Now, we haven’t seen that for a long time – one rider disappearing into the distance at the beginning of the race and winning by over six seconds – and it doesn’t bode well for the rest of the riders on the grid in the remaining races.

The fact that it was Quartararo surprised some until it was remembered that he is the master of his machine right now and, in clear air, he’s well-nigh unbeatable. With the ultra-high track temperatures over the weekend of the Catalunya race, the Yamaha’s front tyre was going to suffer mightily if it was stuck behind another bike and Quartararo would have been powerless to do anything about it. He made sure he wasn’t and that was it as far as the race for the victory was concerned.

There are shades of Lorenzo about Quartararo’s performances right now: given the space to do as he pleases, he just crushes the opposition. It might not make for good racing but it’s clinical and effective as hell.

Another factor is Quartararo’s new mental attitude. He doesn’t get riled or impatient, just waits for the odds to turn in his favour. At the beginning of the season, he knew there would be tracks that suited the Yamaha and tracks where he would be compromised and, rather than throwing his toys out of the cot when things aren’t going his way, he makes the best of the situation and gathers points until such time as he can take control again.

Such mental fortitude is going to be difficult for his rivals to break down. In addition, the confirmation of Yamaha’s belief in him by signing a new two-year contract, with promises of engine development to counter the top speed attacks of the Ducatis, must make grim reading for the rest of the paddock given his superiority right now on a compromised Yamaha. Four titles in a row on the Yamaha doesn’t seem like too much of a problem all of a sudden.

Quartararo’s cause was helped by the mistakes of his closest rivals. Bagnaia’s exit wasn’t his own fault but it has certainly hurt his championship hopes: a 56 point deficit will be extremely difficult to overhaul. Even should Bagnaia win every remaining round, all Quartararo has to do is finish on the podium behind the Ducati and there’s nothing Bagnaia can do about it.

Quartararo’s saving grace in Catalunya was getting a good start and having the balls to risk everything by out-braking Bagnaia and Espargaro into the first turn. If he hadn’t done that, then he might have been the unwitting target for Nakagami’s wayward LCR Honda. Instead, Bagnaia was skittled out and Quartararo’s biggest race rival was gone.

And then there’s Espargaro! If proof were needed that these guys are human, then Aleix demonstrated it perfectly. Instead of relying on his pit board, which was difficult to see given the Aprilia’s garage position close to the exit of the last corner, when the riders are slightly pre-occupied making sure they get the best drive onto the straight to look to their right and search for the pit board, he was using the digital tower that gives race positions and laps left to run for the spectators.

The only problem with that is that, while his pit board would say L1 for the last lap, the tower says L0 for the last lap. Espargaro forgot this and read L1 on the tower as the last lap. As he crossed the line, he was already congratulating himself on a job well done – yet another podium – only for that euphoria to turn to dismay a few seconds later as he realised his mistake and got back on the gas to finish fifth and give away more points than he could afford to Quartararo in the championship. Titles have been won by much less than the nine points difference between second and fifth and Espargaro will have only himself to blame if he loses the title to Quartararo by a point or two.

Mistakes such as this are uncommon – usually, the result of a mistake is a crash – but not unknown and, at least, it does show us that these supermen are at least human.

The beneficiaries of Espargaro’s mistake – apart from Quartararo – were the Ducatis of Martin and Zarco, who had refused to give Espargaro an easy time of it all through the race and reaped the rewards at the end. Martin has had a torrid time of it in 2022, his second place in Argentina notwithstanding. Crashing in five out of nine races is not the way to build a championship-winning campaign but perhaps that is all behind him as he reverted to 2021-spec Öhlins forks which he much prefers over the 2022-spec units. They just suit his riding style much better and a happy rider is a fast rider.

Enea Bastianini had a disastrous race, crashing out for the second race in a row, scoring no points while Quartararo has added 45 to his tally. The crash might not have been Bastianini’s fault – track temperatures were making it difficult for everyone and, at one point, it seemed as if there might not be that many finishers as riders were flying through the gravel all over the place – but that is not the consistency that wins championships.

Bastianini’s three wins so far might be one more than Quartararo, but Fabio has three second places as well, while Bastianini has no other podium finishes. See what I mean about Quartararo making the most of the days when he knows he can’t win?

What also makes Quartararo’s results so incredible is the fact that the other Yamaha’s are so far behind: Darryn Binder was again best of the rest in a creditable 12th, with poor old Morbidelli behind in 13th, while Dovizioso failed to finish. Never before has Yamaha had such a poor-performing supporting cast for its star rider: indeed, often the supporting cast member has fought tooth and nail with the number one rider and beaten him – Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo, anyone?

Darryn Binder’s performances are doing his MotoGP prospects no harm, of course, but that doesn’t solve the problem of where he might slot in next year. We touched on the silly season last time but it is still in full swing.

