The three races of MotoGP 2020 so far have delivered two first-time winners in Fabio Quartararo and Brad Binder, the latter topping a genuine shock top-three in the Brno race.
With Marc Marquez’s current injury absence creating a potential power vacuum, it’s harkened back to the wonderful 2016 season, which featured an enormous nine different race winners.
There probably won’t be nine winners in the 14 races of the current campaign, but the chances are good we aren’t done with maiden wins just yet.
Below are the four riders who look the likeliest contenders to follow Quartararo and Binder in making their debut on the top step of the MotoGP podium during 2020.
Pol Espargaro
After the Brno race, one of the things that sprang to mind was Pol Espargaro’s proclamation, ahead of Johann Zarco’s arrival at KTM in 2019, that he would be happy for Zarco to be winning on the RC16 because he would feel as part of those wins, having played such a key role in developing the bike.
It wasn’t Zarco who brought KTM its first MotoGP win, but it wasn’t Espargaro either – and as happy as the affable Spaniard probably is to see the RC16 finally take the chequered flag, the circumstances of Brad Binder’s triumph and his own crash (with none other than Zarco) clearly broke his heart a little.
“I’m happy finally that we have the bike to fight for victory,” Espargaro said. “[But] I’m really frustrated, because I don’t know if this is going to repeat in the next races.
“You know, this kind of thing maybe just happens once per year, and I had it, and I couldn’t [capitalise], or they took me out.
“Hopefully the bike is stable in Austria, hopefully we have no big problems and we can fight for the win there as well, but I feel like I have lost a big opportunity. And it’s just unfair.”
Espargaro is right to suspect Brno was a very particular race, but given how much better the RC16 was at Jerez this year than in the years before, other chances should come along.
And while it’s this year or never for Espargaro on the KTM, Binder’s win doesn’t mean the South African rookie has completely taken over as KTM’s benchmark – Espargaro’s is still the quickest RC16 more often than not.
Verdict: The upcoming Red Bull Ring races look an outside shot, but the two Misano races after that, along with the Le Mans outing, could offer a better chance going by previous results.
Johann Zarco
Last year, any suggestion of Avintia Ducati winning a race would’ve been rightly dismissed as laughable.
But after a weekend that yielded a pole position and a podium, both in the dry, both pretty much on pure performance merit and the latter despite a long-lap penalty, it’s a possibility that you have to reckon with.
Zarco was thoroughly impressive at Brno, and though Binder was out of reach, a better start should’ve allowed him to pip Franco Morbidelli for second (even though arguably this would’ve kept Espargaro in the race, too).
The 2019-spec Ducati is clearly a nifty package, and Zarco is one of two Ducati riders who have unequivocally improved following the arrival of Michelin’s new rear tyre – the other one being Francesco Bagnaia, currently injured.
“We still don’t understand why Johann is so fast at the moment. He doesn’t let the rear tyre spin, compared to the others – to me, Dovi [Andrea Dovizioso] and Jack [Miller],” said works Ducati rider Danilo Petrucci at Brno.
These are some seriously good signs coming into a Red Bull Ring double, where Ducati is unbeaten since it joined the calendar in 2016.
“It’s true, Spielberg is always a pretty good track for Ducati,” Zarco said. “As long as you can use the bike correctly.
“And this pole position and podium will bring my confidence and wishes really high for Spielberg.
“Don’t get any pressure for it, all that I did this weekend is like a bonus, and pretty good for me to have a good relationship with Ducati. But if I can repeat a podium during the next two weeks it’s going to be just perfect.”
Verdict: The only rider to have come close to denying Ducati at the Red Bull Ring is Marc Marquez, and he won’t be there for the first race at least. So, it seems kind of plausible for Zarco to win, but a lot of things would have to happen – including a lack of a Brno-like KTM surge and a lack of substantial progress for the Ducati GP20s.
Franco Morbidelli
“Last year was a difficult year for me,” Morbidelli said. “It was a good year but I thought I’d be stronger than what I showed.
“Instead, Fabio was really good and really strong. So I said to myself, at the end of the year, that I didn’t want to keep going on that path, I didn’t want to have that situation again, so I started to work more, to work better, to be more serious at home.
