Casey O'Gorman's Moto3 season began with a solid 11th-place finish three weeks ago in Thailand.
The young Irish rider enjoyed race-long battles in that opening GP, but he wouldn't have known that negotiating his way home would prove almost as challenging.
Buriram, Bangkok, Istanbul, Geneva and London, while his dad John had to take a similarly circuitous route a day later.
Hopefully their long-haul journey to Brazil for Round 2 of the World Championship proved less arduous.
It took place at the recently revamped Autodromo Internacional Ayrton Senna in Goiania. Let me say at the outset that the 3.8km, 14-corner track layout is conducive to good racing, but the consensus after the weekend action is it just wasn't ready for such a high-profile event.
Whatever could go wrong seemed to go wrong at the Brazilian MotoGP. I’m sure at times the race organisers wanted the ground to open up and swallow them, in fact it almost did.
Problems caused by recent torrential rains caused numerous delays at the recently revamped Goiania track which wept even when the sun shone, making conditions for practice highly treacherous.
Then on Saturday, the ground did open up when a sinkhole appeared on the main straight.
Rapid repairs were necessary before racing could finally go ahead.
The MotoGP Sprint race started 80 minutes late, but it was worth the wait. Despite the additional challenges the riders faced, they produced more scintillating racing with victory eventually going to Marc Marquez on his factory Ducati.
The world champion capitalised on a mistake by race leader Fabio di Giannantonio aboard his VR46 Ducati and held out to take the win. Giannantonio was second and 2024 world champion Jorge Martin made a very welcome return to the podium, finishing third aboard the Aprilia.
While the sprint race whetted the appetite for Sunday's action, there were still concerns about track conditions ahead of the Moto3 opener.
My view was firmly focused on the fifth row of the grid where beneath his green, white and orange embossed helmet, Casey O’Gorman rolled into position for the start of the race.
The red lights above the main straight illuminated one by one, the engines roared into a deafening crescendo, then lights out and the race exploded into action, all 27 riders vying for position as they headed down towards turn one for the first time.
Thankfully all negotiated the first corner safely and we could finally exhale.
David Almansa, who won the season's opener in Thailand, had again been enjoying a great battle up front with Max Quiles before he ended up in the gravel and out of the race.
Scott Ogden endured a similar departure from the action, and with debris on the track the red flag was shown after 15 of the scheduled 24 laps.
The good news from an Irish point of view was O’Gorman had kept his nose clean while battling hard in and around the main chasing group.
Once the debris had been cleared, the grid reformed for a five-lap sprint to the finish.
Championship favourite Max Quiles took control out front and was followed through by his team-mate Marco Morelli. The two Aspar KTM bikes had a close battle, but Quiles held firm at the front to take the win and the championship lead. Morelli was second.
A minor tremor was felt in MotoGP-mad Indonesia as Veda Pratama gave his country their first-ever podium finish as he came home third.
O’Gorman (above) rode another mature race and finished in ninth place. The Portlaoise native is now up to ninth in the World Championship standings.
Michael Laverty’s GRYD Mlav Racing team again scored a double-points finish. Joel Kelso finished 12th and Eddie O’Shea 15th. Kelso had been strong all weekend, but he was baulked on a couple of occasions which cost him valuable places. But just getting to the chequered flag was an achievement over a race weekend that threw up more than its fair share of challenges.
Meanwhile after just two races in the MotoGP championship, there is little doubt that Aprilia has the edge over Ducati. You cannot rule out Marc Marquez just yet as he is still not 100% fit. But having won the sprint race in Brazil, he had to settle for fourth in Sunday’s feature event.
Marco Bezzecchi won again for Aprilia, his fourth win in a row (Portugal, Valencia, Thailand and Brazil). Here’s the interesting statistic: Bezzecchi has led every single lap of the last four feature races. He’s a popular winner, but his current Aprilia team-mate attracts even greater support.
Apart from having the most dramatic, even flamboyant riding style on the grid, Jorge Martin has had to endure the most awful sequence of injuries, so it was wonderful to see him back up his sprint showing with second spot on Sunday. The VR46 team have upped their performance this season and Fabio di Giannantonio claimed third.
Bezzecchi may have taken time to get up to speed in Brazil, but he wasn't the only one.
In Moto2, Daniel Holgado was a lowly 21st at the end of Friday practice. But he went on to take pole position in qualifying followed by the race win.
Daniel Munoz provided serious opposition throughout but had to settle for second place. Manuel Gonzalez finished third.
Practice for the USA GP begins this Friday at the Circuit of the Americas in Austin, Texas.