Since last weekend, not only has Quartararo inked a new two-year deal with Yamaha but the rumour mill has Jack Miller tucking a two-year KTM contract into his back pocket, signed and sealed. There’s been no official word as yet but that doesn’t mean there’s not a grain of truth in the rumour. Miller is clearly on the way out of the factory Ducati team and so is Oliveira from the factory KTM team and while Oliveira is certainly not taking Miller’s seat –  that will go to Bastiannini or Martin – signing Miller would be a bonus for KTM.

With Suzuki on the way out, both Mir and Rins are looking to make big impressions on the other teams to ensure a seat in 2023, which makes it all the more galling for Rins who was the second rider to be skittled out by Nakagami. However, while Bagnaia and Nakagami walked away undamaged, Rins broke his wrist, putting his participation in the next races in doubt: not what he needed.

Mir, on the other hand, did his prospects no harm by finishing a strong fourth after starting seventeenth. Yes, he was helped by riders falling out ahead of him but that doesn’t take away from his race pace: if only he can qualify better.

Similarly, Brad Binder needs to get on top of his qualifying performance if he is to take advantage of his race pace, which saw him finish in eighth after starting fifteenth. The drop-off of lap times in the race compared to his qualifying pace is less than the other riders but that’s not much help if he is left with too much work to do during the race. Only his good start helped him to his finishing position: imagine what he could do if he qualified in the top ten.

Marc Marquez has had surgery on his right arm for the fourth time and the doctors proclaimed the procedure a success but that doesn’t answer when Marquez will be back to racing. If the last two years have taught him anything, it is to not rush rehabilitation. If he wants his career to continue into 2023, the best thing he can do is to do nothing before he is fully fit and ready. No Marquez on the grid is a huge loss but let’s rather have a fully fit and dangerous Marquez than a shadow of his former self.

It’s ironic that the next race is the Sachsenring which has been the sole preserve of Marquez for so many years. 2022 will finally see a different rider on the top step after eleven years of Marquez’s domination at the circuit. In current form, it is difficult to see anyone other than Quartararo picking up the mantle.

Postscript: as we were going to press with this article, the confirmation came through that Jack Miller has signed a two year deal with the factory KTM team to ride alongside Brad Binder in 2023 and 2024. No news on where Miguel Oliveira will ride, but a move to either LCR Honda or taking the place of factory Ducati-bound Enea Bastianini at Gresini Ducati are the most likely options.

What is it about the Italians? They make cars and motorcycles that look as though they’re going 100mph when they are standing still, as well as being fast when it matters. Another thing they are rather good at is making race tracks that not only look fast but are, in reality, bloody fast as well.

It gets rather boring when people go on and on about the speeds down the main straight at Mugello. Yes, it’s fast; the fastest on the calendar, but look at the rest of the track. Get over the obsession with top speed and look at average speed: look at the on-board footage: look at the helicopter footage: it just looks insanely fast. It’s one of the few tracks where you watch and hold up your hands and honestly say: there is no way I could do that!

I’m not saying I could do it at any other track, either, but Mugello is so fast and flowing and obviously requires balls the size of steel footballs. It’s poetry in motion and the distillation of everything that’s great about MotoGP.

For so many years, Mugello was synonymous with a certain V. Rossi: nine victories including seven in a row from 2002 to 2008 – no one else got a look in. Even now, in 2022, with the Doctor no longer racing, he made his mark via the VR46 Mooney team and riders Bezzecchi and Marini. While it was clear that Ducati would be front runners, given their top speed advantage, I’m sure there weren’t many who had either of the VR46 riders up at the sharp end. And yet, there they were second and third on the grid, with another satellite Ducati – the Gresini bike of DiGiannantonio on pole. Not only that, but Bezzecchi led the race for a few laps at the start, before finally fading to fifth at the finish. Not bad for a new team and rookie rider, continuing the Rossi/Mugello love affair.

Ducatis took the first five places on the grid and six places in the top ten, which will have made the other manufacturers blink! One factory Honda, one factory Aprilia and one factory Yamaha, plus one LCR Honda in the top ten on the grid didn’t bode well for the non-Ducati contingent.

Brad Binder also shone in qualifying. Taking a gamble on slicks when the rest of the field was on wets, he looked to have timed it perfectly as he set a time three seconds faster than anyone else in Q1. Had it rained right then, he would be through to Q2 but other riders had time to get laps in on slicks and Binder ended up 16th on the grid, having hit a wall in terms of lap times.

He then produced one of the rides of the season as he made up seven places at the beginning, eventually finishing the race in seventh after Bastianini’s late-race crash. That was impressive but not as impressive as his lap times late in the race, which were as good as anyone’s. That was much more than the KTM was worth so the performance came from within himself and yet again, we were left to wonder how he would have faired in the race had he been able to qualify better.

