A few years on from now, those discovering the 2022 MotoGP season for the first time through looking at the standings are unlikely to see anything out of the ordinary. The rider who had finished 2021 in best form won the championship, the defending winner ran him closest, and Ducati won its third straight constructors’ title and its second consecutive teams’ crown.
The actual season, of course, was a lot messier than that, what with the pre-season favourites spluttering out of the gates, the new Honda delivering on none of its pre-season potential and a total of seven different race winners and 10 polesitters.
Some of what happened we did see coming. A lot of it, well, not so much.
And, as MotoGP sprint-races into 2023, for the purposes of accountability but mostly a bit of fun, here’s a recap of what we expected to see this past season – across our pre-season predictions podcast and written feature – and how it tallied with reality.
Contributors
Valentin Khorounzhiy
Simon Patterson
Matt Beer
Josh Suttill
David Gruz
PESSIMISM FOR QUARTARARO’S TITLE CHANCES
Off the back of a relatively alarming final stretch of races in 2021 and an off-season of bad vibes, we almost universally expected Quartararo to find the season frustrating – retaining good race pace but having taken a step back in qualifying, while being hamstrung by the Yamaha’s lack of top speed in wheel-to-wheel battle.
What we said
Simon: Because of those sort of circumstances of other people building new bikes and not being 100% ready yet, maybe we’ll get some sort of repeat of last year where he starts the championship looking really, really good, then it doesn’t quite last all season.
Val: I agree. I think he’ll start in pretty good shape and then find himself increasingly outmatched, as the 2022 Ducati package gets refined and as Marc finds himself back in full fitness.
How it went
Quartararo was only fifth in the standings coming into the European leg of the season, but kicked into gear with wins at Portimao, Barcelona and the Sachsenring to establish what looked like an unassailable hold on the 2022 title race.
But the season just proved a little too long for the Frenchman and his trusty but stale Yamaha M1, with a heroic ride to second at the Red Bull Ring negated by four varying-cause non-scores that made Pecco Bagnaia’s job of catching and overhauling him easier.
Reaction
Val: Aside from the Marc thing (we’ll get to it) and the fact Fabio was a bit sketchy in the flyaway four-race appetiser before hitting form, we kind of nailed this one. Teething troubles for the Desmosedici GP22 were Quartararo’s best friend in 2022, and they didn’t quite last long enough before he found himself struggling as a one-man army, destined to recreate that one ‘Jon Snow in the Battle of the Bastards’ gif every other weekend.
BAGNAIA AS A FAVOURITE
Though Bagnaia finished 2021 in lightning-hot form, his perceived error-proneness and low-key testing pace scared everyone but podcast host Toby Moody (chapeau) away from picking him as the outright favourite.
What we said
Simon: I think there are others who start the season looking much stronger than them [Ducati and Bagnaia]: I don’t think those others are necessarily going to be stronger all season, but they’re going to start the season stronger.
Val: I think they are going to be perfectly fine. But what I’m also basing that on is Bagnaia sounded pretty chilled all of testing, and the ultimate indicator of his chillness came to me when he was the one guy who signed a big extension in the off-season.
How it went
Bagnaia lost his perceived cool virtually right away when the season began, admonishing his employer – and receiving an apology – for giving him too much development work in the lead-up to a very disappointing Qatar opener.
He gradually found his feet with the GP22, beating Quartararo at the latter’s traditional stronghold Jerez, and eventually cut out the errors just in time to complete an unprecedented yet strangely serene and almost mechanical 91-point comeback and become Ducati’s first riders’ champion since 2007.
Reaction
Val: I badly misread his level of early-2022 contentment but he was at the very least my second-favourite for the title. And I think I deserve some legacy points for championing his promotion as a potential masterstroke in 2020 and cheerleading his early-2021 form as a sign of greatness!
David: I would have also probably guessed Bagnaia if I knew Marquez would be ruled out for so long.
