The opening day of MotoGP practice in 2021 ahead of the season-opening Qatar Grand Prix threw up no big shocks, which is par for the course when the whole field spent four proper days and one useless dusty day testing at the very same venue earlier this month.
But the lack of shocks was perhaps a shock in itself. Those who looked good in testing – including the breakout star bike of the event – looked good in practice too, and those who looked out of sorts remained that way.
And with FP2 having already marked a pre-qualifying of sorts and proper competitive action right around the corner, we’ve decided to analyse who should and shouldn’t feel good about themselves after the two 45-minute sessions on Friday.
Winners
Aprilia and Aleix Espargaro
“We are not ready to win, that’s clear, but the bike is much better.”
Any previous year with Aprilia, Aleix Espargaro would not have to say that the bike is not ready to win, because the timesheets always made that abundantly clear.
But on Friday, a couple of weeks on from a fantastic test outing, the RS-GP in his hands was clearly one of the best packages on the track – and he believes it would’ve challenged for the top spot for the day if not for traffic in the form of Takaaki Nakagami and Jorge Martin.
“I’m sincerely very comfortable with the bike, it’s maybe even a little bit better than in the test because it’s a little bit easier to be fast,” Espargaro said.
“After the test I felt very good with the bike but I had some doubts because of past problems, because it was just a test, because sometimes you don’t want to realise how good it works – but immediately today I felt very good, I felt very comfortable.
“I’m enjoying a lot this bike, and it’s quite easy to be fast, and this is the most important thing. I don’t know if on Sunday I will finish sixth, seventh, eighth or I will win, but I’m enjoying riding.”
So good was Espargaro’s Friday that his insistence the RS-GP wouldn’t win this weekend was honestly kind of a surprise, given that he’d spent much of FP2 with a half-second lead after that incredible first attempt on the soft rear tyre.
His reasoning rings true – the revamped bike is quite new, and there’s still question marks about how it behaves on high fuel and in a pack – but you genuinely can’t rule Espargaro out, and even he admits he may very well be in the hunt for a podium.
And for a team that was rejected by numerous riders last year, that’s just incredible.
Jack Miller
Perhaps the most obvious of the day’s winners, Jack Miller, kicked off his factory Ducati career in the best possible way, by topping the combined times from team-mate Francesco Bagnaia and showing that his pace from last week’s five days of testing wasn’t just a flash in the pan.
The day didn’t get off to the perfect start for Miller, mind you, after the Australian was caught out in the early minutes of the day and crashed out – but wasn’t too upset by the fall after escaping uninjured.
“It was just a combination of the wind and pushing too hard on the medium tyre into turn four,” he said afterwards, shrugging off the free practice one fall.
“I’d had a moment the run before and asked the team who had crashed there because it was easy to do – it was very slippery. I went out again, and on my first flying lap I crashed there, which was nice,” he joked.
He didn’t quite get a chance to show off the race pace that was on display last week, though, with the day very much feeling like Miller still has something in the bag for Sunday’s race.
Despite that, he admitted that he’s a little concerned about what will happen in qualifying tomorrow evening thanks to the small margins covering the leaders, with a mere second splitting the top 16.
“I think the times are incredibly close,” admitted Miller. “It’s free practice two, and sure I might have been [in it] to but [Johann] Zarco was fourth and not even two tenths of a second away from me – and I was seven thousandths off the all-time lap record! That’s not normal in FP2.”
The Ducati ‘support acts’
There was widespread expectation that Miller would be right at the sharp end come race weekend, but a lot less certainty over whether the peaky pair of Bagnaia and Johann Zarco would be right up there with him.
Bagnaia had gone into the weekend stressing he needed to find something extra to be on the first or even second row, which certainly didn’t inspire confidence. And yet there he was at the end of Friday, just 0.035s off Miller and having had a really good chance to go quicker still snatched away by a crash for Pol Espargaro.
“The first time attack was incredible because I was not expecting a [1m]53.4[s], and it came really easily, easier than the test,” Bagnaia said.
“I think we have started again with the same feeling of the test, or better, and we have to continue this way because we are very strong, I think.”
