MotoGP 2010 Mugello Round 4

“Attenzione! attenzione! Valentino Rossi crash! “ The big screen opposite me showed Valentino clutching his
lower right leg, clearly at a weird angle in the gravel surrounding the Bonetti chicane. Vale was writhing around in a lot of pain. Above my head and behind, the yellow 46 flags fell still, as a deathly silence swept through the thousands that made up the official Valentino Rossi fan club. There seem to be a proper tumble weed moment when the bikes could not be heard and even the birds seem to stop singing.

The session continued but I must admit I don’t really remember much about it on the track. There was a full-on papparzi style scrum led initially by the agency photog’s surrounding the medical centre, as first Valentino arrived in an ambulance, followed shortly afterwards by his wrecked M1, that in a macabre sort of way got caught in the melee and formed a sort of back drop to the theatre, increasing the shock value of what was unfolding. Images that followed can been seen in the my gallery. Ironically a yellow helicopter whisked Vale away from the track that had been so good to him over the previous seven years, but now had unexpectantly, bitten back, hard. It was all a little bit over the top to be honest, like a funeral! A girl fan, Lady Diana funeral-esq style, could even be heard wailing in floods of tears clutching her VR46 scarf like a life depended on it. Nobody had died, a broken leg will mend!

I fully expected thousands of yellow t shirts to start flooding out of the turnstiles instantly. But no, they stayed and waited for the snippets of news from Valentino’s hospital in Florence that were broadcast over the loud speakers at regular intervals. Initial diagnosis was bad, very bad. A compound break of the tibia and fibia that would need to be pinned and screwed. Brno seemed to be the comeback target or at his real home race of Misano. 6 races missed and the Championship gone. Data recovered from his wrecked M1 Yamaha showed VR had been cruising for some 20 seconds before the highside trying to shake a tow from Barbera and waiting for some empty track to go for a fast time. Bottom line is the tyre had cooled too much on the left hand side and as Vale gunned his M1 into the first part of the left right Bonetti chicane, his Yamaha suddenly and violently flicked the unsuspecting Italian high into the air, landing awkwardly on his right leg. Valentino gamely admitted it was his error, which must make it even harder to swallow. So Vale is human and does screw up like all of us, occasionally. No major injury or race missed since his debut 14 years ago at Malaysia .
Every action has an equal but opposite reaction. All those years and laps racing, dancing on the edge of disaster but avoiding the injuries that most of the paddock have had to accept as part their racing lives. Now what goes around comes around had coming looking for Vale, ironically at his home race, where he has been almost invincible since joining the blue riband class. I guess if this was going to happen anywhere, kama would say Mugello. Just to throw more mystery into the drama, nobody got the whole crash on camera and even the TV feed missed most of it. Fixed circuit camera’s were the only ones to show how quickly and aggressively Valentino was thrown from his Fiat Yamaha and they were black and white and at a considerable distance. Most of the Italian papers led the next day with a defiant Valentino on the front covers, being stretchered to that waiting yellow helicopter, waving to his shocked fans.

For the remainder of the weekend Vale was assured of all the headlines even if he was stuck miles away in a Florence hospital bed. The media centre internet connection crashed regularly, unable to deal with the surge in demand from news hungary journo’s tracking the progress of the 9 time world champion. A special telephone patch came through from that Florence hospital bed minutes before the start of the race. A great roar and chanting Vale!Vale!Vale quickly fell silent when 80,000 Italians listened and hung on every word from their broken idol. Then, an even louder roar and cheer, before the chanting continued as Vale shouted Ciao tutti. Jorge Lorenzo climbed the podium wearing a yellow VR46 shirt that was greeted with equal cheers and boo’s from a split crowd. Rumor has it that Vale was less than impressed that his arch rival had worn one of his T shirts as were Fiat who were livid that their branding had been covered on prime time Italian TV. Just goes to prove you cant please all of the people all of the time I guess! Worried Dorna bosses contemplated how hard this would hit the all important TV figures and Silverstone sweated on the Valentino no show effect. But to lift the sombre mood a little, the last words inevitably went to Valentino. “I have discovered a very good rapport with Morphine!” Quality!

MotoGP 2010 LeMans Round 3

Then there was two…

I counted about 3 clouds the whole four days I was in LeMans. An air temperature of 32deg and blue skies certainly made up for recent years of rain cold rain and more rain! One seasoned ‘hack’ quipped “It almost makes this place bearable!” A bit harsh probably, there was the usual over-zealous security guards who were all on a different page (nothing new there then) and had the ability to speak French only when questioned and the local police outside, who seemed more intent on issuing tickets for farting, rather than sorting out the grid-locked circuit traffic chaos.

