's have a report ok?
Mari: o...ok, even if I don't know how much chamomile can work, maybe vodka is better...
Debs: any excuse is a good one to drink eh? Oh well, if it helps...to your health!

RACE 1
Here we are again, ready for two new races. Once again we sincerely thank those who made this fantastic calendar...probably the same one who made the exam calendar at the Polytechnic of Milan.
Anyway.
We are Imola. And if you think of Imola you can't help but think of Edward Vs Bayliss... and in fact you think about it, you hope that the races are like this, that everyone at Imola fights each other... but instead...
Pre race1 we get a tribute to Max Biaggi, nice and cute, and everything is ok. And in fact we move on to a ballet of three little robots performing in front of the pilots. Beautiful and cute.
We want one who can do the chores, iron and wash the dishes, thanks.
Everything works as usual.
Sykes for a change he took pole.
Everything starts off well, including Rea who is going very well here. However, since he's Rea and if he doesn't do at least some shit at every race he's not happy, after two corners he stops to greet the Italian fans, of whom he is so fond, and then gets back on the track in the same way.
In front there are Giugliano, the usual Aprilias and the usual Sykes who sleeps for a while, but then decides that his bike is very strong and tries to do everything he can to pass the Italian. A brawl begins with blows who brakes longest (the motorcycle analogue of “who has the longest”), while l'Aprilia by Guintoli, thinking that it is not fair that only Laverty's can decide to finish the race first, abandons its pilot with a beautiful white smoke. We will not say again that the new pope has been elected for the simple fact that if something happens to Francesco, someone will end up taking it out on us.
Giugliano and Sykes are there in front giving each other a thorough beating (just to stay on the religious theme...), with Giugliano giving us a panic-inducing crosscut, while from behind Rea overtakes random people with random trajectories and braking and the rest of the world messes around on the track. Someone swears they saw Rea playing with three juggling clubs standing on the motorbike and with a ball balanced on his nose. Quietly the Northern Irishman is now fifth and is chasing Melandri and Laverty who are there unaware of the trouble that is about to happen to him.
Ah, in all this confusion there are also Ducatis (swear????), who travel in the same position and it seems that tadpole slower than the MotoGP.
Sykes decides it's time to leave and leaves Davide Giugliano there, and in fact after 3 corners he has already lapped him. Laverty smells an approaching Rea and when in doubt he leaves Melandri there and tries to extend, leaving the Ravenna native to deal with the crazy madman from Honda.
Giro 17: here we are. Johnny caught Melandri and also Laverty who failed in his escape attempt. Rea is now unleashed, he gives it his all and overtakes Melandri. In BMW, Manu is desperate, she snorts like a chimney (her smoke also comes out of her ears), while in Honda, after seeing the shots of the faces in the German house, they laugh out loud. There are people who whisper to the guy next to him that Melandri will go blank again this weekend and the laughter is guaranteed. Rea was doing the race of her life…and here we find him in the sand in full comeback. He tries to get back in, but, dazed by the blow he took, he takes a wrong turn and starts going the wrong way. He is warned by the entire universe that he must go the other way, but he impassively continues on his path; only a Martian he met on the sand brought him to his senses and he decided to return to the pits. LThe race ends with a Sykes already ready on the grid for the start of race 2, a Giugliano who has perhaps calmed down and a Laverty who, despite the disgust he has for this circuit, took part in the race on his own and was ignored by everyone.
Ah, he's back here in Imola too Noryuki Haga, which sails happily in sixteenth position. It's a horrible position, but it's always nice to see him back on track for old times' sake.

The great return of Imola: Nitronori! He arrived damn ok...but at least he has the excuse of not having ridden a motorbike in eons