With the news that the RNF Yamaha team would be switching to Aprilia machinery for 2023, Darryn Binder’s place at the MotoGP table is looking shaky, even if no decision on riders has been made as yet. A move back to Moto2 could be on the cards but he did his MotoGP prospects no harm at all by being the second Yamaha home, albeit in 16th. The important thing to note, however, is that he was ahead of factory Yamaha rider Franco Morbidelli, while Andrea Dovizioso continues to play the role of loneliest man in the pit lane as he struggles to get anywhere on the Yamaha. Will we see him on the grid next year? Right now, it seems doubtful: if he has no chance of doing well, then he has no motivation and it’s easy to see his point.

As it was, Fabio Quartararo once again showed his skill by dragging the Yamaha up into second in the race and, while he didn’t really look as if he could challenge Bagnaia at the front, neither did he let the Ducati man off the hook for one second. Bagnaia is getting used to soaking up pressure from Quartararo and, it has to be said, does it extremely well. Yes, he crashed out at Le Mans while fighting for the lead (not due to pressure from Quartararo) but, at that point, the only pressure was from within himself. Against the top speed of the Ducati at Mugello, even the sweeter-handling Yamaha couldn’t make an impression and the second half of the race was a little processional, if not without tension.

As usual, the biggest stories from the weekend came from off the track. We are right in the middle of the silly season, where riders jockey for position in 2023. We’ve spoken about this often before but there is always something new to report on.

The strongest rumour that circulated at Mugello was the possibility of Jack Miller taking Miguel Oliveira’s seat at KTM, alongside Brad Binder. Not sure that anyone saw that coming. If not on the factory Ducati, everyone assumed Miller would be demoted to one of the satellite Ducatis, which Miller himself said he would be happy about as long as he was still on the grid, doing what he loves best.

But the potential KTM move is a real curveball. Is it Miller clutching at straws? Let’s face it, the Ducatis, whether factory or satellite, are looking insanely strong this year and it would be a brave man who turned his back on the manufacturer. Mind you, the KTM ride would be a factory ride and that is what all riders value over anything else. Whether the bike is capable of winning or challenging for the win consistently is another matter. Brad might have a long-term contract but surely even his patience will wear thin as he squanders away his best years on a bike that, at best, is inconsistent.

Just like Quartararo, however, Binder is out-performing his machine this year, something that will not be going unnoticed in the paddock, but will there be any space for him in another team after his KTM contract runs out at the end of 2024?

The fact that Miller is connected with KTM means that Oliveira’s situation is tenuous, despite being the most recent winner for the Austrian manufacturer. He has allegedly been offered a contract for 2023 but that seat might be at Tech3, which is running the satellite KTM RC16s. Oliveira has indicated that he’s not interested in that but where else he might go is not clear yet. The fact that he could move to Tech3 means that either Gardner or Fernandez could be out of a ride in 2023.

Also being suggested for the second factory KTM seat are Alex Rins and Pol Espargaro, who have no seat and potentially no seat respectively for 2023. Of the two Suzuki riders, Mir is strongly rumoured to go to Repsol Honda, while Rins is still unconfirmed. What a position for KTM to be in, with three top riders available. How would you choose?

Aprilia nailed its colours to the mast before the weekend by announcing no rider change for 2023, so that issue is settled. Yamaha would be mad to lose Quartararo, even if there was anywhere else for him to go, and Morbidelli is under contract for 2023, but will they honour that contract in the face of dire performances in 2022, admittedly not all his fault? With RNF changing to Aprilia for 2023, there is no satellite team for Yamaha to move Morbidelli sideways to, so, were he to lose his seat, where could he go?

Then, when all the dust of qualifying had settled, Marc Marquez dropped the bombshell that he is taking time out of racing to have a fourth operation on his right arm to once and for all attempt to sort out the problems caused by his 2020 Jerez crash from which he is still suffering.

How long he will be absent for is anyone’s guess. Not even the surgeons who will perform the operation in the U.S. can give any indication when he will be able to return.

Of course, the big question is, will he return? Or, more accurately, will he be able to return? Love him or hate him, a fit and strong Marquez is incredible to watch and to have him fighting at the front alongside Quartararo, Bagnaia and A.Espargaro would be something to witness. For his career to fizzle out like this would not be the way he would want it to end but would also rob us of more opportunities to watch the pre-eminent rider of the 2010s.

