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After one race, six days on track, a fortnight of perfect weather and over 1000 miles each of experience, the 2020 MotoGP grid goes into today’s Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna perhaps better-prepared than they’ve ever been for a race in their lives, with no excuses left.
And, with that experience comes an even closer than ever field. A mere half a second covered the top 10 in qualifying, all of them well under Jorge Lorenzo’s 2018 lap record that stood until last weekend’s qualifying session.
In free practice four, the traditional last-chance saloon for dialling in race pace, a second covered 18 riders, with the last of those, Jack Miller, rallying himself in qualifying only 15 minutes later to eventually end up on the front row.
With the pace hotter than ever even for MotoGP, KTM rider Pol Espargaro (who starts the Emilia Romagna GP from fourth) warned after qualifying that he expects the 27-lap duel to be the closest, most intense and fraught battle of 2020 so far – a bold claim to make given the tumultuous start we’ve already witnessed to the delayed season.
“I’m afraid, because in these lap times it’s very easy to make a mistake – and at this speed the mistakes come fast” :: Pol Espargaro
“It’s going to be difficult to reproduce our lap times from practice in the race,” he admitted, “because of the risks that we’re taking. It’s very easy in these laps to make a mistake, but it’s what you need to do to be in the fight.
“Everyone is so good, all the riders are so quick, so talented. All the manufacturers’ bikes are so fast too, and imagine – after one week and a test, all the bikes are at the highest level with the best info and the quickest setting. Everyone is super fast and you need to take risks.
“Hopefully the race is going to be a little slower, because otherwise it’s going to be very easy not to finish the race. I’m afraid, because in these lap times it’s very easy to make a mistake – and at this speed the mistakes come fast. But if the others are riding in this rhythm there’s nothing you can do but push.”
And that’s a feeling that has the entire grid apprehensive as we go into the second race in a week at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.
Caught out before qualifying with exactly that sort of mistake, Miller is all too aware of how easy it is to mess up when attacking at this pace.
“I’ve seen a lot of people crashing; I’ve even been one of them,” he told The Race after qualifying second.
“Everyone is on a razor’s edge. The qualifying laps, as fun as they were, were absolutely on the limit.
“The pace will be fast tomorrow, but everyone has it in the back of their minds that you can’t be aggressive with the tyres for the whole race.
“With everyone gaining so much experience, we’re seeing guys who aren’t normally there, being there with their pace.”
One person who can’t afford a mistake is championship contender Fabio Quartararo, after crashing out of last week’s San Marino Grand Prix and losing his title lead for the first time this year to Andrea Dovizioso.
“If you look at the pace you can see that everyone is going fast, and when you’re at the limit it’s easier to have a crash during the race,” Quartararo said.
“I will try not to make the same mistake as last week, and it’s been important for me to understand why I crashed.
“Maybe there aren’t 10 riders who can win, but there are close to it who can fight for the victory. It’s going to be interesting, and let’s see how it goes for us.”
However, there’s one rider who might not be ready to get stuck into a race-long duel if it comes down to it: Quartararo’s team-mate and last weekend’s runaway winner Franco Morbidelli.
Suffering since Monday with a gastrointestinal illness that caused him to miss Tuesday’s test, Morbidelli admitted that he’s far from fully fit.
“I have been sick all week, lost one day of testing and I don’t feel completely fit yet” :: Franco Morbidelli
“Today was not too bad,” he said after qualifying. “I am feeling better than yesterday, but I am still not 100% so I had to manage this in today’s sessions.
“In qualifying I didn’t feel like I had the energy to be able to attack how I wanted, but I will try to rest some more to be as prepared as possible for the race. The pace doesn’t look too bad, but we do still need to decide which tyres we will use.
“I think tomorrow’s race will be more demanding compared to last Sunday. I have been sick all week, lost one day of testing and I don’t feel completely fit yet.
“The gap between a lot of riders is really tight so I think it will be a close race.”