RACE 2
The pre-race 2 is fabulous, with Fabrizio's sister spreading holy water (Debs: religion is the protagonist today!) and Neukirchner who smells his foot before putting it in his boot. There is no shortage of ithe birth of Barbetta's Brothers, or Max Biaggi and Gigi Dall'Igna. The truly disturbing thing is that Biaggi speaks in Dall'Igna's place as if he were the team leader. Help.
The start is approaching and Dall'Igna kicks Biaggi out of the garage with a kick in the ass after catching him while he was handing over 500 euros to Laverty so that he would give him the motorbike. Biaggi returns sadly, with his ears down and still wearing the driver's suit from the '95 world championship (the first one he found) in the commentary booth.
One of Mediaset's men on the track reminds Guintoli that he crashed in race number 13, a historic bad luck number. The Frenchman plays it down, but as the camera moves a series of spells starts: crushed to the family jewels, a touch of the breast from the little umbrella and croissants sprouting everywhere.
Melandri tries to escape the pre-race interview by hiding near the wall, but makes the mistake of taking the Manu with him which attracts Mediaset like honey attracts Winnie The Pooh and doesn't escape. The man from Ravenna will use escape from the heat as an excuse... yes Marco, of course.
Alessio Conti finally tries with Fabrizio's umbrella, but we realize that he won't accomplish anything the moment he forgets his name from race 1. And luckily she was hot!
3-2-1. Off we go.
Everything like race 1: Sykes, Giugliano and Rea, who manages to finish the first lap without messing up. Aprilias and BMWs follow.
Sykes is already trying to escape, with Giugliano in the exhaust who has already taken a warning from physics to keep up with him. One thinks that after 3 laps he has now understood how the bike works on the circuit and that bullshit doesn't happen anymore... too optimistic: here he is lying down at Tosa, just because if he doesn't throw away at least one race a weekend he won't be happy.
Nothing happens until, of course, to the box usually witness to the only noteworthy events in the race. In those two centimeters of video you can see a motorbike slip... it's Laverty who, out of pardon, decides to fuck his motorbike by lying down like a mona: so Guintoli is happy and can finish his race, since an Aprilia has already gone to be blessed; at the end they will go and have a beer exchanging kisses and hugs.
For the rest nothing happens in the top positions. To get some action we need to go back where Wild Cluzel and Haslam (Mari: even the "savages" are becoming a classic) they overtake each other about ten times per lap; they are also framed because they are so much in front Sykes turns together with the hay bales typical of the Far West and Rea believes he is first and trots towards the finish line. The race is so boring that at a certain point Checa is also caught, running close to twelfth position. The Ducatis turn so slowly that Checa brought his dog for a walk in the park. In reality it is the dog that pulls the motorbike.
Haga is stable in fifteenth position, while Camier and Baz keep us and the Imola crowd awake by riding over curbs, cutting through chicanes and wind surfing, towing each other.
...15 laps later….
Debs: oh Mari.
Mari: Yeahwn…. Well yes?
Debs: oh wake up. One lap missing.
Mari: Oh yes? What did I miss?
Debs: nothing, do not worry… Sykes has already finished the race in Moscow, Rea second and after a lifetime Guintolì appears on the finish line. Ah yes, Davies gave us a cuddle at the last corner, risking knocking down Melandri and deciding that he wanted to die young: a wild card worth double is played.

Tommasino "Martian" Sykes, vote: 10 and praise: Superpole, race 1 and race 2. Ranking leadership. The others see him through binoculars while he is on the ship, pirates like never before, and the others on land. This year he will probably be able to win the world championship by half a point. Do we need to say anything else?

Look at me now people: because you can't make it on the track, eh!

Davide “two races are too many for me” Giugliano, vote: 7: in game 1 he chases Tommasino as the engineers hunt down any human being with a female appearance at the Polytechnic. Unfortunately for him, Sykes has anything but feminine features, so he eases off the gas a little and lets him go. In race 2….it's better to draw a veil of mercy...

Johnny “pirlona” Rea, vote: 7: he throws away game 1 just because he wants to show the whole world that he too can graduate from the faculty of juggling & clowning, but apparently he still has some way to go. In game 2 he puts the dream aside and gets his head straight. He doesn't do bullshit to entertain the public, but at least he makes it happen!

Sylvain Guintoli, vote: 8: in race 1 he is abandoned by his bike after a few laps just because his Aprilia wants to experience the thrill of the world championship comeback. In race 2 he takes home a podium by doing his dirty work by riding alone for practically the entire race.

Loris Baz & Leon Cramier, Jules Cluzel & Leon Haslam, rating: 10: they don't have great results, but if Race 2 is saved from being the most boring race in history it's only thanks to them.

We swear: if you look carefully, very carefully, the Ducatis are on the track

Ducati, vote: 2: non-existent and useless. They are sailing around twelfth position despite the fact that the Air Restrictors are no longer there. Now there are no excuses. We went from first to last. We need a revolution. Probably if I had raced when I was four years old with my Formula 1 car I would have been faster than them (and it had no engine!)

Debs: Hey Mari did you see?
Mari: That?
Debs: We did it...we survived!!!
Mari: Oh God…it's true!
Debs: We are fairies!
Mari: let's toast!!
Debs: That's where you always end up...
Alexei: (on tiptoe): can we? Are you harmless?
Mari & Debs: never been in our life!!!

We greet you, and if you want to know why Alessio left...well read the Assen MotoGP report cards!

In collaboration with: Deborah Iacopetta