I do my best not to let frustration seep into this blog. While emotion is a driving factor in a sport like MotoGP, it can get in the way of objective truth and fact, and often leads to hyper fixation on the wrong elements of the racing. It’s the same reasoning for my long-standing attempts to avoid backing a single rider and instead trying to enjoy the sport as a whole. Everyone gets to enjoy MotoGP in their own way, and this is the method that has always worked best for me.
Saturday’s sprint and Sunday’s race at the Red Bull Ring both frustrated me. Not for remotely similar reasons, mind you, but it was a very difficult weekend for me as a viewer, and it has bled into my assessment of the racing as a whole. I bring this up at the top of this article mostly to forewarn you, dear reader, that this may not end up being the most unbiased piece of writing you see regarding the Austrian grand prix. I will do my due diligence as a writer, but I cannot guarantee civility in my tone.
Let’s start with the sprint on Saturday. Very rarely is a race defined or decided by the first corner of the first lap, but this is Austria, and collisions shaping the racing is quickly becoming the norm for this place. Take Jorge Martin’s divebomb on the opening lap, for example: the Spaniard, who was trying to recover ground rapidly thanks to a disaster of a qualifying session, sent it deep up the inside at turn one and managed to ruin the race for a third of the grid. Marco Bezzechi, Miguel Oliveira and Johann Zarco were eliminated on the spot, Fabio Quartararo and Enea Bastianini were scuppered to the back, and Maverick Vinales dropped from the leading group to the mid pack in a split-second.
I’m actually not going to be too critical of Martin here, since I actually empathise with the situation he was in. His qualifying was essentially ruined by a small number of track limits infractions, something that is very easy to do at such a tight circuit, and the nature of the sprints motivates crazy moves on the first lap. When you only have half the race distance to make up ground, doing so as efficiently as possible is key, and Martin recognised that his key championship rival starting the race on pole meant he couldn’t afford to be left behind in the opening stages.
No, the people I’m frustrated with here are the stewards, who once again proved they are incapable of giving consistent penalties this season. The current rules of MotoGP, as laid out by Freddie Spencer himself earlier this year, state that if you take out another rider or ruin their race, you receive a punishment accordingly. Regardless of how much fault lies with Martin – and yes, I’m aware that Vinales should also have probably shouldered some of it – it was clearly enough to warrant a long lap penalty given the circumstances of the collision.
The thing that really stings about it is that the stewards clearly know the rule, because they dolled one out to Quartararo later in the sprint for taking out Aprilia wildcard Lorenzo Savadori. If they can identify that as being worthy of a penalty and deliver it mid-race, they could have done the same to Martin for the first-lap coming together, or even his move later on that knocked out Luca Marini. Instead, Martin finished the race in third place and bagged a medal and some precious championship points for his trouble, something that must have stung for the seven riders impeded by his actions throughout the race.
Instead, four hours after the race had finished, the stewards handed a LLP down to Martin for Sunday’s feature race. I’m not the biggest fan of post-race penalties, but I concede that if an incident occurs late enough in the race the stewards simply don’t have enough time to properly assess the circumstances and give a fair judgement. But this wasn’t a last-lap dogfight, this was the very first corner of the race, so why did it take them so long to come to an understanding? It was a baffling scenario to watch play out.
You’ll notice that I’ve described a lot of the sprint without actually naming many of the results, and that brings me neatly to my second and much larger grievance: the racing in Austria was mind-numbingly boring to watch. It’s a problem that MotoGP has been balancing on the precipice of for quite some time, but for both races this weekend the scales finally tipped over. Neither race was entertaining to me as a fan or as a critic.
The immediate problem, of course, is that it’s very difficult to pin the blame for something like this. You could start by blaming Pecco Bagnaia and Brad Binder for running away with both races. Bagnaia was completely untouchable, setting the fastest laps and converting directly from pole position into a double race victory, while Binder surprised the Ducati fans by being the only rider capable of even coming close to the reigning champion. They were a combined five seconds up the road by the end of the sprint, and Bagnaia’s winning margin over the KTM man was the same by the end of the feature race.
You could also blame the rule makers again here for the recent changes to the tyre pressure system in MotoGP. While the full extent of these changes weren’t visible in Silverstone due to the rain conditions, teams and riders were clearly struggling with the sudden change of severity in how their tire pressures were managed this weekend. While it hasn’t been proven, I have a hunch that riders like Jack Miller and Zarco were some of the biggest losers in this instance, dropping like stones throughout the feature race and not looking competitive at any point.
However, I believe the main culprit to be the ongoing technical evolution happening in MotoGP at present. Aero and ride height devices have made overtaking a difficult task for riders, and the issue becomes even more pronounced at a tight circuit such as the Red Bull Ring. Riders spent most of the race getting stuck behind each other and struggling to find paths past one another. The best example of this came from the battle for third: Bezzechi was clearly much faster than the fading Alex Marquez, but he still had to make three or more desperate lunges just to try and make it stick. And we caught all of it, since Binder and Bagnaia had properly cleared off by then.
I would love to give a positive angle on this, but until the technical regulations in the sport change this is always going to be a possibility. Any time we visit a track that isn’t purpose-built for motorbike racing, the technical elements of the sport are going to stand in the way of results and excitement, and the people who lose out most are always going to be the fans. At a point in time where the people in charge are trying to change a myriad of things about this sport to make it more marketable, I fear they are missing some of the most important aspects that are holding MotoGP back.
But let’s finish up with some positive notes. The riders who finished third, fourth and fifth in the feature race all seriously impressed me, with Bezzechi clinging onto his status as a championship contender and Marini continuing his role as the most consistent rider in the class barring Bagnaia. Alex Marquez in particular shone for me as someone who has shown so much potential across the season but is only now getting the opportunities to deliver consistently, and a double top 5 for the weekend is yet more proof of his strength on the Ducati. Vinales also surprised me as the top Aprilia and one of the better recovery rides of the weekend, and Quartararo surviving to 8th made him far and away the best finisher for the Japanese manufacturers.
Finally, I wanted to shout out the lower classes for providing some genuinely enthralling action this weekend. Moto3 gave us a four-rider melee for the win that went all the way down to the final corner of the final lap and ended in a photo finish, and Moto2 had a surprise winner returning to the top step after more than 12 months away from the podium. They may be support classes, but right now the lower-powered categories are giving us consistently exciting racing on a weekly basis. If you’re a fan of MotoGP for the quality of racing, do yourself a favour and go check out some Moto2, 3 and E races.
Two weeks off will give us some time to reflect, and we’re headed to Catalunya and Misano for the last races of the European leg of the championship. More silly season updates await us as the 2024 grid comes into shape, and there’s some potential for a return to high-quality racing at both circuits for the premier class. Let’s hope at the very least we see some riders give actual headaches to Bagnaia – otherwise I may end up going to bed early on Sundays and watching the replays on Monday. Dire times indeed.
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