FEAR MARC MARQUEZ ONCE MORE
A promising-looking new Honda and a Marc Marquez further-removed from that fateful Jerez crash emboldened many of us to pronounce him the title favourite, even if he’d had his off-season complicated by a worrying double vision recurrence.
Every single writer had him down for multiple wins.
What we said
Matt: If his fitness really is near enough sorted and Honda really is that much better, I still believe he’s the best rider on the grid. In a year that could be wildly open, Marquez has the experience of nailing a successful title campaign even when others might often have faster packages.
Josh: An early spate of crashes and continued injury problems will thwart any chance of a title challenge but he’ll come back swinging with a streak of wins in the second half of the season to move up into the top three in the championship.
Simon: I don’t think he’ll be a true title contender. Top three.
Val: Whatever hunk of garbage you give him, he’ll ride the absolute hell out of it and get the best possible peak laptime and peak race time, if he’s fully fit. Is he fully fit? I don’t know. But I’m reluctant to bet against him in any meaningful way.
How it went
Marquez suffered another double vision recurrence early on and then learned his arm hadn’t quite grown back together correctly, turning 2022 into another part-season.
A win was up for grabs early on at COTA, but that was scuppered and both he and the Honda were too raw after his return from surgery to give him any real chance at adding to his victory tally. In the end, he had to accept a first-ever premier-class season in which he’d led no laps – something that wasn’t even the case for 2020.
Reaction
Matt: I’m not yet at the point where I’m ready to stop making basically this same prediction at the start of every season that Marquez approaches billed as being anywhere near fit, but maybe that’s getting really naive.
Josh: I was overly optimistic with the results but spot on with further injuries blighting his season. Still a world-class rider and I hope he’ll finally get another title shot in 2023.
Simon: Pre-op, he never looked like his old self – something we now know we can well and truly blame on his 34º displaced arm bone…
David: Of course nobody could foresee the injury problems, but it feels like that Honda managing to dig itself in an even deeper hole than before was actually an even bigger reason for Marquez failing to win this year. Marquez is still elite.
NEW RC213V WILL REJUVENATE HONDA AND ESPARGARO
The 2022 version of the RC213V was billed as Honda’s biggest change in years, with more of a focus on the rear of the bike and a pre-season showing that suggested Honda should have taken this big swing earlier.
Pol Espargaro, who couldn’t make the previous iteration work for him, looked the biggest beneficiary.
What we said
Simon: I think they start the season probably in the best shape, as a manufacturer, that they’ve started the season since maybe even the early days of the four-strokes. Maybe even 2005, 2006, those days, When there’s multiple riders who can ride the bike, be fast on it, win races on it.
Val: They’re not crashing the bike anymore. The bike seems to be, like, intact. The new Hondas, I don’t think they’ve had a lot of falls during testing.
Josh: I fear 2022 will be another false dawn for Pol Espargaro. Expectations and confidence are high after successful pre-season tests, but it’s an all-too-familiar tale that often ends with disappointment.
How it went
Espargaro outperformed Marquez and mounted a credible victory challenge in Qatar, and then neither him nor the new RC213V as a whole looked anywhere near that good ever again.
Soon, the two sides collectively threw the white flag on the Espargaro-Honda experiment, and the season eventually devolved into a complete mess for the firm.
Some of the ‘highlights’ included a pretty absurd number of crashes, a podium total 16x lesser than that of Ducati, an outburst from tester Stefan Bradl because the bike was actually burning him – and, in the end, the fact that even Marquez’s return was not enough to lift it from its first-ever last-place finish in the standings, a distant one at that.
Reaction
Josh: Espargaro’s season went exactly as I thought and he would’ve been replaced even without Suzuki’s bombshell exit definitively freeing up Joan Mir.
Matt: Even after everything that happened across 2020/21, it’s still not sunk in at all for me that Repsol Honda is this reliant on one rider’s genius to get it anywhere near the front right now.
Val: I still think there’s a pretty good bike there somewhere, and that more testing would’ve coaxed it out much more often, but obviously the season stunk far more than anyone expected. Including, clearly, Marc, whose faith in the project looks at least somewhat shaken.