For me personally it was busier than usual. Monster were the race sponsors and I had been commissioned to look after their image needs, riders, music, drinking, celebrities…Oh and the girls… spending a lot of time in bikini’s jumping in and out of the hospitality hot tub,
mainly for me, or my camera’s benefit. Hard life eh? I did get the opportunity to shoot some nice Simoncelli lifestyle for FHM France that involved his hair, a guitar and a hot tub full of the mandatory, half-naked Monster girls!

The normal thursday afternoon press conference was inevitably steered towards the upcoming musical chairs of the ‘Aliens’. VR, George, Casey and Dani are all out of contract at the end of this year. A couple of rather direct questions from the Italian media put to Casey and Dani surrounding Stoners possible move to Repsol Honda, got the usual unemotional Pedrosa animated after one hack asked “Have Honda lost confidence in you?” …..If Ducati have, or do loose Casey to Honda, Ducati will go all out for either VR or Jorge to partner Nicky Hayden, with out of favor Pedrosa left to pick through the crumbs, if Dovi continues to keep his Spanish team mate honest.

The real dilemma looms for Fiat Yamaha. They would like to keep both Vale and Jorge but that seems unlikely due to cost and politics. VR drives bike sales and is untouchable, until recently, on and off the track. But if Jorge continues to grow in confidence and defeat Rossi, would Yamaha risk loosing the future? If Vale retires in a few years and it proves too much for Yamaha golden boy Spies, to step up to fill Valentino’s shoes, could Yamaha risk a Honda-esque post Rossi slump in success?

To heap more pressure on VR, after back-to-back victories for team mate Lorenzo, we now roll into the yellow hills that will surround Mugello next Sunday. VR is almost unbeatable there, winning 7 on the bounce stretching all the way back to 2002, until a wet-dry race broke that impressive run last year. If the Spanish gladiator, who with his win in LeMans, can slay the leone next weekend in his own coliseum, giving him a hat-rick over the reigning champ, we could genuinely see a role reversal of mind games, made famous by the Italian legend in recent years. I’ll take a punt and if I was pushed would put my money down on the 46 to stop the rot in front of his fanatical fans and some 8 million more that are expected to join us on Italian tv. But stranger things have happened. I personally can’t wait for the drama to unfold in front of my lens!

For my LeMans images go to www.martinheathphoto.com click on MotoGP 2010 and LeMans. Enjoy.

MotoGP 2010 Jerez Round 2

X-Fuera

“For a second my dream turns into a nightmare” was the reaction that Jorge Lorenzo gave after he stopped by the circuit lake after his stunning victory on home soil. Handing his Fiat Yamaha M1 to some of the marshals, he ran, full pelt across the service road up the bank and into the lake complete with full riding kit! After showing off his array of swimming strokes he started to get into difficulty… Jorge had said that when he was riding around the track on thursday he had stopped by the lake with right hand man Hector Martin and said how funny it would be if he jumped into the lake in his leathers and helmet should he win. I caught up with Hector after the podium and he said they hadn’t taken into account that his leathers would weigh approx an additional 25kgs wet! He was literally sinking! A quick thinking fan leaped in to rescue him much to the relief of the only other available ‘lifeguards’, the photographers, who were all nervously looking at each other wondering who was going to be the first to volunteer to put their cameras down, jump in and rescue the race winner!

After a Spanish 125cc win, to get the partisan crowd fired up after a fairing banging’knife fight in a phone box’ Moto2 race, won by home favorite Toni Elias, the blue riband MotoGP race looked like it was headed as a bit of a precession, but the protege showman Jorge Lorenzo had other idea’s!

I was totally fired up for this round even before I drove into the paddock on a sunny but windy Andalusian wednesday afternoon. We had all been due to arrive at Jerez with only the briefest of stops at home to get the washing done and repack after Japan Motegi the weekend before. But thanks to that Icelandic volcano we got an unexpected weekend off and could arrive refreshed and ready rather than jet lagged and prickly. It’s always good starting the European races as all the creature comforts arrive that we’ve missed at the fly-aways. Hospitality=food, drink and pampering and my scooter would be waiting to make life and variety of images much easier in getting me around swiftly during practice and race day. You also see more of your friends that would miss the fly-aways as teams tend to work with skeleton crews to keep costs under control and there are not many photog’s and journo’s now that attend every race.

Jorge described winning at Jerez in front of his home fans ‘magical’ and that describes this weekend perfectly. I often get asked ” I want to do a foreign GP, which one?” Every time I’ll answer Mugello (while VR is riding) and Jerez. Yes, Phillip Island, Laguna Seca, Valencia, Barcelona, Misano, Assen etc are all up there, but you simply cannot beat the atmosphere and passion!

