It’s been almost three years since the MotoGP world championship last lined up the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit, with the years since the series’ most recent visit to South America featuring not just a global pandemic but also a devastating fire in which the pit complex burned to the ground.
But with life returning to normal and a newly rebuilt paddock, the championship can once again return to a track that regularly delivers drama.
It’s not been an easy task for the track not just to survive the pandemic but to manage to successfully rebuild itself literally from the ashes – but that’s what the local organiser has managed to do, with a brand new pit building meaning that the fire at least has very much been left in the past and that the track is ready to be raced on again.
The first running of the race in 2014 at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit, located more than 700 miles from capital city Buenos Aires, was a relatively peaceful affair. The then-dominant reigning champion Marc Marquez took victory as part of a 10-in-a-row streak, but it was possibly the last edition that could be described as conventional until a similarly straightforward Marquez win during his likewise dominant 2019 campaign.
The race’s second year featured an incredible battle between Valentino Rossi and Marquez, with the wily Italian getting the better of his young rival on the last lap in one of their closest battles up to that point.
In 2016, issues resulting from incredibly high track temperatures included enforcing a rear-tyre option after Scott Redding’s Michelin exploded during practice, and the podium was decided by Andrea Iannone’s overambitious move on team-mate Andrea Dovizioso that took both of them down – a crash that eventually cost Iannone his factory Ducati seat.
In 2017, Maverick Vinales was the winner in his second race on a Yamaha – while there was the rare sight of both factory Hondas of Marquez and Dani Pedrosa crashing out.
Then, of course, there was 2018, when rain on the grid famously meant Jack Miller initially lined up alone five rows in front of everyone else, before Marquez’s doomed charge through the field – which included contact with Aleix Espargaro and Rossi – overshadowed even that.
It looks like that the typical Termas drama hasn’t been left in the past, though, with cargo plane problems meaning that the 2022 race looked in doubt for a stretch – and that the weekend will look nothing like the prototypical MotoGP round.
MotoGP is often something of a lottery before the weekend starts at the best of times, so a hyper-compressed schedule means that calling it this year’s race is going to be more difficult than ever.
As the track hasn’t been used since 2019 and with heavy construction since then to rebuild the infrastructure destroyed in the fire, everyone is expecting Saturday’s first FP1 session to be more about sweeping a dusty track clean than about setting up for the race.
And with only FP1 and FP2 taking place before the two qualifying sessions, it means that the day’s second session will inevitably turn into a quasi-qualifying session, while race distance-focused prep work is also bound to be limited compared to normal.
So who does that favour? Well, so far it’s looking good for the Suzuki duo of Alex Rins and Joan Mir, as the only two riders to line up with the same team and bike as they rode last time here in 2019. The GSX-RR traditionally goes well at Termas, and the riders are in a comfortable position with the machine so far this year, with a little boost of extra top speed that won’t go amiss.
Another dark horse could well be the 2017 winner Vinales and his Aprilia team-mate Espargaro. The new RS-GP bike should also suit the Termas track, and with a strong start to the season in testing and a delighted Vinales after a warm-up breakthrough in Indonesia last time out, Aprilia could surprise us.
That’s somewhat aided by the relative inexperience of much of the grid at the Argentina track. As MotoGP hasn’t raced there since 2019, many of the most successful riders on the grid have very limited track time at the venue, and that will slow them down not just on Saturday but on Sunday too.
Championship leader Enea Bastianini and race winners Jorge Martin and Brad Binder are complete rookies when it comes to MotoGP at Termas. Meanwhile, reigning world champion Fabio Quartararo, 2021 runner-up Pecco Bagnaia, 2020 champion Mir and the winner last time out, Miguel Oliveira, have done but a single premier-class weekend here.
The factories most likely to be hit by a mileage reduction are Honda and Ducati. Both have brought new machines for 2022, and both have needed considerable time at new tracks to dial them in. Ducati in particular had significant problems with that in Qatar, while Honda is missing Marc Marquez – although Takaaki Nakagami should at least be able to make the race after all.
The end result of all that could be something of a free-for-all race where even by MotoGP standards picking a winner is hard. The nature of the Termas track means that it really doesn’t suit one bike or another, with most manufacturers having fought for the podium or the win here in the past – and we might just have to wait until the lights go out on Sunday to figure it all out.
