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So much happened in the drama-filled opening round of the 2020 MotoGP championship that it’s hard to even begin to work through the drama. From high-speed crashes to amazing saves and from bad tyre decisions to satellite team victories, it has thrown the compressed season wide open after only one round.
As always in racing, there are definitely winners and losers. Some will be raring for another go in only six days’ time, some will be hoping to never have to race at Jerez again, and some will be sitting on the sidelines wishing they were in the thick of the action…
Honda
Titles lost already?
It’s hard to describe just how disastrous Honda’s start to the 2020 season was. In one fell swoop, it managed to highlight the issues with its bike, see its top two riders put out of action, and potentially lose the rider, team and constructors’ championships.
For too long now, HRC has worked with a very particular model for going racing. Hire the best there is, and allow them to make up for any deficiencies in the balance of the bike.
That’s been fine while it’s had a fit and healthy Marc Marquez and his absolutely supreme talent sitting upon the RC213V – but without him it doesn’t have a rider capable of taming the bike.
Nakagami and Alex Marquez are not going to be securing Honda a constructors’ title any time soon
Evidence? Just look at 2019, when while paired with three-time champion Jorge Lorenzo, Marquez still managed to secure all but 20 of the points he needed to win the team championship on his own!
He also highlighted just how talented he is again in yesterday’s race with an amazing early save at the same left-hander where he later crashed out. Marquez speared into the gravel at high speed and relied on his cat-like reflexes to save it. He couldn’t repeat the feat later in the race and now faces a lengthy recovery from arm injuries.
To add insult (or perhaps, more injury) to injury, Cal Crutchlow is also facing a battle for fitness after breaking his scaphoid and suffering a concussion in the warm-up.
There’s no doubt that Honda’s bike needs to be ridden at the absolute edge to go fast, and Jerez should serve as a wake-up call to the engineers that relying on rider talent alone isn’t enough.
It also means that Honda is facing a race weekend with a squad headed up by middle-pack runner Taka Nakagami and rookie Alex Marquez. Coming home in 10th and 12th in the depleted field at the finish, they’re not going to be securing Honda a constructors’ title any time soon.
Yamaha
A win, but maybe not how it wanted
It’s actually hard to quantify whether Sunday counts as a good day or a bad day for Yamaha. On one hand, it took MotoGP’s first ever non-Honda satellite victory with 2021 factory rider Fabio Quartararo finally delivering on his potential with a win for Petronas SRT, and works man Maverick Vinales salvaged a tough day in second.
But on the other hand, the factory team doesn’t go racing to finish second to its satellites.
Sure, it’s pumped money and resources into the Petronas Yamaha team this season to ensure that Quartararo can be competitive, but until he steps into the garage next door, he isn’t the primary focus.
Vinales and Valentino Rossi gambled in Sunday’s race and it backfired. Electing to go with Michelin’s soft front tyre – the only ones on the grid to do so – they pushed too hard too soon and burnt it out.
A rare mechanical problem for Rossi isn’t good news either. He pulled over because warning lights started flashing on his dash, and there’ll be a race within the depleted engineering cohort to figure out what caused it and to prevent a repeat occurrence next weekend.
However, there are positives to take from Jerez too. Using Yamaha’s new holeshot device for the first time, Vinales made the best start of his MotoGP career and was able to control the opening laps of the race from the front.
That’s been a pre-season target and with the Yamaha needing a clear track to run its desired smooth lines, the start device will be a huge asset as the season progresses.
Ducati
Suddenly in a great position
It looked like it was going to be a disastrous weekend for Ducati at Jerez, as it struggled to get the Desmosedici adapted to Michelin’s 2020 rear tyre. Unable to find a way to dial down the grip levels provided by the new rubber – which were preventing the slides needed to get maximum speed from the bike – it looked set to be a tough race for Andrea Dovizioso and Danilo Petrucci.
However, they were able to snatch some success at the end, with Dovi delivering a podium finish that could be key for any title aspirations. He came home third and with 2021 factory rider and current satellite pilot Jack Miller right behind him, so it was a strong result in the end for Ducati.
Limiting damage on weekends where it knows it’s not the strongest has been something of a weakness for Ducati in recent years, so to be able to take home a better-than-expected result is exactly what it needed.
It counts double in the current situation, with a shortened, compressed championship and with Marc Marquez out of action for the coming weekend at least. Dovi surely knows that after three years of being runner-up to Marquez, the title is finally within his grasp.
Suzuki
Couldn’t have gone worse
Could the weekend have gone any worse for Suzuki? Perhaps, but it’s not sure how…
Its number one rider Alex Rins didn’t even get the chance to race after a qualifying crash left him nursing a badly injured shoulder. It’s not sure yet if he’ll be race-fit for Sunday’s second round, but he’s definitely in a battle for fitness that won’t be easy.
And second rider Joan Mir had a disaster in the race itself, crashing out in the opening lap after making a rookie mistake.
Robbed of the chance to show its potential, it’s a gutting affair for the whole Suzuki squad.
And that potential was high, too. Suzuki has developed the GSX-RR into a super-competitive package and despite it not being a huge fan of the Jerez heat, it looked like it was on to make its mark in Sunday’s race.
Mir’s small consolation is that he gets to try again in six days to see what could have been, but it remains up in the air whether we’re going to see him joined by his team-mate or whether test rider Sylvain Guintoli will get the call up.
KTM
Proving its progress
We knew that the 2020 KTM RC16 was a vastly-improved motorbike, but we didn’t know just how improved it was until Sunday’s race.
KTM has clearly made leaps and bounds, and both Pol Espargaro and Brad Binder demonstrated that.
Espargaro had a great ride to sixth, properly utilising the bike’s strengths to stay in contention with the battle for the podium throughout.
Obviously there’s still finetuning to be done, but speaking after the race an ecstatic Espargaro said that’s all that needs to be done, and he believes KTM’s now got a base package as good as anyone else on the grid.
The future looks strong for KTM too, with Espargaro’s rookie team-mate Binder delivering a sensational performance.
Running as high as seventh and showing that he was comfortable in the leading group, only a mistake that left him in the gravel meant he only picked up three points in 13th at the flag.
Aprilia
Still an unknown quantity
Another case of missed opportunity on Sunday. Aleix Espargaro’s early race crash meant we didn’t get a chance to see just how good the new RS-GP is.
He and team-mate Bradley Smith have been shouting from the rooftops about the radical improvements at the team, but it remains an unknown until we see it race – and Sunday’s two laps by Espargaro weren’t enough to gauge it by.
Even worse, with only Smith finishing the exhausting race in 15th, it means Aprilia’s down a full set of data that would have been crucial for next week.
However, this is still very much a project in its infancy given the radical redesign of the bike over winter. It’ll be interesting to see how it applies this weekend’s lessons to next weekend and MotoGP’s first ever back-to-back race at the same circuit.
