Three victories in a row in Assen earned them a summer holiday!
Three victories in a row in Assen earned them a summer holiday! The break for the summer has begun. Although it hasn’t always been the case when teams were battling for their very lives in the past, the riders and teams deserve it.
The majority of athletes attended several classes. The factory riders carried out the directives from their superiors. To have enough food and fuel to go to the next place, the privateers need to make more money from the beginning. Of course, the World Championship was far smaller than the 20 or more international venues it is now. The bikers supplemented their meager incomes by competing in non-championship and frequently exceedingly dangerous events. These lucrative races were held in between Grands Prix, sometimes during the summer break.
There is no greater place than Assen to show how drastically different things were. Consider how much a Grand Prix rider’s life and times have changed. The Dutch Cathedral is the only track that was used for the 1949 first World Championship season that is still in use in 2022. On Sunday, when the riders traveled around the famed and slightly modified Strubben turn, those long-gone heroes would have thought of the remarkably seamless performance their modern counterparts put on week after week. It is unquestionably something that would surprise and, in some cases, excite them to learn how many kilometers a modern Grand Prix rider clocks over the course of a weekend, especially on race day.
As part of the Ducati Lenovo Team, Sunday’s MotoGPTM winner Pecco Bagnaia rode 26 laps of the 4.542-kilometer Assen circuit, covering a total distance of 118.092 kilometers. The Italians also only took part in one race on Sunday. Two outstanding World Champions serve as examples of why things used to be extremely different.
On June 27th at Assen, Jim Redman represented Honda and won the 125, 250, and 350cc events. Even in those days, it was unheard of to win three Grand Prix in a single day. Three TT victories in a single day set a new record for Mike Hailwood, who had previously won three races at the Isle of Man in a single week. On the ancient Brno track in Czechoslovakia two years later in 1966, Hailwood won three Grands Prix. He then repeated the feat in Assen the following year.
He used Honda machinery to win all three of the Grands Prix, like Redman. After defeating Bill Ivy’s challenge on the Yamaha two-stroke, the first race was the 250cc one. The 350cc race is up next, and after that comes the 20-lap 500cc race, which features the second day’s matchup between Giacomo Agostini’s MV Agusta. Over the course of 57 laps on the 7.7km Assen circuit, Hailwood had completed three victories in total. He accomplished it in three hours, three minutes, and 0.07 seconds, covering an astounding total distance of 439 kilometers.
The World Championship races used to be far longer than they are now. Assen creates the ideal illustration once more. Umberto Masetti, an Italian, won the record-breaking race at the storied location in 1950. He completed the 16.536-kilometer, 18-lap 500cc race on the Gilera in two hours, 0 minutes, and 43.2 seconds. A single race winner covered 297.6km in total. In the subsequent six races of the title chase, Masetti went on to win the World Championship.
Marc Marquez thought about taking part in both the Moto2TM and MotoGPTM World Championships. The unachievable dream was made impossible by the lengthy Grand Prix schedule, practice, and qualifying sessions. Jorge Martinez, who last accomplished this feat in 1988, won two Grands Prix in a single day. At Brno, the 80- and 125-cc races were won by the Spanish world champion. The 250cc and 500cc World Championships were won by Freddie Spencer three years prior.
To ride in two divisions during the 12-round championship in 1985, Freddie turned back time. He was in Mugello, winning the 500cc race, and the 250cc bikes were being wheeled to the grid as he stood on the top step of the podium. Eddie Lawson, who finished in second place, exclaimed, “Rather you than me,” following “The Star-Spangled Banner” anthem. Since Jarno Saarinen won the 250 and 500cc Grand Prix 12 years ago, Freddie has become the first such rider. He did so while grinning.
The best thing about MotoGPTM today is that it has always been open to change and has embraced it in order to maintain the sport’s vitality and popularity. For the past 74 years, cyclists have graced the renowned Assen tarmac, and we have the utmost regard and appreciation for them. They lay the groundwork for and constructed the very pillars of what we see today. They clearly merited a summer holiday, but they rarely got it since they had to race to stay alive.
Three victories in a row in Assen earned them a summer holiday!