As for Zarco, he’d managed to shunt just minutes into the first practice of the year – a combination of the heat, the medium tyre and trying to get back up to speed too quickly.
But the rest of his day was smooth, and he ended it a close fourth, admitting like Bagnaia that he was surprised how easily the laptime came.
“To qualify on the first row, I think I still have almost five tenths to find for tomorrow evening – but it’s possible. This [1m]53.5[s], I was feeling I’m going fast but maybe not that fast,” Zarco said.
There’s still the big caveat of how the tyres will hold up for either in race trim, a caveat that exists for Miller too. But for where Bagnaia and Zarco are, and for how quickly the Ducati gets off the line and the top speed it reaches, there’s every chance that at least initially there’ll be as many as three Desmosedicis running up front on Sunday.
Pol Espargaro and the rider he’s replaced
“I’m five tenths off first, if we finished the last run maybe we’d be even closer – it means I’m getting closer, but for sure with these laptimes you also get close to the limit,” Honda works newcomer Pol Espargaro summed up.
“I found it twice today – which is not bad at all! I told you already, that to be fast we need to crash. And if these crashes come in free practice, it’s fine. It’s OK. It’s what happens when you can’t test so much.”
Given his two crashes, Espargaro was right on the edge – 0.013s off, to be exact – of making the other section of this column, had he failed to provisionally slot into Q2.
Instead, assuming there are no sudden FP3 improvements from those behind him – and if there are, he believes he will improve too – he looks to have passed his first major test as a Honda rider. That is, he will have secured an automatic Q2 berth at a track where the RC213V has never been incredible (even though Marc Marquez has been dragging it to the cusp of Losail victory anyway).
Espargaro suffered two crashes during the day – one more than during all five days of testing. But it bothered him very little, as while the first one was “stupid”, the second one came in handy for finding the limit.
“The Honda here is not ‘wow’ but even like that I could manage to be fast – it is amazing. So that’s why when I crashed I was happy, because I was coming fast and I feel everything is coming.”
But Espargaro is well aware he still isn’t getting everything out of the package, and stressed that getting quicker still is a matter of “laps”.
“It’s more my riding style that needs improving than the bike. I did not do more than three laps in a row perfect, I did not match the corners. So this is small time I’m losing everywhere, by not being ready to ride at this speed – and this is a matter of laps and knowledge with this bike.
“It’s going to come, but at the moment it’s what it is. Still I feel like a rookie with this bike, and I need to learn it more.”
A word, however, for the rider whose place he’s taken. Alex Marquez may be facing Q1, but he was the second-fastest Honda on the day and not far off Q2, on the heels of a rookie year in which he’d barely ever showed significant one-lap pace.
“Honestly, I’m a little bit surprised – in the test when I was trying the time attack and trying to improve, I had a big crash,” he said.
“But anyway, still something to improve, but it was a little bit of a surprise to make the [1m]54.1[s].”
Franco Morbidelli
It wasn’t a dramatic day for Petronas Yamaha rider Franco Morbidelli, who went about Friday in his normal unassuming manner – but set race pace times good enough to leave him as arguably the leading Yamaha despite finishing in seventh to factory rider Fabio Quartararo’s fourth.
“I hope to be the favourite,” Morbidelli admitted after being tipped as such by Friday pacesetter Miller.
“On paper, looking at the charts, the Ducatis are probably the favourites, but nothing is set in stone. We need some more time in the weekend to predict things.”
There’s still work to do for Morbidelli, as he and crew chief Ramon Forcada devote time to their now-usual job of extracting the maximum from his year-old Yamaha M1 – a process that earned them three wins and second in the championship last year.
And that time will come on Saturday, with many of the grid devoting Friday’s night second practice session, traditionally dedicated to race set-up, to instead ensuring they had Q2-worthy times already in place while temperatures were cooler.
“You could see that so many riders gave their maximum tonight,” Morbidelli added.
“There are things that we need to improve, to do better, so we will check what we can do and then try.
“It will be difficult but I think we can manage to reduce the gap. It will be important to make a good qualifying, but overall I am happy with our performance today.”