Of course, every career has to come to an end but you want it to be on the rider’s terms, not through outside influences. It was a measure of how the other riders felt that all of them shook his hand on the cooling down lap and Quartararo especially tweeted his support for the Spaniard. You are only as good as the riders you beat and, whilst once it was Rossi who had the target on his back, for a long time now it has been Marquez. No rider wants to miss the chance to beat him fair and square in a head-to-head fight before he hangs up his leathers. Let’s hope the surgery goes well.

Having started by saying we should ignore the top speed headlines at Mugello in favour of looking at the whole lap, it is hard to avoid the fact that a new top speed record was set at the Italian GP.

Jorge Martin (on a Ducati, obviously…!) was clocked at a frankly mind-boggling 226.2mph (363.8km/h) on the pit straight. Yes, he benefitted from being in the slipstream of another rider but, still! Balls of steel, remember?

Pressure. The last two races have been all about pressure, in every sense of the word: pressure to retain your seat, pressure in the races and tyre pressure.

If there was a talking point after Jerez that wasn’t about Suzuki leaving the sport, then it was tyre pressures! A post-race document revealed that Bagnaia had run the whole race with a front tyre that was below the pressure stipulated in the rules – 1.9bar. With the properties of the Michelin front tyre, riders like to start with it too soft so that, when up to working temperature – especially if following another rider – it is not too hard.

Bagnaia running at the front in clean air thus caused his tyre to remain too soft for the whole race. He wasn’t the only one but, as the winner, he was more exposed than the rest who were undoubtedly also doing the same thing.

This brought miles of print from the media, although the riders themselves accepted that it had to happen because of the Michelin front tyre situation – basically, it doesn’t work! – and were pretty unfazed by the whole hoo-ha. After all, it is they who are putting their lives on the line riding the bikes so who are we to say what they should or shouldn’t do if it is within the rules….more or less. Things will be tightened up for 2023 but, for now, it’s a free-for-all.

The other pressure that is mounting, is the pressure to either retain – or find – a seat for 2023. With only four riders with contracts for 2023 – Brad Binder, Marquez, Bagnaia and Morbidelli – that is a lot of seats up for grabs, even if some riders are almost guaranteed to retain the seats they occupy in 2022. But the departure of Suzuki has really set the cat among the pigeons with the availability of two race- and championship-winning riders suddenly available. Imagine Yamaha or Honda leaving and suddenly you’ve got Marc Marquez or Fabio Quartararo available.

Of course, it is increasingly likely that the two grid slots left by Suzuki will be filled one way or another but the new team is hardly likely to be in the same league as Suzuki – a factory effort. At best, it will have current-year models, most likely from Aprilia or KTM and, while that might seem like a good idea, recent seasons have taught us that this year’s model isn’t necessarily the one to have! How many races has Gresini won on last year’s Ducati GP21? Now, how many races have the factory GP22 won? Exactly. Wasn’t it the same with the Tech3 Yamaha of a certain M. Quartararo in 2020?

There are a few riders who are likely to not be with the current team in 2023. Jack Miller is the most high-profile, Bastianini laying solid claim to the second factory Ducati on this year’s form to date. Jorge Martin was seen as a contender for that seat but five crashes out of seven races are not doing his prospects any good. It’s just unfortunate that the crash in Le Mans was not his fault – a problem with the nerves in his right hand are giving him no feeling whatsoever and when you’re trying to control 300+bhp with throttle and brake, you kind of need a bit of feeling.

Pol Espargaro’s seat at Repsol Honda is under threat from Joan Mir, even though all parties deny that anything has been signed. But why wouldn’t Honda want Mir, even if there aren’t too many in the paddock who can’t quite see how two world champions in the same team would work, especially when one of those world champions is Marc Marquez?

Franco Morbidelli might have a contract for 2023 but his recent dire form is not doing his prospects of that contract being honoured any good, especially with the likes of Alex Rins and – potentially – Pol Espargaro becoming available. Morbidelli could be moved sideways to the RNF Racing team, along with a chunk more factory support for the satellite team. Of course, that would mean sacking either Darryn Binder or Andrea Dovizioso: no-one said racing was fair!

You could think that Maverick Viñales isn’t terribly safe at Aprilia if you look solely at his results. But would any other rider be able to do any better? In Viñales, Aprilia have a seasoned race winner, so why would they want to change him for another – Rins or Mir – when there is no guarantee the RS-GP will be any more suited to them, and lose a year’s development with Viñales.

Racing riders or drivers always say that to perform well, your head has to be clear of any worries so you can concentrate fully on the job at hand. Worrying whether you have a seat next season surely has to weigh heavily on your mind and you can’t help but be distracted no matter how professional you are.

The third type of pressure was on the race track. Last time out in Jerez, Pecco Bagnaia soaked up enormous pressure from Fabio Quartararo and, despite knowing about the Yamaha’s front tyre temperature issues when following another bike, he couldn’t relax for a tenth of a second if he wasn’t to make a mistake and open the door for the grateful Frenchman.

