The 2020 MotoGP season has finally roared into life with the first time on track in anger today at Jerez.
With two free practice sessions for the Spanish Grand Prix at Jerez now completed, there’s plenty that we can start to deduce as the championship picks up where it left off in testing in Qatar all the way back in March.
Here are five key themes that emerged from day one:
Ducati still hasn’t got to grip with the new tyres
This is perhaps the storyline that could decide the 2020 title race, it’s obvious that Ducati’s two factory riders still have plenty of work to do to understand Michelin’s new rear tyres. They’re a significant improvement on last year’s with more grip by the bucketful, and it actually means that Ducati has got too much adhesion.
The design relies on the rear of the bike skipping around to get the long and low Desmosedici on a straight line to utilise its ferocious acceleration and top speed. The new rubber prevents that from happening.
“This tyre has a lot of traction in the middle of the tyre,” said Danilo Petrucci. “It’s fine when we’re upright, but when we start to turn it won’t slide. The slide helps us to turn and to unload the front.
“We thought we had solved the problem, but in the end it’s not so.
“It’s difficult for me to get the bike in sideways, to unload the front, and to turn. The rear pushes a lot at that point and I don’t feel good – the rear puts too much load on the front and I have to keep the brakes on for too long.”
With the high temperatures of Jerez not helping Ducati out and with back-to-back races at the track, it’s a significant worry for the team and for Andrea Dovizioso in particular as he looks to finally overcome Marc Marquez in the title race.
To add further pressure on Dovizioso, Ducati has today made it clear that he won’t be offered any new deal for 2021 until it has had time to assess his performance in a number of races.
Rossi hasn’t solved all of his issues
At the end of pre-season testing, Valentino Rossi was quietly optimistic that he had fixed many of the issues that have plagued him on the Yamaha M1 in recent seasons.
However, the nine-time world champion rider was despondent after his first day on track, as he discovered that his main issue hasn’t gone far away.
“It was a difficult day for me and I was never fast,” Rossi admitted.
“In the morning it was OK but in the afternoon I struggled a lot and it looks like we’re always in trouble with the temperature of the rear tyre and the grip it gives.
“I’m not very comfortable with the bike and I’m not able to enter the corners very quickly.”
That’s not good news for him, and the mood in his side of the garage won’t be helped out by a positive day on the other side for team-mate Maverick Vinales.
Bringing a very different riding style to the M1 and completing most of his braking while still upright (unlike Rossi), it seems that Vinales is unsurprisingly going to again have a stronger weekend and a stronger season than his now 41-year-old team-mate.
Reliability could be Aprilia’s downfall in 2020
Aprilia was once again able to confirm that it’s made rapid progress with the new 2020 RS-GP bike – but was also once again hindered by reliability issues, an all-too-common occurrence for the team.
It’s been a consistent trend in the past few seasons even as the bike continues to close down on the championship’s frontrunners, and Wednesday’s test at Jerez was marred by one of Aprilia’s radical new 2020 engines leaking oil from Aleix Espargaro’s bike, leaving Petrucci in the gravel as a consequence.
Today was the turn of a different part to cause problems, though, with Espargaro losing out on this morning’s practice session thanks to a clutch issue.
“I had a lot of chatter, which is a problem we’ve never had on this bike before,” he said afterwards, “and the only small difference from Wednesday was that we tried a new clutch.
“We completely replaced it for the afternoon and I felt very strong again.
“The grip wasn’t as good because of the temperature but I had race pace close to the top six on a tyre with 46 laps on it!”
KTM’s winter breakthrough is a big one
We knew that KTM had made a big step forward during the winter break, but today once again showed just how good it was with factory rider Pol Espargaro ending the day eighth overall and highly-rated rookie team-mate Brad Binder finishing third in the afternoon’s scorching hot second session.
“I’m enjoying the weekend – which is not normally the case when track temperatures are high,” said Espargaro after the day’s two sessions.
“Right now I think we have the pace to be in the second group of Sunday’s race, fighting for fifth to 10th. It’s amazing, and I think we can have good fun now in the race.”
KTM has made big progress all round but especially with a big step forward in the hot conditions that normally were its downfall.
But it seems like it’s been another beneficiary of Michelin’s new rear tyre. It’s struggled on corner entry with the rear tyre overheating and spinning up as it became too soft, so the combination of new tyre and winter modifications means it’s in a better place.
While Espargaro might be Honda-bound at the end of the season, he’s still fired up about what he can achieve in his final races for KTM as the bike continues to improve.
“I’ve spent a lot of time behind other riders to see where we’re good and where we’re bad,” he explained.
“We’ve improved a lot on corner entry, especially on fast corners – we are very strong there and on the brakes.
“Tomorrow we have a chance for Q2, but it won’t be as easy as it looks because we’re close to the limit and I think the others aren’t.”
Dovizioso’s shoulder is healing well
One of the hot topics coming into the weekend was how Dovizioso’s recently-broken collarbone would stand up to the stresses of riding a MotoGP machine.
The Italian snapped his shoulder riding a motocross race for training late last month, and potentially faced a huge setback as the most intense season ever kicks off.
However, following successful surgery to plate the break, he says that he’s had no problems so far with it.
“I feel good. Like always, the first day is the worst, and to have a break [between races] that we normally don’t have was a dream to help me recover,” Dovizioso said.
“The plan was always to be ready for today, and today I felt great. My body felt good and I forgot about the situation with my collarbone.”
That could change on Sunday though – something he’s keenly aware of. Fine riding around in practice and testing, he isn’t getting too confident and remains aware that the real challenge will be a hot and frantic 25 laps when the lights go out.
“When you ride in practice you’re always able to manage the situation because you only have to do five or six laps and that’s fine,” he admitted.
“Thinking about 25 is bad, really bad, especially at Jerez because it’s a small track.
“When you have to brake hard on a big bike like we have on a small bike, it’s hard work.”
