Last year, Suzuki rider Joan Mir became MotoGP world champion through one thing and one thing alone: consistency.
He was there or thereabouts almost every single weekend of the 2020 season, collecting solid points even on his bad weekends and building the pressure on more wasteful rivals throughout the year.
That came even after a poor start to the championship for him, too.
Given he’d had two DNFs in the opening three races (his only two of the year until the title was wrapped up), his early coronation was perhaps more of a sign of his rivals’ failings than his own ultra-consistency, even if there was no stopping Mir once he finally got going with his first podium in Austria.
That’s going to come as some relief to him after the opening four races of 2021. While they haven’t been as bad as his first four of last year, Mir has still not exactly set the world on fire just yet.
A single podium in Portugal is the highlight of his season, although he hasn’t been too far away elsewhere with fourth, seventh and fifth from the other three races giving him a points haul of 49 so far – a big improvement on the 31 he had after four races last year.
Even better, it means that his gap to the series leader (Pecco Bagnaia on 66 points) is a mere 17 points – more than enough to easily haul in for a rider as consistent as Mir. It’s again a big improvement on last year, when the gap to Fabio Quartararo (who was on 67 points at this stage last year) was a whopping 36, leaving Mir not even being considered as a title contender.
But while the numbers might be on his side in 2021, the big picture is very different – and it might be that one of the most telling moments of the season happened last time out at the Spanish Grand Prix, when Quartararo faded from what looked like a runaway victory to a disappointing 13th after arm pump struck.
The Yamaha rider has looked like a very different character in 2021. Calmer, more focused and now with the full backing of his manufacturer rather than the satellite status he had last year, at Jerez he looked set to make it three wins from the opening four races of the year until he was sabotaged by his own body.
With Quartararo already undergoing surgery last week to correct the issue, it could well be that the setback he faced in Spain will make him faster rather than slower in the long term.
After he focused all winter on making himself mentally stronger, this setback will be a test of whether his new psychological training has worked, and he may well take the Jerez disappointment in his stride.
That could mean that what happened last weekend was a decisive part of the season for Mir’s hopes of defending his crown. If Quartararo remains the title favourite – something that we’ll find out in the next few weeks as he rebounds from surgery – then the 10-point advantage Mir hoovered up with fourth to Quartararo’s 13th in Spain could be a huge boost.
Quartararo is still ahead of him in the title race, but what could have been a 38-point advantage over Mir for the Yamaha rider if he’d won at Jerez and Mir had stayed fifth has been shrunk to 15 – a far more manageable number to haul in for the Suzuki man.
Yet while this situation has been playing out, there’s a new threat that’s quietly emerged in much the same manner as Mir did in 2020 – factory Ducati pilot Bagnaia.
Now the championship leader, Bagnaia has done it without winning a race, instead ensuring that he’s close to the front every week. With a worst finish of sixth so far, he’s been three times on the podium to ensure a healthy points haul in much the same way that Mir was able to do last year.
Even more impressively, Bagnaia was able to maintain that form at Jerez, a circuit that has never yielded much for Ducati. He got a very good result there with second – even if it was overlooked in the heat of the moment thanks to the race-winning success of team-mate Jack Miller.
We’re going to get a fantastic indication of the state of the title race in the coming three race weekends. It’s often said that a MotoGP season doesn’t really start until the traditional circuits of Europe, and after two rounds in Qatar and one at relative newcomer Portimao, Jerez was the first real hint of what to expect.
Le Mans this weekend can be a complete wildcard thanks to the weather but will suit Yamaha or Suzuki in the dry, Mugello after that is Ducati home turf but somewhere that Yamaha has been fast, and Barcelona could favour any of the three.
It won’t necessarily be who wins that matters most, but who is struggling in practice but can limit the damage on Sunday. Those trends will give us a true indication of form, and might mean that yet another manic MotoGP season starts to make sense.
