MotoGP riders, like many of their motorsport peers, tend to keep their cards close to their chests when coming into a race weekend. Why be up front about your expectations when Friday risks immediately proving you wrong?
But there was still enough from the media day ahead of the Qatar Grand Prix - from Jorge Martin's return to a couple of curious Marc Marquez admissions - to give us a good read of what's at stake at Lusail beyond the usual haul of up to 37 points.
Quartararo's (familiar) decision
Jack Miller's lively start to 2025 aside, the pre-season optimism seems to have completely washed away from Yamaha - which is back in a holding pattern now as it awaits more fundamental changes to its M1 (and, of course, the debut of the V4 engine that could replace its inline-four).
Its star rider Fabio Quartararo has looked somewhat constrained this season so far, and admitted coming into Qatar that he feels he's sacrificing performance for increasingly menial and minor development work.
"We are trying to find the grip by always changing the set-up of the bike. But we've already changed it 20 times," he lamented. "We know we will not find the performance really by changing it.
"At the end, we always want to compare, on different tracks - and I think it's good to have a base [set-up], and I adapt to the base.
"The day we really have something important to try, that we think will really help, we'll try [to] back-to-back. But I don't want to try anymore the same things [but] in a different track.
"Now I want to focus on my riding, because every time we change [the set-up] and I never find the limit of my bike."
In truth, this is a very familiar refrain from Quartararo during Yamaha's recent 'lean' period: a frustration with too much tinkering for what he perceives as little benefit. A big step in his performance may well follow, but it's concerning Yamaha is still in the same situation.
Marquez sees a pivotal weekend ahead
Marquez has, by all appearances, managed to shrug off his championship lead-losing crash in the Grand Prix of the Americas - but needs a good result here to really put it behind him.
There's an expectation that, after a favourable run of tracks that maybe benefitted him over brother Alex Marquez but definitely benefitted him over team-mate Pecco Bagnaia, Qatar will be more complicated for the six-time champion.
It's an expectation he shares. "It's the first circuit where theoretically Alex and Pecco are better than me - historically, by the results. Let's see what I can do," he said.
"If I'm competitive here, it will be a very good sign for me. If not, I'll try to work to improve."
Bagnaia, predictably, isn't as convinced that Marquez has a real weakness here - pointing out that he was reasonably fast already last year on his Ducati debut - but will know that it really should be his best chance in 2025 so far of beating Marquez on merit.
Martin's timeline
Even with Aprilia having to make do with very uneven results in his absence, Martin has liked what he's seen from the 2025 RS-GP.
"For sure big dominance from Ducati, as we expected, but I was really [closely] looking into Aprilia and I feel the step that they did from last season is big," Martin summed up.
"They are closer to Ducati. I feel the potential is high."
But Martin delivering on that potential is another story, as the reigning champion remains not 100% fit, unsure whether he'll even be able to see out this weekend - and feeling he's starting from scratch with the bike.
"It's a really different bike to what I tried. For me it's a new bike," said Martin, who will start with team-mate Marco Bezzecchi's base set-up.
"Now is not my moment. 100%. So I just need time to recover, to get used to the bike, and then let's see in two-three months, everything will be on point, let's see if I can fight with these three riders [the Marquez brothers and Bagnaia]."
Marquez's COTA admission
The specific details - and the regulations surrounding those details - of the chaotic aborted start at the Grand Prix of the Americas continue to be picked over, though ultimately the result will not change while the rules probably will.
Marquez, whose very particular approach to that start triggered the whole mess, has no reservations about it two weeks on - it's part of the game and it's every rider for himself, and it was the best chance for him to salvage his race after going to the grid with what proved to be the wrong tyres.
But he is well aware that the chain of events he had set into place ended up very costly for Enea Bastianini, Brad Binder and Ai Ogura - the three riders who were preparing to start that race on slicks.
"Three riders on the grid took [the correct choice] and that red flag destroyed their podium. Because it was a clear podium for them," said Marquez matter-of-factly.
Mir's partial contrition
Honda rider Joan Mir was largely defiant after crashing in qualifying, the sprint and the grand prix at COTA - painting it as a natural consequence of him feeling he has to compensate for the RC213V bike's lack of top speed.
That stance of his was dialled back a little bit coming into the Lusail weekend - but only a little bit.
"This is something we have to learn from and to try for it to not happen again," he said. "This doesn't meant that we have to lower the intensity, but the important thing is to learn.