In Le Mans, Bagnaia again soaked up pressure from first Miller, then Bastianini but this time, he cracked, although not before he had resisted the attack of Bastianini over the course of one frenetic lap. Down and out he went at the last turn and Bastianini was away, 2.7s to the good at the flag, Jack Miller second and Espargaro A. in third. He, too, had soaked up all the pressure Quartararo had put him under for the majority of the race but Espargaro hadn’t cracked and took his third consecutive podium, his fourth overall this year. Isn’t that just brilliant?

Alongside pressure in all its manifestations, the other talking point at le Mans was still the inability of one bike to follow another closely without it leading to disaster. Alex Rins gave a graphic demonstration of this while following Bagnaia into the blisteringly fast turn one.

“I braked at the exact same point as the lap before but in his slipstream,” said Rins. The slipstream meant he was travelling faster and the vacuum in which he was riding thanks to Bagnaia’s aero meant that his front brake just wasn’t as effective as it would have been if he had full airflow over his front wing.

He went through the gravel trap at 125mph – just as Zarco had done the day before – but Rins wasn’t so lucky, the bike kicking slightly sideways as he left the gravel and re-joined the track and that was it: he was down and out, thankfully without affecting anyone else’s race.

With this victory, Bastianini not only puts himself in pole position to take the second factory Ducati seat but the championship itself. Many commentators still cite Quartararo as being the title favourite, but he himself doesn’t see it that way:

“Enea is the only guy who’s won more than one race and he’s won three, so he’s the man right now,” said Quartararo. “He’s had some difficulties at some tracks but he’s consistent and when he has the pace he’s really fast, so I’m not the favourite by far.

“I don’t know what I can do, because I’m pushing myself to the limit, I’m on the limit everywhere. Even when I’m one centimetre behind these guys they accelerate and I lose one-tenth and to recover one-tenth you need to take a lot of risks. That’s why I don’t feel favourite.

“The only thing I can do is make no mistakes. If I make no mistakes I can be there, because almost every track we go to we are fast. I was fastest here on pace, but as soon as you make a small mistake you are gone.”

The change in Quartararo in recent months has been remarkable. He is managing to remain calm in spite of the problems with the Yamaha and this is translating itself to making the Yamaha perform as it should: that’s not coming from the bike – just look at Morbidelli and Dovizioso – but from himself and that is impressive. He knows the M1 won’t be good at every track so he is simply waiting for the odds to turn in his favour and not getting angry when they are turned against him. As Joan Mir showed in 2020, consistency is the key to winning a championship and, as long as Quartararo keeps racking up the points, he has to be seen as the title favourite, no matter what he says.

Mat Oxley, writing in Motorsport magazine, came up with the following statistic: within the top seven runners in the Jerez MotoGP race, there were only four overtaking manoeuvres between lap two and lap 25 – the last lap of the race. If it hadn’t been for Marc Marquez, there wouldn’t have been any at all! First, he got past Miller. Then he ran wide at the last turn and let Espargaro, who at that point muscled his way past Miller, to overtake into third. Then Marquez once again got past Miller. That was your lot.

Now, it’s not necessarily time to start panicking just yet – the other races so far this year have produced plenty of overtaking from top to tail of the field but it is a reality that increasing reliance on aerodynamic aids is harming MotoGP just as it has Formula one for so many years.

Jerez wasn’t a particularly boring race – the tension produced by Bagnaia holding off Quartararo for the whole race, plus the battle for third between Miller, Marquez and Espargaro A. kept things interesting. But if on-track action is one of the reasons you watch MotoGP, then you would have been sorely disappointed.

In the past decade or so, MotoGP rights holder Dorna has done a brilliant job of levelling up the playing field, reducing the deficit from the top teams to the bottom teams and making racing closer than ever before with the introduction of spec-ECUs, one tyre-for-all and engine design limitations. So far, so good. But the reality is that the new reliance on aerodynamic downforce is making a mockery of Dorna’s progress. It’s because we’ve had such close racing and brilliant on-track battles, with places being swapped dozens of times per race, that we are noticing that things are sliding back into a procession.

“It’s even more difficult to overtake now in MotoGP with the aerodynamics, the rear devices and all these things,” said Marc Marquez. “Normally, in the race, you take the position and you stay there.”

It feels like we’re going back to the late 2010s, when the likes of Casey Stoner bemoaned advanced traction control and other electronics, which meant that any monkey could ride a MotoGP machine and rider input meant less and less and the races, by and large, were boring.

