What is the deciding factor in a race? In athletics, it’s a fairly simple equation: the competitor who is the fastest wins. Sure, there is strategy involved when you start looking at longer distances, and things like the weather can play a role, but at the end of the day the person who runs the distance quickest comes out on top. Motorsports adds an extra layer in the vehicle being driven: not only does the competitor need to be naturally quick and talented, but they have to have a car or bike underneath them that responds well to them and gives them an advantage over their competitors.
Sunday’s race in Jerez added a third factor into an already complicated scenario, that being the panel of stewards watching from behind the scenes. Freddie Spencer and his team had a big hand in the outcome of the grand prix, with multiple penalties being handed out across the opening half of the race. These ranged from frustrating to inconsistent: Franco Morbidelli and Fabio Quartararo were handed long lap penalties for opening lap crashes in both the sprint and the feature race despite neither rider being particularly at fault, and Pecco Bagnaia was forced to drop a position after a particularly aggressive move on Jack Miller under braking.
The Morbidelli call was surprising given that most people who saw it would agree it was a racing incident, despite the carnage that followed. The Quartararo crash was even more baffling, with the Frenchman effectively getting pinned between two riders and having nowhere to go. Both Yamaha riders served their penalties diligently despite fiercely disagreeing with them in the first place, and Quartararo even had the pleasure of heading through the penalty loop a second time after grazing the green paint on the outside of the white lines on his first attempt. As for Bagnaia, dropping a place for lifting another rider mid-corner felt particularly harsh when Miller pulled an almost identical move on Jorge Martin with no punishment whatsoever.
The issue here is that the stewards shouldn’t have had such a big hand in the outcome of this race, period. There has been a hum from the long-term audience and the teams themselves recently that people just aren’t happy with how many penalties are being dished out in MotoGP, and the lack of consistency in what triggers them. It actually reminded me of the first sprint of the season back in Portimao, where a collision between Quartararo and Joan Mir yielded a penalty but an identical one for Luca Marini and Enea Bastianini did not.
This all ends one of two ways. The first is that racing continues to be puppeteered by a shadowy group of men who have total authority but aren’t answerable to the decisions that they make, which would be terrible for viewer engagement and the sport as a whole. The other, better ending is that after this weekend we finally get clarification from Spencer and the stewards as a whole on what the penalty process is and what their motivation is. People come to this sport to watch racing, and the stewards are currently intervening in that a little too much for a lot of fan’s liking. Let the racers race!
But enough about penalties, and more about the racing itself. Both the sprint and the feature race showed a select group of riders that seemed to be a cut above the rest of the competition, and they put on a hell of a show in both. KTM factory duo Miller and Binder were able to showcase exactly what that bike is capable of when it qualifies well, but Bagnaia and Martin refused to let them have it easy. Binder took first blood in the sprint after one of the best overtakes of the season on Miller, but Bagnaia got his revenge for Saturday – and the two previous rounds – in the grand prix.
It was curious seeing the Ducatis struggling against the KTMs in both races. Given how opressively strong the Italian brand looked during pre-season testing, there was an expectation that the balanced Jerez circuit would benefit them more than any other manufacturer. Instead, several of the factory riders struggled for grip on Friday and had to work hard to find their form on Saturday and Sunday, whereas the KTMs were consistently at the top all weekend.
It’s possible that despite the work done by Ducati to make their bike more balanced, it’s still more reliant on dominating in top speed than people realised. Compared to the first three circuits we’ve visited this year, Jerez doesn’t have nearly as many opportunities for the Ducati to flex its horsepower advantage and instead rewards riders and bikes with strong cornering and braking. Add in the difficult grip conditions this weekend delivered by the intense Spanish heat, and we were left with arguably the biggest challenge Ducati have been dealt so far in 2023.
Regardless, the resurgence from Bagnaia couldn’t have come at a better time. Having dropped 45 points in the last two feature races, the Italian has surged back into the lead of the championship thanks to his 34 points haul and rival Marco Bezzechi’s difficult weekend. Bezz struggled to a single point in the sprint and then crashed out in the grand prix for his worst result of the season to date, and admitted after the race that it was a punishing experience for him. Bagnaia, meanwhile, admitted that his ego needed that win, and one can safely assume he will be back to his imperious form when we hit Le Mans.
In terms of riders that would have been left wanting more after this weekend, you have to think of Aleix Espargaro. The Spaniard took pole in a tricky qualifying session and looked confident across all practice sessions, but crashed out of the sprint and limped home to 5th place in the grand prix. This feels like it’s quickly becoming the story of Aprilia’s season so far: fast and confident on Friday, losing to the Ducatis on Saturday, picking up the pieces on Sunday. He’ll want to turn this rut of form around quickly if he wants to re-instate himself as a championship contender.
With all that said, we can finally take a breather and start to look ahead. Le Mans is up next, followed by Mugello and the Sachsenring. The European leg of the season has kicked off, and if Jerez really is the best sign of the championship to date, then we can expect some fierce fighting between Ducati and KTM moving forward. Let’s hope that fighting can go unnoticed by the watchful eyes of the stewards – otherwise this might be a rather placated season after all.
Solomon Talks Bikes 