Honda's Takaaki Nakagami at Qatar Moto2 Free Practice
Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami at Qatar Moto2 Free Practice2014 Qatar Moto2 Thursday FP ResultsJapan’s Takaaki Nakagami, who has led throughout the Moto2 preseason, put in a last-minute effort Thursday to take the top Free Practice time at Qatar’s Losail International Circuit.
During the second and final free practice on Thursday, the IDEMITSU Honda Team Asia pilot posted a 2:00.52 around the 3.34-mile desert circuit containing 16 corners. He finished 0.052 ahead of Esteve Rabat (Marc VDS Racing Team), and 0.15 of a second ahead of 2012 Moto3 World Champion Sandro Cortese (Dynavolt Intact GP)The 2013 Moto3 title winner Maverick Viñales (Pons HP 40) was fourth and the ever consistent Dominique Aegerter (Technomag carXpert) completed the top five.Thomas Luthi (Interwetten Paddock Moto2), Alex De Angelis (Tasca Racing Moto2), Johann Zarco (AirAsia Caterham Moto Racing), Jonas Folger (AGR Team) and FP1 leader Mika Kallio Marc (VDS Racing Team) were all present in the top 10.Sam Lowes (Speed Up) and his fellow rookie Tetsuta Nagashima (Teluru Team JiR Webike) both walked away from crashes during the session, as they learned the way with their respective new machines.As for the American Josh Herrin, the Caterham Moto Racing Team pilot had a best time of 2:02.785, finishing 29th.The 2014 Moto2 grid will return to the Qatar circuit Friday for the third Free Practice.
Hello everyone and welcome once again to the Ultimate Motorcycling podcast—Motos and Friends. My name is Arthur Coldwells.
Motos and Friends is brought to you by the Yamaha YZF-R7—Yamaha’s awesome supersport machine that is as capable on the racetrack as it is on the street. …and it’s comfortable too! Check it out at at your local Yamaha dealer, or of course at YamahaMotorsports.com.
In this week’s first segment, Senior Editor Nic de Sena rides the BMW K 1600 GT. This is the sporty bagger version of BMW’s K series of machines, those are the models with the awesome 6-cylinder engine. The GT has been given a little makeover for 2023, and Nic gives us his take.
In the second segment, I chat with one of my all time heroes—three-time World Champion racer ‘fast’ Freddie Spencer. I’ll do my best not to come off as too much of a fanboy here, but frankly it’ll be tough!
In my humble opinion, Spencer is a contender for the GOAT—greatest of all time. Sure, his career was a little shorter than some, and his number of championships falls behind the likes of Lawson, Doohan, Rossi, and of course Marquez. But at the time, Freddie literally changed the way motorcycles were ridden. 30 years before Marc Marquez, Freddie was able to push the front wheel into a slide, corner after corner, lap after lap in order to get the bike turned faster than anyone else. Freddie took completely different lines and was able to get on the throttle so early he could out accelerate anyone off a corner.
In the modern era, of course Freddie is the chairman of the FIM MotoGP Stewards panel. This is the panel of referees for all three classes of Grand prix racing. I talked to Freddie about his task there, and although for contractual reasons with Dorna and the FIM he cannot talk about specific riders, teams, or events, nevertheless his explanation of the job makes for interesting listening. It’s a tough job, and frankly I wouldn’t want to do it!
At any rate, Freddie’s new book ‘Feel’ is available on Amazon—I’d highly recommend you reading it whether you’re a fan of Freddie or not, even whether you’re into racing or not; every rider has something to learn from his mental approach.
Actually—Ultimate Motorcycling is giving away five copies of the book—signed by Freddie himself—to the first five listeners who contact us with the correct answer to the question: How many national AMA championships did Freddie win, and which years were they?
Please email your answers to producer@ultimatemotorcycling.com and we will contact the winners and send you a signed copy of Feel. Those five winners will be announced on a future episode. Unfortunately for legal reasons this offer is ONLY open to US residents.
So, from all of us here at Ultimate Motorcycling, we hope you enjoy this episode!
