The last MotoGP race in Austria featured something that we hadn’t really heard at all in the 2021 season up to then: the established championship frontrunners admitting they were riding with one eye on the title during the rain-interrupted flag-to-flag race.
That was part of the reason KTM rider Brad Binder emerged as the somewhat unlikely winner. When you’re eighth in the championship and already 99 points from the top, you don’t have much to lose if staying out on slicks in the wet goes awry.
Runaway points leader Fabio Quartararo wasn’t in that kind of position.
“It’s the first time this year that I was thinking a little bit of the championship,” he admitted after finishing seventh in a race where he fought for the lead until the weather changed.
“I had a lot of risk and I didn’t want to make a stupid crash. I nearly had one at Turn 1.
“It was the moment to think about the championship.
“We arrived to this track with a 34-point lead and we’re leaving with 47, which we never expected, and I think that things are looking quite good so I want to keep going in this way.”
That’s a fair point for the Yamaha rider to make, considering the very healthy points total that he has built up so far over joint second-place contenders Joan Mir and Pecco Bagnaia – both of whom managed to take points off Quartararo in the second of two races at the Red Bull Ring as previous runner-up Johann Zarco crashed out and failed to score anything.
Yet it’s perhaps more surprising to hear similar language from reigning world champion Mir, who has had something of a slow start to the season.
Struggling in the opening rounds before making a big jump forward after the summer break following the arrival of Suzuki’s rear ride height adjustment device, Mir’s finally been able to start beating Quartararo – but there’s a long way still to go before he can think about retaining his title.
Mir sits 47 points off Quartararo – nearly two clear race wins behind the Yamaha rider and without a victory of his own from the opening 11 races of the year.
Which is why it’s somewhat strange to hear Mir claim that he too was thinking about the title in last Sunday’s tricky wet conditions – which he is well-aware is not weather favoured by Quartararo.
“Of course if I was in another position, I would have decided to stay out for sure,” Mir said of his decision to take the safe strategy and pit alongside his rivals for wet tyres rather than staying out on slicks like Binder.
“I think Binder did the right thing for sure, but we have to think in some aspects about the points and to do things correctly.”
That’s a strategy that might not quite help Mir out enough for the remainder of the year unless he can significantly up his pace against Quartararo in the seven races ahead.
So far Mir has managed to beat Quartararo in only four of the season’s 11 races – and two of those results came when Quartararo was compromised: with his arm pump problem at Jerez and then his leathers malfunctioning at Barcelona.
It’s going to need a considerable change in pace from the Suzuki rider if he’s going to continue to haul in the points gap for the remaining races this year.
In fact, with a 47-point gap to Quartararo and only seven races left to defend his title, it’s hard to imagine that Mir won’t be forced to take risks on occasion if he’s to average the nearly seven points per race gain he needs at the remaining rounds.
However, as the series heads to Silverstone, a track where Suzuki can be expected to perform well, Mir said he’s not feeling any pressure just yet – and was quick to try to foist some of it back onto rival Quartararo.
“In the next three races we will start to see a different championship,” Mir said of Silverstone and beyond.
“Even if he has a considerable distance, now I think the pressure will start every race to be higher. It’s always difficult for a rider to manage that pressure.
“Also probably all the pressure of Yamaha now is against him, and this is something that last year was not like this.
“He’s doing really well but for sure now the pressure is much higher, so let’s see.”