Spec-ECUs put paid to all that but, as always, the engineers are getting their heads around that and perfecting the art of what they can adjust in the software to their advantage: the playing field isn’t as level as some would like. Yamaha in particular suffered in the early years of the spec-ECU because they, unlike other teams, refused to poach engineers from Magnet-Marelli, who designed the software, preferring to use their own electronics experts. Only once Yamaha relented and did a bit of poaching themselves, did they get a handle on things.

And then there is the issue of aerodynamics. Ducati first introduced front winglets to counter the tendency of the front wheel to lift on the exit of corners and provide more stability under braking. As expected, every other team adopted the technology and, with that wholesale use, came increasingly effective winglets, so much so that now we are in a position whereby it is difficult for one bike to follow another. Actually, let me put that another way: the rider behind can follow but, because of the reduced effectiveness of his wings, he doesn’t have the stability in the braking zone to make a pass. The leading bike’s wings create a vacuum in which the following bike is riding which means less air resistance to help with braking and no downforce on the front tyre to help it grip under heavy braking conditions.

You could argue that the bikes used to stop perfectly well without the winglets and yes, you’re right, but if the guy in front has got clean air flowing over his wings to give maximum efficiency, then the simple truth is that your own performance in the braking area is going to suffer, wings or not.

Another problem is the front Michelin’s tendency to overheat when following close behind another bike. Yamaha in particular suffers from this problem: unless Quartararo can lead from the front, he finds it impossible to keep his front tyre cool and loses any performance advantage he might normally have. When the tyre gets too hot, the tyre pressure increases due to that heat, the profile of the tyre changes and this negatively changes the grip qualities.

And this is exactly what happened in Jerez. Despite his best efforts, Quartararo was unable to get by Bagnaia at the start and was fated to spend the rest of the race in his wheel tracks, not being helped by a front tyre that felt like, in his words, ‘chewing gum.’

Dorna and MotoGP have the opportunity to do exactly what Formula One’s bosses didn’t do: nip the downforce thing in the bud early on, perhaps with spec-winglets that are the proper compromise between downforce and reduced wash behind the bike.

Or they could simply ban winglets altogether and get back to where we once were: enjoying close racing with overtaking. It’s not rocket science.

Farewell Suzuki

It seems ironic that, having won the World Championship in 2020 and, this year, being stronger than ever in terms of adding straight-line speed to its already impressive chassis behaviour in corners and tyre preservation, Suzuki is pulling the plug on its MotoGP participation.

Suzuki last left MotoGP at the end of the 2011 season, citing the global economic downturn as the main reason. However, at that time it was for a finite period, the company stating that it was merely a hiatus and not a permanent departure, which left the door open for its return in 2015. Without an official statement from Suzuki, it is impossible to know what its intentions are this time but perhaps the change to non-fossil fuels (40% of fuel used must be non-fossil based by 2024 and 100% by 2027) would be a target for resumption of racing activities, if one is planned at all.

However, continuous development in MotoGP is the key to success and it is doubtful that Suzuki would welcome another two- or three-year (or longer) path back to competitiveness should they return in, say, 2026 or 2027.

What is behind the withdrawal this time? At the time of writing, nothing official has come from Suzuki. Certainly, the global pandemic can’t have helped: spending millions on a race programme in the face of difficult market conditions is enough to make any board or directors look with renewed clarity at expenditure outside the core business of selling motorcycles.

It’s not even as if the company can cite a paucity of results as the reason. Mir’s championship defence wasn’t as robust in 2021 as the company would have hoped but so far, this year, both riders – Mir and Rins – have been fighting at the sharp end of the field and currently sit fourth (Rins) and sixth (Mir) in the points table.

What the withdrawal does do, of course, is not only remove two available seats but also adds to out-of-work riders to the silly season. There is a possibility that Suzuki might be forced to field a team, having signed a commitment of participation through to 2026, running under the banner of a satellite team, as Kawasaki was forced to do when it withdrew in 2008 before the end of its contract.

With Aprilia improving to fight for race wins, we have at the moment the mouthwatering prospect of six manufacturers all capable of winning, not something that has always been the case. There is a chance that Aprilia might be persuaded to enter two more machines run under a satellite team’s banner but that remains to be seen.

But it can’t be denied that motorsport is a massively expensive exercise and Suzuki might simply feel that the money could be better spent elsewhere. It would be a sad moment for MotoGP but it has survived such upheavals many times before and, like the retirement of a favourite rider, the paddock will march on with nary a backward glance and continue as if nothing has changed.

Dorna, predictably, has weighed in and reminded Suzuki of its previous commitment to MotoGP and that it can’t decide to take its ball home without consulting the referee:

“Following recent rumours of Suzuki departing MotoGP at the end of 2022, Dorna Sports has officially contacted the factory in order to remind them that the conditions of their contract to race in MotoGP do not allow for them to take this decision unilaterally.