SUZUKI BACK IN THE MIX
Suzuki followed up its stunning 2020 title with no race wins the following year, but this year’s version of the GSX-RR – having been long in development – boasted a significant top speed upgrade. And that was grounds for some optimism, with Simon – impressed by the hire of Livio Suppo as the year-late replacement for Davide Brivio – even pencilling in Joan Mir as a title favourite.
What we said
Simon: I think Livio is perhaps the final piece to the puzzle that was missing for this season. He’s coming into the team when everything’s looking rosy again after a year out.
Val: It [Suzuki] is not going to dominate the same way that Ducati has the chance to right now, it’s not going to be always in the mix like a Yamaha. It’s there to snipe when there’s an opportunity to snipe, it’s there to win plenty of individual races and individual awards. [Surprise of the season pick] Alex Rins has the reputation of a serial crasher, but his MotoGP career does include a streak of 11 top-six finishes in a row. I expect him to channel some of that again.
How it went
Rins was joint championship leader when he alongside Mir learned Suzuki was planning to pull out of MotoGP, and by the time it was announced publicly after the following race weekend Suzuki still sat at the top of the teams’ standings.
The season got really sour really fast though, through a combination of a substantial morale blow, a promising but clearly not-fully-refined package and Mir’s sudden crash streak culminating in a nasty injury.
Yet despite preparing to pull the plug Suzuki did not completely halt development, and Rins ultimately won two of the project’s final three races.
Reaction
Simon: I stand by my prediction as being wholly accurate right up until Suzuki threw a hand grenade into its garage by announcing its exit. Nothing Livio could have done once it started to go wrong.
Val: I’ll go to bat for my Rins pick, even though seventh place is nothing to shout about. Otherwise, I think I overrated the GSX-RR a bit in the pre-season and and then underrated it during the season itself.
A SATELLITE RIDER WILL CHALLENGE FOR THE TITLE
Every single contributor named Jorge Martin as their pick for the top independent rider of 2022, and there was a belief that the Spaniard – fresh off an injury-disrupted but still extremely convincing rookie season and widely regarded as the no-brainer pick to partner Bagnaia in 2023 – could even give Pramac a sniff of riders’ title glory.
What we said
Val: I feel like I put this category [top independent rider] in for everyone to say Jorge Martin, which is a bit boring. Anyway, Jorge Martin.
David: If he can stay healthy, Jorge Martin will not only be the top independent rider but also a legit title contender.
Simon: I think that he is going to take points off the factory riders on many an occasion, win multiple races, and most definitely do enough to earn a factory seat if he wants it for the year after.
Val: Bastianini is going to be a real thorn in people’s sides. I said I expect him to win multiple races this year – I’m still there. I like Enea’s chances to do something special in multiple weekends.
How it went
Martin’s GP22 – equipped with the spec of engine that Bagnaia ultimately passed up in favour of an earlier iteration – proved his Achilles’ heel.
He was just a bit off for most of the season, searching for the right set-up and crashing, but flashed a glimpse of the Martin of 2020 with his three poles to end the season.
In the meantime, Bastianini made the most of a refined GP21 to reinforce his status as a late-race menace, winning four races and nabbing the factory promotion from Martin.
Reaction
Val: This was a pretty great year to own (theoretical) Bastianini stock! As for Martin, you only need to see those lap record poles in Phillip Island and Sepang to know that he’ll be a frontrunner for years to come – but, with the complication of having to work a new bike into shape, he just didn’t really progress in his sophomore season.
David: While he had his fair share of niggling injuries, it was a very underwhelming season from Martin regardless. His otherworldly qualifying pace masked the fact that in his second MotoGP campaign he was very much a work in progress with regards to his race performance, which might become a critical issue next year with the introduction of sprint races.
RAUL FERNANDEZ WILL TURN KTM UPSIDE DOWN
On the heels of a Moto2 rookie season for the ages, Raul Fernandez was supposed to carry a similar kind of form into MotoGP – despite his apparent reluctance to graduate with KTM – while also putting the factory line-up of Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira under enormous pressure.
