Since the start of the 2022 MotoGP season, it’s been apparent that something has been missing for Franco Morbidelli.
The one-time championship runner-up has been nowhere near the pace of team-mate Fabio Quartararo, let alone his own of old that helped him claim three wins in 2020, and has been waiting on a breakthrough – one that he believes might have finally happened on the eve of this weekend’s Catalan Grand Prix at Barcelona.
Morbidelli was promoted to the factory Yamaha team halfway through 2021 to replace the departing Maverick Vinales, but hasn’t had an easy time of it since. The timing of his mid-season switch didn’t help either – not only did he trade the satellite Petronas Yamaha squad for factory colours, losing veteran crew chief Ramon Forcada in the process, he also did it just as he came back from a serious injury.
After tearing his knee ligaments in a training crash, Morbidelli underwent the sort of repair surgery that normally takes up to a year to recover from, but instead jumped back on the bike only three months later – something that was reflected in his finishes in the latter stages of the year, even as Quartararo romped to the title.
Morbidelli looked better in pre-season testing after a tough winter of physical recovery and things were looking brighter when the 2022 season started – but he still wasn’t quite able to deliver on what he had promised.
Points scored in all but two races, but a highest, and solitary, finish of seventh – his only top 10 since his return from surgery in 2021 – is Morbidelli’s return so far. As a result, speculation has continued to mount about his future, with questions being asked about whether his two-year deal for 2022 and 2023 has performance clauses that Yamaha might seek to execute.
But Morbidelli has been adamant throughout that he’s been building towards a return to form, and he finally showed something approaching it at Barcelona on Friday, finishing third in FP1 and ending the day comfortably inside the overall top 10 – despite using a soft-soft tyre combination rather than a front medium construction like everyone else for his time attack in FP2.
“It was a positive day, a positive Friday, because I was fast this morning and this afternoon we had the chance to try some tyres,” he enthused. “Finally, with not the best performance combination of tyre performance, I was able to get into Q2 directly, in the top 10.
“So it was a positive day. I had the sensations that I wanted when I ride, and it was finally reflected on track because good laptimes and good pace was coming. I hope to keep going in this direction.”
There’s still work to be done, of course. But with some of the old feeling coming back – and Morbidelli feeling like he’s finally cracked the secret to riding the new machine the way he needs to – the 27-year-old was positive that things should only get better from here.
“We are always working to exploit the bike as I was doing with the old one,” he told The Race, “because this one is a bit different and I need to use it in a different way.
“But finally, the potential is more than the other one, so it’s a matter of getting in tune and making the setting get in tune with myself. It definitely looked like a step, and it felt like it. We just have to keep going now.
“It’s a great sensation. When I was watching the chart on the straight, and every time I was checking it out I saw ‘21 P1’ I felt nice again. Like the good old times. So let’s keep on going forward, let’s keep working. I like it and I want more.”
