Ah, it’s good to be back to racing. The time between the end of a MotoGP season and the start of a new one always feels like it drags on for far longer than it actually does, making the moment when the bikes roar back into life all the more satisfying. Despite having only been three months since the last time we saw a MotoGP race, I find myself eagerly anticipating the start of every practice session this weekend has to offer.
It’s not just the time apart that leads to this excitement. This is the first time we get to see riders put everything they worked on in the pre-season to the test, be it new parts, new teams or an entirely new class of racing. Rookie riders will face the prospect of their first full weekend on a MotoGP bike, but even the veterans will be feeling a mixture of confidence and nervousness based on the level they feel themselves to be at heading into the season. The time for talking and hypothesising is over, and the time for results starts now.
And Qatar is a hell of a place to start things off. Despite the questionable human rights of the country and surrounding region, there can be no question that the Doha circuit is one of the most engaging we have on the MotoGP calendar. Thanks to the heat of the surrounding desert, the Qatar round is held as a night race, with massive floodlights surrounding the track and illuminating it once the sun has gone down. It’s a unique atmosphere that creates a huge amount of excitement among fans, and so it’s no small wonder the FIM continue to return here to kick each new season off.
The track layout itself is also rather interesting, with one of the longest start/finish straights in the entire calendar and a truly testing infield section. The long straight creates a lot of drama on its own thanks to the fantastic shots of slipstreaming and passing it gives us, but the race is truly won and lost in the other sections of the circuit. While the free practice sessions will occasionally be dogged by sand being blown onto the circuit from the surrounding desert, by nightfall it is usually clear and clean for the riders to do battle upon.
Previous seasons give us a mixed idea of who will be on top here. The massive kilometre-long straight naturally favours the horsepower of the Ducati riders, but they’ve historically lost their way in sectors two and three against their closest rivals. Dovizioso won a pair of races in last lap battles against Marc Marquez back in 2018 and 2019, but both riders are in considerably different circumstances now. Yamaha riders Quartararo and Vinales both took race wins here in the 2021 double header, but neither is going into this round considered a favourite. How, then, can we determine who will be fastest on Sunday evening?
I’ve mentioned time and time again on this blog that people should avoid using testing results as a hard metric for who’s going to be strong at the start of the season, but given how close the pack looks this year I feel obliged to give them some kind of weight. While the times may not tell us who is the fastest necessarily, there are trends that can be eyed off, and one of them is which manufacturers appear to be lagging behind the others. Heading into Qatar, it would appear there are two struggling the most, and they are KTM and Yamaha.
Reigning champion Quartararo has criticised Yamaha for their lack of horsepower in recent months, particularly with regards to the development of this year’s motorbike, and if they really haven’t taken a step forward in this regard then they could seriously struggle in the opening round. I genuinely hope that Yamaha aren’t as far behind the competition as the tests would suggest, as it would be unfortunate to witness two seasons in a row where the reigning champion is hamstrung by the machine he’s riding. Nonetheless, this first race of the season will finally give us an idea of where exactly Yamaha and Quartararo stand, though I don’t have high hopes for the former.
As for KTM, their bike appears to have made even less of a step from last year’s design, a worrying prospect for those on board it. Both Binder and Oliveira showed moments of success during the 2021 season, but it always felt as though they were a step or two behind the other manufacturers. This year’s testing season was a big opportunity for them to leap back into the fray, and while the riders all sound quietly confident the results just didn’t seem to back them up. Add to that the fact that they’ve never had any strong results in Qatar, and this looks to be a quiet weekend for the Austrian manufacturer.
On the other side of the spectrum, thinks are looking pretty fantastic for Ducati heading into the 2022 season. Their bike was definitively the strongest of the second half of last season, and their factory model for this year looks to be just as competitive as the last. While it does look like other manufacturers have made steps towards catching Ducati’s horsepower dominance of previous years, Ducati themselves have been shoring up their other weaknesses in retaliation, and given their historical record here one has to assume that they will be the men to beat this weekend. Bagnaia, Miller, Martin, even Bastianini – all could be contenders for the win here in Qatar.
Regardless of who is ahead and who still has work to do, the Qatar round promises to kick the 2022 season off in style. We’ve spent months talking about who we think might be on top at the start of the season, but the time for hypothesising is over. It’s time to get racing, and to see who will take first honours and start their bid for the 2022 world championship.
Solomon Talks Bikes 