Broken wrist, bruised head, stomach illness – the 2022 crop of MotoGP rookies have had an eventful pre-season even by the usual standards of such an affair.
And while their first collective appearance as MotoGP riders at Jerez last year seemed to point to two frontrunners, early-2022 tests at Sepang and Mandalika have painted the picture of what is likely to be at least a three-way contest for rookie of the year honours.
Here’s how the newcomers fared in Southeast Asia.
#25 RAUL FERNANDEZ, TECH3 KTM
Sepang: 19th, 1m59.180s, 243 laps
Mandalika: 22nd, 1m32.401s, 116 laps
The big story of Raul Fernandez’s pre-season has been the hit to the head he took midway through the Mandalika test, which scuppered his final day of running and left him with substantial bruising. But there’s little reason to believe he won’t be back to full race fitness come Qatar.
Fernandez says the loss of the final day meant he didn’t really get a push lap in at Mandalika but believes that he “compared more or less with the factory bikes” in his running before that. That might be a bit of a stretch, but he certainly wasn’t too far off – which should have both Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira looking nervously over their shoulders in a few races’ time.
The bigger question is whether the RC16 will be good enough to consistently beat the year-old Desmosedicis equipping Fernandez’s main rookie rivals. You’d expect the balance of power to tip towards him over the season as it develops while the GP21s stand still, and it’s also tempting to believe that his ceiling is just a bit higher.
“I’m very ready, we did a nice job,” Fernandez said. “I remember last season [in Moto2] we did just five days of pre-season, and in the first race I ended up in fifth place.
“This season we did more than five. We don’t need too much.”
#40 DARRYN BINDER, RNF YAMAHA
Sepang: 25th, 1m59.857s, 241 laps
Mandalika: 24th, 1m33.049s, 173 laps
Will three MotoGP tests coming out of Moto3 be enough for Darryn Binder to mix it with the rest of the pack come Qatar?
“It’s quite difficult to say,” he said when asked that question by The Race. “I feel like I’m going to be there, in amongst them, at the beginning of the season when we get to Qatar, but really we’ll only know when we get there; time will tell.
“I think we’re going to have to just take it as it comes in Qatar, and hope that I’m amongst other guys – and if I’m not then obviously I’m just going to have to keep working until I get there. Because it’s been a big step, it’s been a big challenge – and it’s been really good, all these test days, but it’s never enough.”
The good news is that the worst-case scenario of Binder completely floundering and being uncompetitive in MotoGP definitely looks to have been averted. In Mandalika in particular compared to Sepang, he posted a much-improved bulk of laptimes, made to look worse by a lack of a final-day attack prompted by a plan-disrupting shunt the day prior.
But it’s also clear he’s not on terms with the rest of the rookies yet, and that his steeper learning curve is being reflected on the timesheets.
#49 FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO, GRESINI DUCATI
Sepang: 20th, 1m59.197s, 119 laps
Mandalika: 21st, 1m31.915s, 147 laps
In terms of laptimes, Fabio Di Giannantonio looked on the back foot all through the two-day Sepang test, which can almost certainly be attributed to him losing two days of the preceding shakedown to gastroenteritis.
But the Italian – something of a surprise standout in last year’s Jerez sessions – looked really good again on more even footing in Mandalika, producing a “quite constant” race simulation and earning a shoutout from reigning champion Fabio Quartararo.
“I’m happy about my situation at the moment, my level at the moment – I need to improve a lot of things, but we have time, we have plenty of races, also plenty of tests during the year,” said Di Giannantonio.
“So, we have time, just have to be calm, relaxed, patient, and make the learning process go its own way.”
Any spotty Moto2 record-based concerns over his premier-class readiness look a distant memory.
#72 MARCO BEZZECCHI, VR46 DUCATI
Sepang: 16th, 1m58.710s, 255 laps
Mandalika: 20th, 1m31.901s, 168 laps
The fourth Valentino Rossi protege to make it to MotoGP, Marco Bezzecchi looked slightly at sea in the Jerez tests last year but produced a much more convincing body of work through Sepang and Mandalika that has significantly raised his chances of being the rookie of the year.
