Will it finally be Ducati’s Year!
Another season of MotoGP is upon us, and yet again we are going into it with every manufacturer having a chance at fighting for the title. That being said, I am sure over time, we will see some of them fall by the wayside, as the picture becomes clearer.
Yamaha, as reigning champions, should come into this year as favourites, and indeed before today, I would have agreed with that, given the pace we have seen from Quartararo. However, despite both factory riders being in the top 10, I did not see enough from them today to warrant them being the favourites, although I would expect Fabio to be fighting for the pole tomorrow. Their issue is straight line speed, as it has been for so many years now, they haven’t made any relative gains to the rest of the field over the break, which is not good. As I said, Quartararo will be in the fight all year, and looking at Morbidelli’s pace in practice, he may be up there too. The RNF team do not look to be near to them though, but that might be expected, at least for Binder.
Ducati too were being hyped up over the break, with this being a perfect chance for them to launch a proper title fight with Bagnaia, which could very well turn out to be the case. He isn’t the only option for the Italian outfit though, as Martin and Miller are blisteringly quick too. It was surprising to hear that the factory riders didn’t go for the new engine this year, instead taking a hybrid of the 2022 and 2021 engines, could they come to regret that. If Martin beats them over the season, I bet they will. Their weakness will likely still be the corners, they were losing out there today, which is the natural downside of a stronger engine. They have to be fighting for the win this weekend, if not, it doesn’t look good for them at all.
The team which has demoted Yamaha and Ducati from their spots as favourites is Suzuki, who no one expected to do this well today in practice. They have done what Yamaha have failed at, gaining straight line speed on the bike, without compromising the corners. Obviously, this is just practice, but the signs look good from what we have seen. As well as losing drag, the gains seem to have come from the rear ride height device, which they have tuned to perfection. This means that they can match the Ducati’s on the straights, which given they have an inline engine, is very good going. Rins too is back to his best, and could create a great team rivalry for the season, if today’s pace is a reality.
Honda, we did have some suspicion about, in terms of their return to the top of the sport. With Marquez they do have a great opportunity to fight for a title again, the question is if he can go an entire year without crashing, whilst having his insane speed. Nakagami and Pol also had brilliant speed in the morning session, it went away slightly in the afternoon for them, however, they could be in the fight tomorrow and on Sunday. Their new bike is the most different to last year, of all the teams, and it seems to have been a worthwhile change for them.
Aprilia may have stalled out slightly, in their progression up the MotoGP grid. They did have promise in testing, but we often see that from them. Whereas, in practice, Aleix was sat in that 5th to 10th area, where we usually saw him last year. It was always going to be hard for a small team with only two riders, to make their way to the front of the sport. Vinales really needs to show himself at some point in these next few races, before people forget who he is.
There always has to be a bottom team in a sport, and going off the form so far in both testing and practice, KTM is fitting that bill currently. I am sure they have progressed from last year with the bike, I just don’t get the feeling they did enough to challenge those other teams yet, at least on raw one lap pace. Their only solace might be, if they can keep the late race pace that Binder used to such great effect last year. It is easy to forget that Binder finished 6th in the championship last year. It is a shame to see a team who looked so good in 2020, all of a sudden be lost in a lot of ways.
To be honest, a lot of what I said here is done by reading too much into practice pace and times, so I wouldn’t be surprised if I do get some of it wrong. It does look as though 4 manufacturers have bikes capable of fighting for the title, which could make for a truly compelling season, that you will not want to miss!
-M
Meaning of Motorsport 