Shall I mention BREXIT? No? Good!
I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m always amazed that an island such as ours with a population of around 1 million a distance from north to south of 100 km and from east to west of 70 km can produce so many World class Sportsmen and Women. The current crop of talent includes the footballer Marco Asensio at Real Madrid, the Basketball player Rudy Fernandez at Real Madrid, Rafa Nadal the current World number 2 in tennis and Cata Coll the Spanish ladies under 17 goalkeeper who’s just won the World Cup in that age group.
The reason I’m talking about this, last weekend the Moto GP season began in Qatar with 2 riders from Mallorca. Palma born Jorge Lorenzo is probably the more famous of the two. He was the 2006 and 2007 250cc World Champion, the 2010, 2012 and 2015 MotoGP World Champion. Apart from his three titles in the premier class, Lorenzo has also finished as runner-up on three occasions. In 2012, Lorenzo became the first Spanish rider to win multiple premier class titles, and with 67 career wins, he is sixth on the all-time wins list. This year he is riding for Repsol Honda. The lesser known of the duo is Palma born Joan Mir. Prior to moving up to the Moto3 world championship, Mir competed for two seasons in the Red Bull MotoGP Rookies Cup in 2013 and 2014, finishing as runner-up (with three wins) in 2014. He contested the CEV Moto3 Junior World Championship in 2015. Mir won four of the first six races, but faded towards the end of the season, and ultimately finished fourth in the championship. Mir made his Grand Prix début in 2015 with Leopard Racing replacing an injured rider. In 2016 he competed full-time in the Moto3 World Championship with Leopard Racing. He finished the championship in 5th position as rookie of the year, scoring 144 points.
He remained for a second season in 2017 and completely dominated the class, taking 10 wins and finishing 93 points ahead of his nearest rival. Critics have compared him to legends such as Valentino Rossi and Marc Márquez. This year he’s made the step up to Moto GP riding for the Suzuki Ecstar Team. Despite his lack of experience aged just 21 years old he managed to finish above his compatriot in 8th place to Lorenzo’s 13th at the first race in Qatar. Now I have to be honest I’m not a motor cycle racing fan but I am looking forward to the start of the F1 season this weekend. Sad news about the death of the Race Director Charlie Whiting this week. He had worked in F1 for the majority of his life and he was the guy you’d see starting each race. Condolences to his family and friends. This season starts in Australia on Sunday at 06.10 our time and 05.10 UK time. I might watch it on catch up or the highlights later in the day.
Uber has now revealed the most weird and wonderful items that have been left behind in their cabs and you won’t believe some of them are real.
In particular, riders in London, Belfast and Bristol appear to the most forgetful, while unsurprisingly, Saturday is the day when most items are reported lost!
1. 45 pieces of fried chicken
2. Painting of The Last Supper
3. Fake skull
4. Nandos uniform
5. Five toilet rolls
6. A cat (yes, a real cat)
7. The script of Legally Blonde
8. Purple travel potty(unused)
9. Ukulele
10. Smoke machine
11. Herbs in a jar
12. Partial teeth dentures
13. Two vodka cranberry and 20 Sovereign Blue
14. An electric scooter
15. GCSE art project
16. Masonic apron
17. Panini maker
18. Pewter drinking tankard
19. SNES games console
20. A KFC meal
21. “Italian Panettone that’s a present for my niece”
22. Return train ticket to Scotland
23. Vegan sausage roll
24. Bros poster
25. A tooth
A 1-0 home win for Real Mallorca last weekend meant they leapfrogged their opponents Real Oviedo into 7th place and 2 points off of the play-off places. They are on their travels this weekend visiting Gran Canarian side Las Palmas. After being relegated from La Liga last season they are having a disappointing season so far lying in 11th place on 41 points. A huge game for our other island based team Atlético Baleares in Segunda B group 3. Its first against second with just 1 point between them and Villareal B, I would imagine a sell out at Son Malferit on Sunday. If you can’t get a ticket then IB3 are showing the game 12 midday on Sunday. Differing fortunes for my boys last weekend. My youngest Jude played against the best team in his league Real Mallorca and lost 5-0. My eldest Jake played the worst team in his league Genova and won 9-1. They played another game on Wednesday night losing 2-1 to Poblense. Jude is away on Friday evening in Santanyi, yes that’s right just the hour drive there and back for Dad Taxi! Jake is at home on Sunday morning nestled nicely between the F1 and the Atlético Baleares game.
Enjoy your weekend!
Richie presents the Radio One Mallorca Breakfast show Monday to Friday 07.30-11.00am on 93.8fm in Mallorca and 102fm in Calvià, online at www.radioonemallorca.com on mobile through their free App for IPhone & Android, The Tunein Radio App, iTunes, the Spanish TDT TV service and all smart speakers. . If you can’t hear him on the radio then you’ll find him working at Pirates Adventure the islands number one night out and every now and again he may make an understudy appearance!
Feel free to email him at rprior@globobalear.
Dad Taxi Mallorca 