Race day morning dawned with the sun breaking over the hill above turn 4, accompanied by horns and cheers from the final earth-banked stadium section that I call ‘The Zoo’ that wraps itself around the final fast sweeping right handers before the last tight left hand Ducados corner that completes the lap. This year, it sounded like somebody had smuggled a cruise ship in, or at least the horn! The police patrol “The Zoo” from the safety of their armored vans around the outer service road or inside steel cages that shield them from food, full beers cans and anything that can be used as an improvised weapon after a few crates of San Miguel have been consumed by the veracious fans. Tens of thousands of fanatical Jerezians live and breath every moment of every race as if their lives depended on it, pure Latin theatre!

The home  gladiators did not disappoint this year and sent the 120,000 odd crowd away delirious. We have another 3 rounds left yet in Spain. Can’t wait!

To enjoy my 2010 Jerez Images go to www.martinheathphoto.com select MotoGP 2010 and Jerez.

MotoGP 2010 Qatar round 1

Be a Finisher…..

As I leave the media office and wind my way through the hundreds of team freight boxes packed and ready for collection outside the empty echoing pit garages. The early morning desert sun is breaking through, the now discarded Losail floodlights, that stand silent and cold over the deserted paddock car park. 24 hours without sleep but I’m still buzzing! What an opener! The script looked quite straight-laced and predictable but we ended up more a kin to an episode of ’24′ that had been dropped into a blender! ‘Mr Qatar’ himself, in the sand from the lead, leaving his team mate, a rookie, a Repsol Honda (the wrong one) an injured Mallorcan together with the only predictable stalwart, the reigning champ, all at the sharp end.

To be completely honest and being a bit picky, Qatar is not one of my favorite races normally. This is the third year for me having missed the pre Stoner years. Since they turned the floodlights on, the Qatari’s now pay big bucks for having the privilege of the opener. The place is completely devoid of any atmosphere. A few hundred (the joke is normally there are more people in the paddock than the stands) in the singular grandstand. When you venture out around the service road that surrounds the track, it’s actually quite eery and exposed to be standing by a single wire fence that separates you from the vast darkness and loneliness of the night desert. The track can be described as ‘challenging’ to shoot at in every sense of the word. I could go on about the lack of amenities, sleep deprivation etc but you get the picture. However, this year I was beginning to enjoy it. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still the buzz and anticipation that surrounds the first race of the season, but here it’s on a blank canvas. I remember my first year, with a large brief and important new clients that had invested in me for the year and were expecting top draw work, no excuses. I got completely stressed out having to balance that with a track I had never seen and in the same boat as all the ‘floodlight virgins’ that were stumbling about having to almost relearn how to shoot under an alien light source. This year, although having to contend with a last minute equipment let-down, I just chilled out and shot the whole weekend in an artier way than previous years, gambling a little on coming away with some really strong images rather than hundreds of stock looking pictures. I’m glad to say more or less everything a tried seemed to work. Happy days!

Back to the race. During practice and qualifying Casey Stoner had carried on as in previous years, under the lights, completely dominating. The only difference this year is that Valentino had just about kept the Aussie in sight by the conclusion of qualifying and had to ONLY find .3 of a second overnight with JB to be able to try and keep the young Aussie honest during the race. So most of the media office gossip centered around who was going to fill the remainder of the podium.

When the lights went out Casey for once was caught cold and had to wait a few laps to force his way to the front, pulled the pin and started to disappear into the dark Arabian night. By lap 5 it looked all over and the interest centered around the titanic scrap that was developing behind. Then on lap 7 Casey had gone. “Stoner? he crash?” an Italian photographer looked at me shell-shocked. The race had suddenly been turned on it’s head, predictability buried in the cool desert sand and a really enjoyable race unravelled. By the flag, VR had started his defense perfectly being handed an unexpected gift by Stoner. Jorge Lorenzo rode like a demon in the closing laps to lock out the top of the podium for Fiat Yamaha after vowing to take it easy with his mangled and recovering hand injury. Dovizioso vindicated his early switch to Ohlins last year to snag a surprise podium at the expense of a heart broken Nicky Hayden, out-dragged from the last corner to the line by Honda’s strong new electronics package.

So a very entertaining race to kick the new season off, arguably the best ever at Qatar with Dovi and Hayden welcome podium challengers. Casey’s crash could be dismissed as a simple error. However, cast your minds back to the last race of last year in Valencia after the little Aussie had dominated practice and qualifying there only to highside two corners into the warm-up lap….

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! During the year as I fly around the World capturing my images, from what I consider to be the most exciting sport on the planet, MotoGP, I’ll be taking you behind the scenes and into the paddock, pit lane and media office to give you a fly-on-the-wall insight into my life as a MotoGP Photographer.