He was widely selected as the rookie of the year favourite (although Simon did rightly pick Marco Bezzecchi instead).
What we said
Josh: While the Spaniard is hardly lacking hype or expectation, I still believe he’ll surprise in 2022. He’ll earn a pair of race wins and make a factory promotion for 2023 – whether that be within KTM or elsewhere – inevitable. He’ll finish ahead of both factory KTM riders and his Moto2 sparring partner Remy Gardner.
Simon: I wouldn’t be surprised if Raul Fernandez beats at least one of the factory bikes.
David: If his KTM is half-decent, he is going to outshine the Ducati rookies.
Val: For me, the question is – is the factory line-up good enough? Are they good enough as potential title contenders, ’cause that’s what KTM’ll want? And I think the progress of Raul Fernandez and Remy Gardner during the season will help us answer that question. I remain surprised by Binder, as good as he is on Sundays, getting an extension that runs through 2024 as early as he did.
How it went
Fernandez had a bad season. He was nowhere near the factory duo, was only just in the double digits for points while the works riders cleared triple digits, and some wondered whether he’d checked out completely due to his lack of interest in a joint future with KTM. At the same time, Fernandez himself acknowledged late in the season that he was perturbed and frustrated by his lack of laptime progress over the season after testing had looked promising.
Reaction
Josh: I’ll happily hold my hands up and say this is one of the worst predictions I’ve ever made. I was swept up in his incredible Moto2 season and the hype around him but he was utterly lost and downcast for much of 2022. I’m hopeful things will improve for him on the Aprilia but I’ll perhaps temper my excitement a little more next time.
David: Fernandez, affected by injuries, seemed to give up on the season way too early.
Val: It was a disappointing season, obviously, but I’m more alarmed by the fact that I don’t entirely believe he had downed tools or rode conservatively to avoid injuries (after a really nasty hit in the Sepang test). You have to be at least a little worried about someone’s ultimate MotoGP potential after that kind of campaign. And as for Binder, a full-on mea culpa there – he’s a genuine star and KTM was really smart to tie him down when it did.
DUCATI WILL WIN THE MANUFACTURERS’ TITLE
With the marque taking eight bikes into battle in 2022, five of them factory-spec, nobody dared suggest any other potential winner in the manufacturers’ standings.
What we said
Simon: While it’s only the top machine for every manufacturer that scores points, both the depth of its field and the simple odds against factories like Suzuki and Aprilia with two bikes each mean Ducati has got a considerable advantage.
How it went
At least one Ducati was on the podium in every single race, and it scored nearly 200 more points than nearest rival Yamaha.
Even if every single other manufacturer had joined forces, ‘Yamarilia Suzonda KTM’ would’ve still lost to Ducati by eight points.
Reaction
David: There really was no other way, was there?
Val: Not to get ahead of schedule with the 2023 predictions feature, but I get the feeling Ducati will win that year’s constructors’ title, too.
APRILIA’S BANNER YEAR
Writers were torn on how much stock to put into the Aprilia RS-GP’s very good pre-season, but several were on record saying it’ll win a race (albeit with Maverick Vinales named as the prime candidate).
What we said
Simon: I don’t think they need a wet race [to win]. I think they can do it in the dry – without it being a weird race. I think they have the potential, at certain circuits this year, to win. Plain and simple.
Matt: Aprilia winning with Maverick Vinales is too fun a fairytale not to happen (even if Aleix Espargaro really deserves to be the one who gets its breakthrough after all the work he’s done).
How it went
The RS-GP looked the best bike on the grid at some points this season and won on merit with Espargaro at Termas. Espargaro also had a really good shot at Assen, the chance compromised by the Quartararo run-in, while Vinales was oh-so-close to defeating Bagnaia at Silverstone. But Aprilia did fall apart at the end of the year.
Reaction
Simon: We didn’t even have to wait until we got to an Aprilia-friendly circuit, we just had to reduce the amount of practice in Argentina to close the data gap it suffers to rivals. The title challenge that Aleix Espargaro strung together might have been a surprise, but the speed of the RS-GP wasn’t at all a shock.