“However, should Suzuki depart following an agreement between both parties, Dorna will decide on the ideal number of riders and teams racing in the MotoGP class from 2023.

“Dorna continues to receive high levels of interest from a number of both official factories and Independent Teams looking to join the MotoGP grid as the sport continues to set a global example of close competition, innovation and entertainment, reaching hundreds of millions of fans around the world.

“Interest from these parties has been re-confirmed in the past 24 hours.”

Dorna could force Suzuki to stay by making any contract-breaking penalty so harsh that it would be cheaper to stay but that is unlikely; it would be like forcing a rider who had lost interest to carry on – you just wouldn’t get the performance out of them. Suzuki tooling around at the back of the field just to honour legal commitments would do neither them nor the sport any good.

Another consequence of Suzuki withdrawing is that, for the first time in nearly half a century, there are more European manufacturers than Japanese in MotoGP. The last time that happened was in 1971, when the grid included BMW, Bultaco, Ducati, Matchless, MV Agusta, Norton and Paton 500s. Not all of those were race-winning machines, however, which just goes to show the healthy state of MotoGP racing in the 2020s, where every bike on the grid is a potential race-winner.

So, what are the possible outcomes? There are three likely scenarios. Firstly, a new team could step in to fill the void left by Suzuki, running another manufacturer’s bikes: in effect, a satellite team.

Secondly, recently appointed team manager Livio Suppo could do a Ross Brawn (of Formula 1 fame) and ‘buy’ the team from Suzuki, continuing to run the bikes but under a new name, with financial support from Suzuki.

The third option is similar to number two but Suzuki supplies bikes to a team to run for them, in much the same way that Gresini ran the official Aprilia works team up to the end of last year.

First, there is a championship left to run and it will be interesting to see if Suzuki keeps up the challenge to the end.

As I believe I might have mentioned already this season, the only thing that is predictable is the unpredictability. Just four races into the season and we were writing off the Japanese challenge as all washed up, Yamaha more than the others. And yet, here we are after the fifth race not only with a Japanese manufacturer winning, but Yamaha being that manufacturer. And it wasn’t a victory; it was a whitewash, a demolition job that was as devastating as the previous races had been disastrous.

It wasn’t all Yamaha, either. Joan Mir converted second place on the grid to lead into the first corner and continued to race at the sharp end until skittled out late in the race by an over-ambitious Jack Miller heading into turn one. At the other end of the grid, Alex Rins might have had a dreadful qualifying, starting 19th but his progress through the field in the opening laps was nothing short of sensational. By the end of lap one, he had made up 10 places! What were the other riders doing or maybe the question should be, what did Rins have for breakfast? He ended the race a miraculous fifth. Without Quartararo’s domination at the front, this would have been the ride of the day.

But Quartararo was there and finished the race a ridiculous 5.5 seconds ahead of Zarco. Espargaro brought the Aprilia home third, helped by Miller and Mir exiting stage left.

It was a strange race for the Ducatis. Miller was on for a podium finish until the crash, while Zarco delivered on his qualifying promise. Bagnaia had had a bruising start to the weekend with two major crashes which forced him to start from the back of the grid but, in a race mirroring that of Rins, pulled it back to finish eighth. Jorge Martin crashed out and championship leader – heading into this round – Bastianini also crashed out. So did Di Giannantonio on the second Gresini Ducati.

So much for safety in numbers for Ducati, with four out of the eight machines failing to finish. The only solace is that none of them retired through mechanical gremlins, just rider gremlins. But, well, a gremlin is a gremlin.

But what to make of Quartararo? Seemingly with one foot out of the door from Yamaha after the first four rounds, this was a demonstration of how to go from zero to hero in one fell swoop. So much so that Quartararo now has a joint lead of the championship with Alex Rins! But from which hat did Yamaha pull that performance out of?

Truth be told, Quartararo didn’t pull the victory from the Yamaha but from within himself and it is that ability that sets the champions apart from the also-rans; that ability to keep on fighting, keep on racking up the points and concentrate only on the things that you can have influence over and forget the things that are out of your control.

Remarkably, this was Quartararo’s first victory since Silverstone last August and followed a ninth, eighth and seventh in three of the four rounds of 2022, not to mention a second in rain-lashed Indonesia, where the results were certainly skewed by the conditions.

What has been impressive about Quartararo in 2022 is his demeanour. As reigning world champion, he would have been forgiven for getting a bit miffed and having a choice word or two to say about his team. But he didn’t. He kept his own counsel and his head down and concentrated on finding whatever positives he could with his 2022 Yamaha M1. The team knew that the opening rounds were at circuits that wouldn’t necessarily suit the M1 and bided their time, waiting for just such a result as we got on Sunday.