"I made a mistake in the race, but why? Because I wasn't able to defend my position in the straight, I missed my line, because a rider [Enea Bastianini] took the inside super easy, and then because you have to brake harder and overload the front, I lost the front.
"I could've avoided that, yes. Accepting that the other rider was going to overtake. It's something that I have to learn - but also we need more. We need more power to fight with them.
"For me it's not enough to be seventh, eighth, ninth. If nothing happened, the real position - we were 10th or 11th. A lot of riders crashed and you could make top six or top seven but it's not real. So I will keep with my intensity."
Fernandez's Plan B
Standing in for Miguel Oliveira again this weekend, Augusto Fernandez had an encouraging return to MotoGP action at COTA, though hardly one that would immediately make him a silly-season priority.
He's aware of that, too, and - though never happy that a peer is still suffering from injury - Fernandez is clearly relishing the chance to build some momentum from continuous competitive running, because it's his only real way of making the case for a return to the grid.
"When I signed with Yamaha, I told them my intention was to come back [to the grid] with them," he said. "They know that I want to come back - but I know I need to perform. I'm happy as a test rider but I miss races. Maybe not next year, maybe '27 - if I come back, I want to come back with them, but I need to prove it."
But what about the idea of being a long-term test rider - well-compensated, with job security and the occasional start? It's a hard one to accept at 27, but it's at the back of Fernandez's mind.
"If I have to accept that I'm a test rider from now on, I'm happy where I am also, as a Yamaha test rider. It's a big company, also the project they have now - we're not winning but we want to win. [The rules change in] '27 also close, so big things going on.
"It's a good place, I'm happy. But I want a little bit more."
Another side to Honda's resurgence
Mir's frustrations aside, it's been a really good start to 2025 for Honda. The improved RC213V is clearly primarily responsible for that - but so is Honda's engineering recruitment, which went well beyond the headline capture of Romano Albesiano from Aprilia.
"Compared to last year, it's just a little improvement of everything - because there are more people, more engineers, and everything is more under control," said Luca Marini of the atmosphere within Honda.
"And there is less pressure on everybody to work on everything - now with more people, [it helps as] the time is always super-short between one session and another.
"Also in the night, it's easier a little bit to work with everybody. And the results start coming, so this also helps a little bit the atmosphere."
Adding to that atmosphere will be the apparent return of Honda team boss Alberto Puig, absent from the first three rounds due to medical reasons connected to the eventually-career-ending crash he suffered at Le Mans 30 years ago.
Puig enjoys a bit of a stern, stony-faced reputation in the paddock - but a lot of riders are really, really fond of him, and Marini is no exception.
"It's great to have him [back]. He's a key member of the team, not just because he's the team manager - because he's Alberto.
"With his charisma and his personality, he will help us a lot, it's great to have him. I know that maybe you don't agree with me! But he's a really great person."
KTM's hopes of a turnaround
At this point there is no hiding that KTM is in a rut.
"It's frustrating, it's easy to see," said Pedro Acosta.
"At the end, I'm not the only one who's struggling. You only have to see Maverick [Vinales], how fast he was in Barcelona in the [post-season] test. And now how much we - I talk about all four riders - are struggling to be competitive.
"It's frustrating sometimes, it's not the start of the season that we dreamed of. We have to cool down, see that it's a long season - but it's also not fun to struggle like we are struggling. It's normal that sometimes it's quite tough to manage."
Acosta's biggest complaint remains that the 2025 bike is inconsistent from session to session, either totally sorted or a real handful, with little in between. But he said KTM has "something nice to try" this weekend on the RC16, though this is more an "idea" than a specific part.
Vibration has been ruinous again for the bike, but team-mate Brad Binder was hopeful it'll stay away this weekend - even though the long corners in the Lusail layout may well coax it out and there's "no quick fix for this, clearly".
But he feels "we're slowly finding our feet", and the aforementioned Maverick Vinales generally remains a ray of positivity - despite his lamentation that his beloved COTA had come too early in the season for him to fully exploit it.
The remaining KTM rider, Enea Bastianini, has also taken his fair share of podiums (and certainly looks decent enough in the standings). But while Bastianini believes he will be a lot faster on Fridays going forward - currently he's still having to "reset" his braking references from his time on the Ducati - there's also an admission that to be much faster he needs what sound like major changes on the bike.