Losers
KTM
There was an aura of defiance about KTM after its difficult pre-season test, and judging by this Friday its riders will need a lot more defiance to get through the remainder of the double-header.
“I don’t know what to say, difficult to say something, honestly, I don’t know why the track is so difficult for the bike,” said Tech3’s Iker Lecuona, whose day was hampered by a bad case of arm pump.
“For sure we expected a little bit more, but at least I improved my laptime regarding the test – but it’s like we are missing a second, and it’s quite a lot,” added his more experienced team-mate Danilo Petrucci.
On the evidence of a day on which the KTM quartet was led by Brad Binder in 16th, none of them are likely to make it out of Q1.
“The main thing right now is we’re just missing the speed of turning,” said Binder, who estimated all the KTMs were “pretty much having similar issues right now”.
“When we need to go from up straight to full [lean] angle, it’s not quite turning fast enough, when we have it on full angle. And that way it’s making it difficult for us to really put down the power and pick the bike up to get down the straights.”
But Binder believes that, as long as that issue can be addressed, a big step forward is possible “because we’ll just be making every straight a little bit longer and more time on full throttle”.
The South African is optimistic the weekend is not a total write-off, and so is his team-mate Miguel Oliveira.
Asked by The Race whether it was accurate to say he was “hitting a wall” again in terms of laptime as in the test, because he’d got quickly up to speed in FP1 with 10th place but slumped down the order in FP2, Oliveira said: “Yeah, it is [accurate], because the bike is actually quite similar to the test.
“Basically we know where we need to improve a little bit, to focus, but to find the specific solution is a little bit harder. But we are on it, the team is on it, and I’m optimistic for tomorrow.”
Stefan Bradl, still testing
It’s hard not to feel a little sorry for Marc Marquez’s replacement Stefan Bradl, as he is very much back on test rider duties despite showing what he’s capable of when allowed to simply race, with an impressive top 10 in the final race of 2020 at Portimao.
He looked set to come into this weekend as even a potential podium challenger after showing strong pace in testing, but that seems to have been knocked on the head as his other job comes to the fore.
Instead, he’s back developing the RC213V for Marquez’s eventual return – and was quick to respond when asked by journalists which mode he was lining up in this weekend.
“Let me ask you,” he joked, “when are we not testing something? We’re somewhere in the middle [of testing and racing], and still trying to figure out what’s best.
“We’re not testing huge things because we’ve been here already for five days, and finally today we’ve been trying to figure out what the best settings are for us, instead of being able to do it at the test.”
The news that Bradl is back on testing duties in a race weekend won’t just disappoint him, though – it’ll anger some rival team bosses too, with more than one already expressing dissatisfaction at Honda’s methods.
With Honda relying on Bradl both as test rider and race, he’s completed more miles on a MotoGP machine in the past six months than anyone else on earth as he is allowed to take part in tests where race riders are otherwise precluded, boosting Honda’s R&D significantly at a time when testing has been restricted as a pandemic-related cost-saving measure.
The reigning champion
It’s quite hard to figure out what constitutes a bad day for reigning world champion Joan Mir when it comes to practice, thanks to his quiet and workmanlike approach during free practice sessions.
Despite that, he did admit that Suzuki was further behind its opponents than it wanted to be. Finishing in 11th, he said that the lost final day of testing earlier this month – cancelled due to sandstorms and high winds – had left a gap in preparations.
“It was a difficult day,” said the Suzuki rider, “because we missed the last day of testing, and we still have to adjust the bike to be competitive.
“But we were strong, just not enough. The important thing is that we more or less know what is happening and we have to adjust the electronics to continue improving.
“What we’re missing is in the electronic side of things, in the small things that make a big difference.”
However, there was some good news on the other side of the Suzuki camp, with team-mate Alex Rins ending up in fifth and looking to have found a solution to the GSX-RR’s problems with extracting the best from soft tyres for a time attack.
“More or less the bike is similar, but we improved the electronics. Thanks to that, I was able to be faster and able to push a little bit more in every corner!” he joked.