He was the quickest newcomer at both the Asian venues, and at Sepang in particular had a lot of margin over the others – albeit with the obvious caveat of Di Giannantonio being compromised by illness.
“Physically I feel better than I expected. I’m happy for this because I was a bit worried in the beginning, before coming to Malaysia,” said Bezzecchi, intimating that Jerez had been quite a chastening experience.
But while there was a fair amount of pace drop-off in his race simulation on the final day at Mandalika, it looked pretty comparable to what was going on at Di Giannantonio’s end, which suggests Bezzecchi is in a decent enough spot.
#87 REMY GARDNER, TECH3 KTM
Sepang: 23rd, 1m59.348s, 210 laps
Mandalika: 23rd, 1m32.598s, 175 laps
Remy Gardner’s injury during motocross training had truly rough timing, effectively putting an asterisk next to most of the Australian’s on-track MotoGP preparations before the start of the season. And that’s before you remember he was riding with a pair of cracked ribs at Jerez.
Gardner ended testing “shattered, tired, destroyed”, and the laptimes at Sepang and Mandalika – coupled with how credible he was at Jerez – strongly suggest he’s not had the chance to push the RC16 as hard as he would’ve wanted to.
“It’s not been great, to be honest,” Gardner summed up. “It’s been tough. The wrist has been really sore, and every day it just gets worse and worse, and everyone’s thinking, you know, we’ve got to get faster every day.”
He’s also not completely at ease with the KTM yet, but how could he be? It’s never really had the reputation as the easiest bike for even fully-fit riders.
“I need to understand the bike a bit more,” he said. “Still some work to be done with the bike, but the other guys are a little bit in front, so until we can be there, can’t complain too much.”
For a closer look at how the rookies fared in testing, in addition to the fastest laps, we’ve taken the average of their top 10 fastest laps at each track, as well as the top 30 percent of eligible laps to account for mileage.
In the case of Sepang, the eligible laps didn’t include the shakedown or the rained out conclusion to the test, while for Mandalika the whole of the first day was discounted due to the condition of the track.
Sepang data
| Rider | FL gap | Top 10 average | 30% average |
| Marco Bezzecchi | Quickest | 1m32.834s | 1m33.194s |
| Raul Fernandez | 0.470s | 1m33.190s | 1m33.210s |
| Fabio Di Giannantonio | 0.487s | 1m32.805s | 1m33.188s |
| Remy Gardner | 0.638s | 1m33.054s | 1m33.377s |
| Darryn Binder | 1.147s | 1m33.373s | 1m33.807s |
Mandalika data
| Rider | FL gap | Top 10 average | 30% average |
| Marco Bezzecchi | Quickest | 1m59.380s | 1m59.578s |
| Fabio Di Giannantonio | 0.014s | 2m00.009s | 2m00.193s |
| Raul Fernandez | 0.500s | 1m59.612s | 1m59.931s |
| Remy Gardner | 0.695s | 2m00.053s | 2m00.276s |
| Darryn Binder | 1.148s | 2m00.558s | 2m00.764s |
Bezzecchi was head and shoulders above the chasing pack on one-lap pace at Sepang, before Di Giannantonio reeled him in at Mandalika. Chances are Fernandez won’t have been far off either had he got to throw on a new tyre and let it rip on the final day, but equally there’s strong reason to believe the GP21 is still a better bike for qualifying than the current KTM, and that Bezzecchi and Di Giannantonio will trouble Q2 before Fernandez does.
Referring back to what Quartararo thought of the Ducati rookies, you have to imagine it’s a concern shared by much of the grid. He referenced the Desmosedici fleet of 2021 as “eight of the fastest bike ever”, and it’s clear he expects the newcomers to also be a factor sooner rather than later.
But while the injury-ridden Gardner and the ‘has-come-far-but-needs-to-come-further’ younger Binder are clearly adrift right now, there is a lot to like about how Fernandez has looked in the premier class so far.
If you’re expecting a big progress curve across the board for the quintet in 2022, Fernandez is probably the one to watch, as a rider with outrageous potential. If you’re looking at the high points, nobody has looked as good anywhere as Bezzecchi has at Sepang. And if you value consistency across a series of conditions, Di Giannantonio has looked very hooked up.
All of it points to one sumptuous battle.