“Generally I just try to be more professional. And I already saw the result in the tests, I was already faster than last year.
“So I hope that, yes, I made a step, and after three races I can say that.
“But in a world championship you always go a little bit more up, a little bit more down, you never know.”
As Quartararo showed all throughout last year, winning a MotoGP race can take a while even if you have the speed. So his Petronas SRT Yamaha team-mate Morbidelli can’t bet on breaking his duck this year – but after leading 12 laps at Brno, he can certainly bet on more chances.
Verdict: Potentially the favourite to be MotoGP’s next first-time winner, Morbidelli will fancy his chances in the Misano double-header. It’s a track the Yamaha likes, and where Morbidelli trains all the time.
Joan Mir
Considering how strong Suzuki looked in the pre-season, the start of the actual 2020 campaign has been not great at all for the team, both on the injured Alex Rins’ side and for Mir.
Jerez yielded an early crash and a fifth-place finish, but Brno could’ve been so much more, only for Mir to be – according to him – roughed up by Petrucci and then taken down by a falling Iker Lecuona.
“We know our potential – the qualifying was our weak point but in all the practices we were always with super-good pace. So probably it was my best weekend in my life in MotoGP, just missing a little bit in the race,” Mir said after his Brno exit.
“I’m super angry, but it could be worse. If I’m not fast, probably I’m even more worried. [But] I’m not worried. I just need to finish the race, to have a little bit more luck.”
Mir’s not yet had the chance to properly show his development compared to his rookie season, but he does already have the next two years of his contract sewn up, so at least won’t be under pressure career-wise.
However, though a sudden breakthrough in form – like for team-mate Rins in late 2018 – is easy to imagine, all of the tracks that the Suzuki really favours are gone from the revised 2020 calendar.
The two venues where its GSX-RR has won, Austin and Silverstone? Gone. Two other tracks it’s obviously well-suited to, Assen and Phillip Island? Gone.
Verdict: This one might have to wait until 2021.
Outside contenders
Though his Tech3 team has never won and sixth at Brno was his best MotoGP finish yet, Miguel Oliveira dropped a strong hint at victory aspirations by rightly pointing out that his late-race pace in the Czech Republic was as good as Binder’s.
“I don’t know what I could ask more from myself this race,” Oliveira said. “What cost me for example the win today was qualifying [P13, compared to Binder’s P7].
“I am not jealous of Brad – they did a good job, Brad was riding well, he was trusting the front quite a lot, which was surprising.
“I did my best race so far I think in MotoGP. When you give your best and the other guy wins, there is nothing more you can ask for.”
Oliveira did qualify a superb fifth for one of the Jerez races, and had his best race of the year in the Austrian GP in 2019, so will be looking to the Red Bull Ring double with potentially high hopes – but a win feels like a pretty huge ask, even in a post-Brno world.
A rider who would’ve had better odds for a maiden triumph at the Red Bull Ring is Bagnaia, who has looked very handy with a Pramac-run 2020-spec Ducati until injuring himself in a crash at Brno.
Bagnaia won’t be back until the second Spielberg race at the earliest and is unlikely to be at full fitness. This will sting, because he seemed to be potentially the in-form GP20 rider of the four and Austria is such a happy hunting ground for Ducati.
As for the in-form Honda, that’s currently Takaaki Nakagami, who posted a career-best fourth at Jerez and looks markedly more comfortable with the 2019 Honda than the 2018 bike he had last year.
But aside from the fact he still needs to find more performance to challenge for a win, Nakagami suffered “a lot of pain” from a blistering right foot – caused by the heat from the exhaust at Jerez – at Brno, and wasn’t convinced he would have enough time to recover fully for the Red Bull Ring.
He’s Honda’s fastest man right now, and consequently enjoying increased factory attention, but that will be over as soon as Marc Marquez returns, which will surely be Misano next month at the latest.
And if Marquez returns with anywhere near the same pace as he showed at Jerez, opportunities for maiden wins will dry up quickly – not just for Nakagami, but for everyone else on the grid.
