Heading into this weekend, there was a clear goal for Joan Mir, Francesco Bagnaia and Johann Zarco. The points deficit to championship leader Quartararo had grown to almost fifty points for all three riders, and while seven races sounds like enough time to make up that much ground, the sheer consistency that the Frenchman has displayed all year means they would have to really dominate the majority of those races. Not only that, but the circuit of choice for this weekend was one that has historically favoured the Yamahas. The target was simple: beat Quartararo, and begin clawing back some kind of an advantage.
Step one was to get a good spot in qualifying, and Bagnaia pulled that off with aplomb. The Italian put himself on the front row between poleman and Honda rider Pol Espargaro and the in-form Quartararo, giving himself the best possible shot at leading into turn one. Given the sheer horsepower advantage provided by the Ducati underneath him, it seemed reasonable to believe that if Bagnaia could get to the lead of Sunday’s race, he could control the pace of the riders behind him and manage his tires long enough to try and fight for the win. Zarco and Mir made it slightly harder for themselves by qualifying on the third and fourth row of the grid respectively, but all of the championship protagonists seemed to be well in the mix.
While we all hoped and expected that the race would be decided in the dying laps, it may have actually have happened before the race even started. With clouds looming overhead and the track temperature staying fairly cool, Quartararo made a late decision to swap to a soft option front tire. Given the sweet handling and powerful acceleration of the Yamaha, he clearly figured that he would get a reasonable amount of heat into the soft compound quicker than any other tire combination, which would help him in any attempt to run away at the front of the race. Word quickly spread through the grid of his decision to change, and Mir and Bagnaia both opted to switch their tires to match.
You can understand their reasoning somewhat. With Fabio’s lead in the championship being as great as it was, any rider hoping to dethrone him would need to be at least on level footing, if not advantaged in some way. By changing tires to match his choice it ensures that there is one less factor to separate your bike from your main rivals’ setup, which means one less factor that he can outright beat you in. It was peculiar to note, however, that outside of the championship contenders the consensus seemed to be with the harder option compounds.
As it turned out, it was a fatal error on both challenger’s parts. Quartararo was able to get to the front quickly thanks to starting on the first row and heating his soft tire faster than the Espargaro brothers, who were the initial leaders, and without other bikes ahead of him burning up his tires he was able to gap the field to take yet another runaway victory. It was a truly impressive performance given the sheer number of competitive riders this weekend, but it really has become the norm for Quartararo to score results like this. His form across all of 2021 has been impeccable, with a slew of wins and podiums backed up by solid points results when he wasn’t able to seal the deal, and it puts him several steps closer to that first world championship title.
His rivals, predictably, did not fair as well. While both Bagnaia and Mir got off to good starts and looked set to follow Quartararo through the leading pack, they suffered at the hands of their tire gamble. Because they were bottled into fighting in the middle of a group of riders, the soft fronts appeared to overheat, and the duo started to rapidly lose grip and drop through the field like stones. Zarco, on the other hand, suffered from a terrible start that dropped him right out of the top ten, and was forced to battle hard with a number of other riders just to reclaim any points that he could. In the end, all three riders finished outside the top eight, with Mir finishing ninth as the best of the challengers.
This will go down as one of the most costly defeats they’ve faced so far this season. They took a risk when they likely should have trusted their testing from Friday and Saturday, and that risk has cost them a huge chunk of points. Thanks to Quartararo’s brilliant win and the three contenders taking a combined 14 points, the gap to Fabio is now at a whopping 65 points, the largest it’s been all season. Heading into the British race, Mir and Bagnaia knew that even if they beat him a number of times in the remaining races, they still would likely need Quartararo to slip up and make a mistake somewhere along the line. With only six races to go now to overhaul this gigantic lead, they will certainly need the Frenchman to slip up more than once.
Outside of the championship battle, there was quite the fight going on for the remaining podium positions. Both Pol and Aleix Espargaro got fantastic starts and remained in contention for the podium throughout the race, but they faced some serious challenge in the forms of Alex Rins and Jack Miller. For Rins, this was a golden opportunity for a redemption race after his baffling lack of results all season. For Miller, he simply wanted to bounce back after a string of disappointing results in Austria and Assen. Both men were in dire need of a podium, and willing to put it all on the line to do so.
Pol was the first to blink, with a couple of mistakes dropping him to fifth, and Rins was able to scythe his way into second fairly comfortably, but Aleix was desperate to hang on. The Aprilia factory had never scored a podium in MotoGP history, and Aleix hadn’t tasted the champagne himself since 2014. The Spaniard has been working with Aprilia since 2017 to help them develop a bike that could compete at the front of a MotoGP field, and it hasn’t been without it’s complications. With Vinales being announced recently to be joining Aleix onboard the Aprilia team, many people in the media were claiming that the older Espargaro brother would quickly be displaced as the top dog in the Noale factory. Aleix was there to prove the masses wrong.
It ended up being a close scrap for third between Miller and Espargaro, but in the end the Aprilia man was able to hang on to take his second podium in the premier class behind Rins and Quartararo. It was one of the happiest podiums I can recall seeing in quite some time – Quartararo having taken a massive stride in the championship, Rins finally putting his demons to bed, Espargaro bringing joy for the Aprilia factory. There were plenty of emotional scenes, and all of it was done in front of fans for one of the first times this season. These exact moments are why MotoGP continues to come back to Silverstone – it always provides us with a treat.
Further down the order, credit must be given to a certain pair of KTM riders. Brad Binder continues to take phenomenal results regardless of his starting position, taking an impressive sixth to finish just behind Pol Espargaro, but even greater honours went to Iker Lecuona. The young Tech3 rider qualified outside the top fifteen, but was able to battle his way past several championship contenders and a number of factory bikes to take an incredible seventh place, marking his second top eight finish in MotoGP and his best ever result in dry conditions. Both riders were able to properly show just how good the KTM currently is under interesting weather conditions, and Binder continues to look like an outside chance for finishing the season within the top 5 in the championship.
From here, we take another one week break from racing, before a double header between Aragon and Misano on the 12th and 19th of September. As well as being iconic race tracks, these rounds will likely mark the final real opportunities for challengers to tackle the massive gap Quartararo has achieved at this stage in the championship. If he stumbles, and someone is there to capitalise on it, then we could still have a fight on our hands. The only real issue with that plan – we’re talking about a rider who hasn’t really stumbled all season.
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