Val: I put Aprilia forward as my candidate for disappointment of the year in the podcast, albeit still believing that it would be a fairly nifty bike. My exact fear was of the kind of collapse that did occur at the end of the season through a lack of reference data and varying development rates, but before said collapse the RS-GP really did stun me.
MORBIDELLI WILL BE HIMSELF AGAIN
After a mid-2021 knee surgery, Morbidelli had a works Yamaha ride waiting for him when he returned, and was middling but on an upward curve over the rest of that season, promising a solid 2022.
What we said
Simon: It’s going to take a little bit of time, just based on his comments and what he said. He’s fully recovered but not fully fit again. We’ll go back to Europe and he’s going to be ready to win races, gut feeling.
How it went
Morbidelli was no higher than sixth on the lap chart of any 2022 race, and even that flatters his season a little bit.
Most of it was flat out brutal, the Italian struggling to get his head around the newest version of the Yamaha, and whatever late glimpses of a return to form were there looked inconclusive.
Reaction
Simon: Morbidelli ended up needing a lot, lot more time than expected – to the extent that we start 2023 hoping rather than expecting that he’s back to winning ways. A new Yamaha that delivers on what he and team-mate Quartararo asked for and another winter to work on his form might be enough to finally end the disaster that has been his previous 18 months, and the good news is that the final races of last year hinted at some improvement coming.
DOVIZIOSO’S COMEBACK WILL BE FRUITLESS
Dovizioso’s indifferent form once back on the grid midway through 2021 suggested he was in too deep a hole to climb out of it before either getting fed up or being deemed surplus to requirement.
What we said
Simon: We’re going to have a 2021 season from the [Yamaha satellite] team, not a 2020 season. If Dovizioso makes it onto the podium, I’ll eat someone’s hat. It just ain’t going to happen based on what we’ve seen in testing so far. And Binder’s unprepared for a move to MotoGP.
Val: For next year, if it is as difficult as it’s looking in testing, and it looked fairly difficult, if that’s the level, Dovizioso won’t really want to continue.
How it went
Dovizioso was just five points clear of Moto3 graduate team-mate Darryn Binder when he called time on his RNF Yamaha experiment in advance, finding the modern iteration of the M1 to be grip-deficient and himself still at odds with the current Michelin-rear.
Reaction
Val: Dovizioso never even looked like resembling his Tech3 Yamaha version, much less the rider he would become during his Ducati stint. A shame.
THE TITLE WILL BE DECIDED IN ADVANCE
With no final-race MotoGP riders’ title-deciders since 2017, our writers were mostly pessimistic about the prospect of a Valencia showdown.
What we said
Simon: A final round title decider is rare, and I don’t think it’s something we’re going to see this year. The final block of races before Valencia, with five races in six weeks on three different continents, is just too intense.
Val: The more races there are, the worse the chances are of a final-race decider. And 21 is a lot of races. I think it’ll be resolved at Sepang.
Matt: It’ll be sorted with at least one race to spare, and that’ll be infuriating. I don’t quite get how MotoGP can produce the greatest on-track competition in all of worldwide motorsport and barely ever have a final-round decider.
How it went
The title race did go down to the wire! Though it initially looked like Quartararo would sew it up in advance and then it appeared that Bagnaia could get it over the line at Sepang, there was in the end a genuine Valencia showdown, even if it only required the Ducati rider to do the bare minimum to be crowned champion.
Reaction
Matt: OK, it was a last-round decider. But it barely counted as one given the points situation. We did get a great title fight narrative, though. But as I said in this feature at the start of the year, I do not get why MotoGP isn’t creating proper final-round shootouts on a more reliable basis.
Val: I still think a 20-race calendar isn’t terribly conducive to last-race title deciders and, though I got it wrong this year, I don’t think I’ll have a different prediction for 2023 – though I do wonder whether sprint races may help prevent early coronations.