“As soon as I was second at the third corner, I knew I was going to win,” he said. Quartararo and the Yamaha are famously almost unbeatable if they can get to the front and ride how they want to ride. Hasn’t it often been the case with Yamaha, Valentino Rossi aside? Wasn’t that Jorge Lorenzo’s M.O.? If the Yamaha can use its cornering without being hampered by faster-on-the-straight Ducatis, then it’s a bike that’s hard to beat.

“Qatar was tough, because last year we won there and this year we finished ninth and then we finished seventh in Austin, where last year we were second. When you win the championship you want to fight again for the championship, so those results were tough to accept.

“Before the race in Austin, it was tough to know that you won’t fight for victory. I started the race and said, look, whatever the position I’ll give my 100% and this is what I did and finished seventh. I knew I was riding well and I’ve always said I will fight all the time, whether it’s for P1, P5 or P10. In 2019 and 2020, when I was going down [through the order] I really went down. Last year and this, when I go down I always try to fight back for P7, P8 or P9, like it’s for the podium. This is the massive change I made.”

Two factors helped Quartararo in Portimao. The first was a good qualifying position, enabling him to avoid getting mired down in the middle of the pack. The second was the Portimao layout, with plenty of fast, sweeping corners which suit the Yamaha. That long downhill right-hander leading onto the pit straight allowed the Yamaha to play to its strength of good corner speed and negate the lack of top speed on the pit straight. Compare that to Austin where the pit straight is preceded by a first gear, sharp left, which does not play into the Yamaha’s hands at all. The Yamaha still lacks top speed, let’s not forget, so the ability to carry more speed onto any straight than its rivals will be to its advantage.

It wasn’t all happy in the Yamaha camp. The next Yamaha finisher was Andrea Dovizioso down in 11th, 29 seconds back which equates to more than a second a lap slower. Morbidelli continues to underwhelm and finished in 13th, 33 seconds back and Darryn Binder was the last Yamaha in 17th.

All this makes it imperative that Yamaha keeps hold of Quartararo into 2023, even though the chequebooks are being flashed in his face from every other manufacturer. He is the catch of the moment and Yamaha will need to pull up its socks in the top speed stakes if they are to have any chance of retaining his services in 2023 and beyond. Of all the riders, Quartararo seems to be the least loyal in terms of for whom he rides and will go wherever he feels the best chance of success is. Right now, however, that looks to be Yamaha although it would be a mistake to take one race and predict the rest of the season. You can bet that, after the beginning of 2022, no-one at Yamaha is counting their chickens just because they won one race.

Next time out, the circus travels to Spain and the Jerez circuit which has a similar set of sweeping corners to Portimao so could again be a happy hunting ground for Quartararo. But there are other circuits on the calendar which could see Yamaha struggling, especially those with tight corners that don’t play into the Yamaha’s fast corner speed trump card. If he qualifies in the middle of the pack, Quartararo will suffer with his lack of power out of corners and on the straights, not to mention the front tyre overheating problems the Yamaha suffers from when running behind other riders.

“It’s true that when we have to make v-shaped corners, we are lost because we can’t use our corner speed,” he said. “As soon as we get overtaken, we are lost. The bike works well but as soon as we are with other riders, we aren’t in good shape. But I will never give up.”

The other revelation of Portimao was Alex Rins. Had he not destroyed his front tyre with so many blitzkrieg overtaking manoeuvres, he might well have fought for the podium. This year we are seeing a whole new Rins. In 2021 he seemed completely out of sorts, crashing more often than he finished. After finishing third in the championship in 2020, he only managed to finish 13th in 2021. This year so far, he has a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth and a seventh. Talk about mercurial!

“What’s good is my faith, my strength to be there,” he said. “Not many people around me were believing in me but I was believing.

“This year I have more control over myself. At the end of last year, I was really in the shit. We did a good job during the winter with my trainer and my mental coach.”

What has also helped has to be the Suzuki’s newfound straight-line speed to go with its sweet-handling chassis. It’s no good being fast in the corners if your advantage is squandered by being slow on the straights. More speed enables you to take fewer risks in the corners to keep hold of your advantage.

“Thanks to the evolution of the engine, we are able to ride and feel the bike a bit more. Before we were losing a lot on the straights and recovering time on the brakes and with corner speed,” Rins said.

Passing ten riders on the first lap is just incredible, so deep is the talent even at the back of the grid. If Rins’ performance – and that of teammate Mir – was helped by the increased power output of the inline-four Suzuki engine, some of the increase in straight-line speed is down to the less draggy aerodynamic wings Suzuki uses at the front. Less drag means better top speed but it also equates to less downforce which means more wheelies accelerating out of corners, which means more electronics chiming in to keep the front wheel down which harms acceleration!

That’s the sort of conundrum that keeps engineers awake at night!