Three big-name MotoGP stars have recently returned to action in new seats after a hiatus of one form or another.
Season-opener winner Maverick Vinales has now done two weekends of his new Aprilia career, 2020 championship runner-up Franco Morbidelli started his new factory Yamaha role replacing Vinales at Misano last weekend, and 15-time race winner Andrea Dovizioso in turn replaced Morbidelli at Petronas Yamaha.
None of the trio exactly set the world on fire in the San Marino Grand Prix, albeit for vastly different reasons as they all work for the same goal in the remaining races of 2021: to build their way back to the race-winning form that all three have lost in the previous weeks and months.
The best finisher out of the group was Vinales, who managed to come home in a quite impressive 13th place in only his second race for Aprilia following a high-profile split with Yamaha only last month.
Still working hard to adapt himself to the V4-engined RS-GP after six and a half seasons spent on the very different Yamaha M1 and the Suzuki GSX-RR before it, it’s starting to look like he’s coming to grips with the machine faster than anyone anticipated – even though he insists that there’s still a long way to go.
“Honestly, this weekend we learned a lot,” Vinales explained after the race, “and it’s clear that we’ve got to keep working because I still don’t feel very comfortable on the bike, especially in qualifying.
“I had a few troubles with a full fuel tank during the race, but the positive point of the bike is that the tyres have good grip, good consistency, and the rhythm was good.
“It wasn’t perfect, but it was quite good, so I’ll keep running, understanding.
“I tried to ride in a different position in different laps to see what the bike does, how it reacts, just to try and understand the direction to go in to go faster.
“I’m satisfied with the new challenge. It’s very different, and I’m really out of my comfort zone, that’s for sure. It’s a totally different bike, and it’s difficult to ride.
“But we started 27 seconds from the leader [in Aragon] and today it was 21s, so we’re improving step by step and that’s the most important point.”
There was a similar feeling in the Petronas Yamaha garage from Dovizioso, who came home in last place and over 45s from winner Pecco Bagnaia on one of the factory Ducatis Dovizioso vacated last winter.
Despite the big gap to the front and the long lap penalty he was handed for exceeding track limits, Dovizioso felt there was still plenty to be delighted about from the race.
“It wasn’t a good race, it was a good weekend because we got a lot of information and we went in a really good way,” Dovizioso insisted.
“We had a chance to ride a lot in the dry, even in the wet, and that was very important for me and for Yamaha to understand.
“The race was great, to learn and to feel, because before it we didn’t have the speed to stay with the group but in the race I found it.
“Even when I made a mistake and had to do the long lap, my pace improved a lot afterwards, and I was able to be much faster than in practice. I did my best lap two laps from the end.
“The feeling with the bike changed during the race, I changed what I was doing a lot, and I have a lot of good feelings in some areas.
“I tried to explain as much as I could to the team, and now I need them to help me to put everything together.
“The braking is where I was struggling in the practice but was a lot better in the race, and we have to understand why, what we have to do.
“Then I can work more on the corners and the exit to fully use the potential of the bike.”
Things weren’t quite as easy in the Morbidelli camp, however.
The three-time 2020 race winner admitted he wasn’t even sure if he’d be able to race as he made his first MotoGP appearance following extensive knee reconstruction – but was surprised when he didn’t just completed the race but learned from it.
“It was a good weekend for me, and it was great to come back racing again after so much time off,” he said after finishing 18th on his factory Yamaha debut.
“I’m already happy with how the race went, because it was a really tough warm-up for me and I didn’t think it would be possible to make the race.
“But with the adrenaline and some painkillers we managed to do it, and we managed to do it with a consistent pace.
“I was with Vale [Rossi] and I would say that this is great for me, because I’ve just jumped on the bike, I’m still recovering from an injury, and I sat on the couch for three months.
“It’s a tough way to come back and complete a race, but the race gave me a lot of information and I was able to push it better.
“I like this bike more, because it’s more of a fighter. It gave me the chance to understand it a bit more and what I need from it, and it was a great weekend and great to be back, and now we’ll try to step up our game step by step.”
Fortunately for all three, they won’t have too long to wait to try that out, either, with the chance to put what they’ve learned from crunching the race data into practice on Tuesday, when a fortuitously well-timed two-day test kicks off at Misano before MotoGP flies to Texas for the next race.
