Joan Mir is the 2020 world champion. After thirteen races, he amassed 171 points, including a win and seven podiums, and has sealed the deal on his first ever MotoGP title. At just 23 years of age, this makes him the seventh youngest premier class champion in history, and ends Suzuki’s twenty year barren run without a world champion. Congratulations to Mir, to the Suzuki team and management, to the hard work of their riders (including test rider Sylvan Guintoli), and to the contenders who kept him honest and put up a fight.
Now, to talk about Valencia.
Despite wrapping up the championship in Valencia, Mir actually played no role in the outcome of the race. Sure, he made some strong overtakes early in the race, and settled into a good rhythm, but he was really unable to match the pace of the riders ahead of him. Thanks to his healthy championship lead heading into the race, seventh place ended up being good enough for him to wrap things up, but it was in no way the strongest result the Suzuki man has put together this season.
Instead, the battle for the win came down to two men: Franco Morbidelli and Jack Miller. Morbidelli was seeking to take a last ditch shot at the title, and draw equal with his teammate Quartararo on three race wins for the year. Miller, winless since Assen in 2016 and struggling for form in the back end of this season, was itching for a return to the podium before his departure from the Pramac squad at the end of the year. In addition, these are two of the nicest men in the paddock, fair fighters and honest racers, so a battle between the two of them was bound to be a good one.
In fairness to Morbidelli, the majority of the race wasn’t much of a battle. The Petronas rider hit the front on the first lap and began to check out, pushing for consistent lap times and extending his lead over the rest of the riders. This is not the first time we’ve seen Morbidelli do this: he did the same in Teruel, and earlier still in Misano. He likely would have done the same in Brno if he hadn’t been hunted down by the in-form Brad Binder. So when the Italian began to disappear in Valencia, it was a fair assumption that he would run away with the win in convincing fashion once again.
Unfortunately for him, there was another rider willing to go with him. Miller got a strong start and managed to get ahead of Pol Espargaro for second place with little difficulty, and then used the power of the Ducati engine and his strong defensive style to maintain that position. As the laps ticked down he kept Morbidelli honest, never letting the gap grow to an insurmountable level, and as we reached the final stages of the race he began closing in on the VR46 academy graduate. The commentators called it correctly: Miller was setting up for a last lap assault.
The attack from the Australian came at the very first corner. Miller had lined up Morbidelli on the last corner, getting a nice bit of slipstream as he powered down the start finish straight, and he dived into the lead as the hooked their bikes left. He went wide, however, and the two riders locked horns as the went side by side into turn 2. Morbidelli’s tighter inside line allowed him to retake the lead, but Miller attacked straight back at turn 4. Against most opponents this would have been a straightforward move, but Morbidelli snatched the lead back just one turn later, braking late and using that inside line once again to get up the inside of the Ducati.
Miller had a few opportunities left to take another stab at the lead, but Morbidelli put on one hell of a defensive display, holding his lines firm and getting enough drive out of the final corner to keep the powerful Ducati behind him, securing his third win of the season and moving him all the way up to second in the championship. Miller was once again forced to settle for second, his first win on a Ducati continuing to elude him. And the final podium place was taken by Pol Espargaro, which marks his fifth podium of the year and his sixth with KTM.
The rest of the title contenders could only dream of having a result as strong as Morbidelli’s. Mir, as I mentioned, took the chequered flag in a safe seventh place to win the championship. His teammate Rins battled his way forward to fourth, helping the Suzuki factory team to secure the team’s championship. Dovizioso made something of a comeback from a poor qualifying, but stayed firmly in the mid pack and crossed the line in eighth, while Vinales dropped like a stone and only managed to get back to tenth. And Quartararo, who led the championship for so long, who started the season with dominant back-to-back wins, crashed out on the second corner and never remounted.
There is a lot to be said about the relative performances of the Yamahas of late. Quartararo has openly claimed he never felt comfortable with his bike all weekend despite massive technical overhauls across all three days, and Vinales continues to be one of the most inconsistent riders in the class. Rossi did finally manage to return to the points after six rounds without, though it was a sombre twelfth place for the Monster Yamaha rider. Given these results, and given that Morbidelli won the race on a year-old machine, the Japanese factory must surely be heading into the 2021 season with much concern over their prospects. With Marc Marquez out of the picture for 2020, this was supposed to be the year that they dominated the championship, but instead they appear set to end the season with a whimper rather than a bang.
Now compare this to the KTM factory. A man down thanks to Lecuona’s unfortunate testing positive for COVID-19, the Austrian manufacturer put three men into Q2 and converted that into third, fifth and sixth in the race. Despite heading into this season with just one podium to their name in three years of racing, KTM have become a fixture at the front of MotoGP racing, taking their first two wins and a combined seven podiums from thirteen starts. And while they are losing their forerunner Pol Espargaro at the end of this year, Binder and Oliveira proved on Sunday that they have more than enough talent between them to maintain KTM’s strong form and potentially even challenge for the title next year. It has been a remarkable reversal of fortunes for them, and an exciting prospect for the future of the sport.
The championship may be over for 2020, but the racing is not, as we head to Portimao for the first time this weekend for the final race of the season. A circuit that has never hosted a MotoGP race, a constructer’s title still on the line, and no less than six riders who could still potentially take second or third in the rider’s championship. Make no mistake about it – it is game on in Portugal come Sunday afternoon.
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