Some of the most enjoyable seasons in MotoGP’s illustrious history have been the ones that involved head-to-head showdowns between championship rivals. Sure, it’s impressive to watch a rider stamp their authority on a circuit and win a race by a hefty margin, and seeing fresh faces on the top step of the podium has always made for emotional viewing, but there’s something very exciting about seeing two riders duelling on track who have a title hanging in the balance. It adds an extra level of depth to what is already one of the most entertaining sports to watch on the planet.
It’s also one of the things that was absent from the 2021 season for the most part. While last year’s pandemic-impacted MotoGP season had an outstanding amount of variety and drama, most of the wins were taken handily by a single rider, and the few duels we saw often seemed to be between riders with little to no stakes in the championship chase. Quartararo took some early wins and took the lead in the title, then it closed up again, and finally Mir’s consistency outdid the rest of the opposition. It was exciting from race to race, but there never seemed to be as high stakes as there could have been.
Enter Misano, and the 14th round of the 2021 championship. Bagnaia entered the race weekend riding the crest of a wave, having taken his first ever MotoGP win in Aragon just seven days prior and installing himself as Quartararo’s primary championship challenger. Throughout the weekend, both men looked to be in top form, and both were able to once again place themselves on the front row of the grid. The weather was questionable all weekend, and in the wet conditions Quartararo was expected to suffer, but if the weather stayed dry then it looked like we could finally have a championship showdown on our hands.
The clouds looked menacing, but the rain held off long enough for racing to kick off. Bagnaia jumped to an early lead and tried to disappear into the sunset, while Quartararo was forced to battle his way back past several hard-braking Ducatis. As the laps ticked down it seemed as though Bagnaia would be able to hold off the onslaught, but his laps began to slow and the Frenchman closed in from behind. Bagnaia had survived the merciless attacks from Marc Marquez to secure the win a week before – could he do the same a week later with a different opponent?
He didn’t have to worry in the end. Quartararo came on strong, but he had clearly lost a lot of his tires in his desperate attempt to catch the leader after being held up for so long behind Miller and co. The championship leader looked like he might have been close enough to make a move on the final lap, but outbraked himself and let the win slip away from him. It was a surprise loss, and speaks volumes to just how much effort he had to put in to climb back through the pack after falling several places in the opening stages. If his start had been better and his tires better managed, he likely would have had the time needed to plan an overtake.
Bagnaia may have made things difficult for himself with his tire choice, too. Both Bagnaia and Miller went with the softer option for their rear tire, likely as a gamble for the potential of a rain-impacted race, and the soft just didn’t hold up in the later stages like the other tires did. It was a difficult race to predict, especially with regards to the weather, but I do wonder if it was the right call given how strong the Ducatis were looking in the wet anyway. Surely if it had come to a flag-to-flag scenario, they would have been able to hold their nerve against any potential challengers and secure the results regardless.
Bagnaia’s second win brings him closer to the championship lead, but Quartararo’s podium finish helped to minimise the damage done. Quarataro’s lead is still strong enough that he should be able to seal the deal by the end of the season, and the Frenchman will feel comfortable knowing that he did took points out of all but one of his rivals in Misano. The list of potential champions for this season has been shortened to five – Quartararo, Bagnaia, Mir, Zarco and Miller – but realistically it looks like we’re set for a two-man showdown in the later stages of this peculiar 2021 season.
It could have been three challengers, but Mir had a pretty unimpressive Sunday once again. The reigning champion was punished for his poor performance in qualifying on Saturday and found himself stuck in traffic for most of the first half of the race, and never seemed to have the pace of the leaders at any stage. Mir’s lack of consistency this year combined with an absence of wins leaves him 67 points behind Quartararo, and that does seem like too large a mountain to climb with just four races to go. Before now, he needed Fabio to make a big mistake somewhere to even be in with a shot. After this round, he may need several.
It would be remiss of me to not talk about the incredible ride of the third-place finisher. Enea Bastianini had a terrific home race, keeping calm and battling his way past several very strong riders to take his first MotoGP podium of his rookie season. The Italian was fast at all stages of the race, setting three all-time race lap records in a row as he dropped the chasing pack behind him, and the lap times do seem to suggest that a better starting position might have led to him being in the battle for the win with Pecco and Fabio. Perhaps most impressive of all is the fact that he did it on a two-year-old bike, a satellite Ducati that wasn’t too dissimilar to the 2019 model, and was able to comfortably put away the likes of Miller who was on a factory spec machine. It was gutsy, it was impressive, and it speaks volumes to the raw skill Bastianini possesses.
It will be interesting to see if continued results like this lead to a better season for Enea in 2022. As it stands it seems that both of Gresini’s riders for next season will be riding year-old machines, which would be fine in this instance given how competitive this year’s Ducati model has been, but one would hope that continued results from Bastianini’s end would lead to the possibility of riding a factory-spec machine. The only real issue with this is that Ducati already have five riders set to race on factory machines next year: the Factory team themselves, both Pramac riders, and Luca Marini in the VR46 satellite squad. Ducati simply might not have the money to give Bastianini a better bike for the 2022 season.
Elsewhere in the field, it was a fairly quiet return to MotoGP action for both Dovizioso and Morbidelli. Both Italians didn’t really factor in any of the practice or qualifying sessions, and both riders ended the race outside the points. It was never going to be a blistering return for either of them – Dovi hasn’t completed a race weekend since Portimao last year, and Morbidelli is still recovering from injury – but one would hope that they will both be able to return to full competitive levels by the end of the season. Then again, given how many highly competitive riders we have in the premier class, perhaps that would be overkill.
With fourteen rounds completed, we now prepare to head to the US for the Texan round of the championship, before another break as all the teams and riders return to Europe for the remainder of the season. It seems somewhat comical that we are leaving Misano, spending a week in America, then heading back to Misano, but such is the way of the MotoGP series when COVID continues to impact scheduling and competition across the globe. Hopefully by this time next year we’ll actually be able to visit some of the Asian tracks in the calendar, or even take a trip to Argentina. For now, Texas awaits, and that should be spectacle enough in itself.
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