It feels like I’ve had plenty of bad news to report on in MotoGP over the last couple of years since this blog came into existence. The sport has spent quite a long time suffering at the hands of the covid-19 pandemic, with races delayed or cancelled, seasons shortened and teams and manufacturers put under financial pressures. There’s been injuries, longstanding careers coming to a close, flared tempers and dramas up and down the paddock. It’s been tough, and I do sometimes feel that there’s some negativity that comes with it. So I am here to say, after watching the Grand Prix of the Americas: MotoGP is alive and well.
The race we witnessed on Sunday wasn’t necessarily spectacular, but it was good, clean, engaging racing. It had everything we need from a MotoGP event: there was drama on the first lap, riders battled for positions up and down the field, and the winner was crowned with elation from the fans and from the paddock. People sometimes clamour for ‘real racing’, and this was exactly what we got. As a viewer, I felt engaged from the first lap all the way to the chequered flag, and that is exactly how it should be. With the sport as tight as it is, fans deserve to see races as close and as tense as the one we witnessed just days ago.
Talking about the American GP has to begin with a mention of Marc Marquez. The Spaniard entered this weekend as the favourite to win the race despite missing the last two rounds, and his pace in both race trim and qualifying made it seem like he was a real threat. Marc had previously won every race in Austin barring one, where a technical issue caused him to crash out of a comfortable lead, so there was every expectation he would bring that same decisive energy for this year’s showdown. What we couldn’t have possibly predicted was what happened to him when the lights went out: Marc came off the line slowly, so slowly that he was passed by every rider behind him, and entered the first corner in dead last.
In modern-day MotoGP, you cannot win a race from last place. It’s simply not possible. The field is too close, too competitive, for such a fight back to occur. With all six manufacturers providing both competitive motorcycles and fierce riders, you cannot realistically expect to make it all the way through 23 opponents to take the victory. Marc Marquez is arguably the only rider that could pull off such a feat, and only at circuits where he is naturally advantaged. Such was the setup in Austin, however, and Marc managed to scythe his way past rider after rider in one of the most entertaining rides we’ve seen in a long time. He didn’t have enough to win the race, though he likely would have contested it had his start not been so awful. In the end, the ex-champion had to settle for sixth place, a worrying result for every rider that finished behind him.
What was the original error that spat him out at the back of the grid? There seems to be some mixed impressions as it currently stands, but the official statement from Marc and from Honda is that the bike was displaying a series of alarms to him while he was on the grid. With only moments to respond to this, Marc decided to simply start the race and hope the bike would sort itself out. It did, but the time he lost cost him all the positions he had gained during qualifying. With MotoGP bikes having such a reliance on electronics, this was neither the first nor the last time we’ve seen a rider’s race come under jeopardy over an internal issue. It happened to Jack Miller in Qatar, it happened to Marc here, and it will happen again to some other unfortunate soul before the season is done.
With the King of COTA out of the picture, an opportunity was presented to his rivals to make a statement of intent for both the race and the season at large. Eventual winner Enea Bastianini knew exactly what had to be done at this track to take the top honours, starting well and slotting himself in the leading pack before beginning his charge through in the latter stages. Bastianini has a seemingly unique ability to nurse his tires until the end of the race and outlive his opponents’ pace, something that put him in fantastic stead on a cold day in Austin. While the other riders suffered in the closing laps, Bastianini fired ahead to take his second win of the season, retaking his championship lead in the process. It was a phenomenal race from the young Italian rider, and will put him in good stead for the next leg of the championship in Europe.
This result is both a blessing and a curse for Ducati. For the second time this season, all five GP22 riders have been embarrassed by their satellite – and year old – counterpart, with the factory riders managing P3 and P5 and the Pramac riders falling further down the order. Despite Bagnaia and Martin entering the season as two solid title favourites, Bastianini now has more points than the two of them combined after just four races, and is the only Ducati rider in the top six positions of the championship. It was always a possibility that the GP21 riders would start the season with better results than the current-spec riders thanks to the development process involved with the newer bike, but this isn’t just Bastianini beating his fellow Ducatis. He is crushing all of them, taking strides in the championship battle while the rest lag behind.
With contracts for next season still very much up in the air, this presents a very real problem for the likes of Miller and Martin. Should they continue to be beaten by the year-old bike in the European stages of the championship, they risk missing out on an all-important factory contract for 2023 and beyond. Bastianini is a desirable target: he has clear talent, race winning pedigree and a Moto2 crown to his name. Even the likes of Zarco, who had another middling result in Austin, could be out of a job at the end of the year should the cards fall in an order that doesn’t favour the Frenchman. Whatever happens, I expect there to be something of a reshuffle in the Ducati line-up for next season.
Bastianini’s win was emblematic of the race as a whole, as the top spots were all contested by two manufacturers. Ducati locked out the top five spots on the grid, a feat never before achieved in the history of the MotoGP class, and seemed like they were in great shape for the race itself, but their competition from behind was stiff. Suzuki riders Alex Rins and Joan Mir had another phenomenal weekend to take P2 and P4 respectively, and both riders appeared stoked with the result after the race had concluded. They both had to get past multiple Ducati riders – one of the most complicated tasks this season, thanks to the Ducati’s braking and horsepower – and now sit well within the title hunt at this early stage. Rins in particular looked fantastic all race, barely putting a foot wrong as he battled past rider after rider. They now lead the team’s championship for the first time since their winning season in 2020, and will look to continue this upwards trend in future races.
Now that we’ve completed the first flyaway stint of the championship, we can look at how things stand heading to Europe. The European section of the championship takes up 12 races of the 21 this season, and will likely be where the title is won or lost. The tracks in Europe have far less factors that riders have to contest, and they are much more familiar to the teams and riders to boot. Qatar had the sun and the sand, Mandalika had a surface literally falling apart, Argentina hadn’t been used in years and Austin is one of the most physically demanding tracks in the world. This central section of the calendar will provide teams with better base settings and more comfort, and the riders will be more familiar with the layouts and the requirements on them to perform well.
Looking at the standings, there are four riders that stand out to me as the strongest contenders from the opening four races. Bastianini stands clear with two wins to his name, but both the Suzuki riders are looking in fantastic form as well. Both Mir and Rins have finished every race in the top seven, and Rins is the only rider other than Bastianini to have two podiums to his name. I would also add Brad Binder to the list as a potential contender, with the true ability of his results being masked somewhat by factors outside of his control. Should the South African have a couple of clean weekends where nothing gets in his way, he could easily be back in with a shot at the title, especially given he is currently just nineteen points of the leader as it stands.
All told, this was exactly the race MotoGP needed heading into the next chapter of 2022. The racing was fierce and entertaining, and the riders that performed well were rewarded with big points and big strides in the championship. The pack looks tight, and I expect we have some fantastic racing in store for us in the coming weeks and months. 2022 is here, in full, and I’m excited to see what comes next.
Solomon Talks Bikes 