Is the imperfect bike the real Misano MotoGP threat?

MotoGP remains at Misano for its second race in a week, the wordy - but rather charmingly titled - Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. And as you'd expect from a groundhog day practice at the same track where the riders have already completed four days' worth of running, it was a tight affair.

Just 0.071 seconds covered the top five on the combined times, with rookie Brad Binder demonstrating KTM's leap forward from a difficult San Marino weekend with a best lap of 1m31.628s ahead of Honda's great hope Takaaki Nakagami on the LCR bike.

Erstwhile championship leader Fabio Quartararo completed the top three, setting his best lap on a fresh medium rear as opposed to the soft those surrounding him at the top of leaderboard used for their time attacks.

The Petronas SRT rider caused a bit of a stir in the paddock on Thursday when he branded the Suzuki the "perfect" bike, and expressed deep "worry" about the threat both Alex Rins and particularly Joan Mir would pose in the second Misano outing.

Yet, Quartararo was almost half a second clear of Mir on the timesheets at the end of FP2, with the Suzuki rider having also done his time attack on a fresh medium tyre. The Yamaha rider's race pace was also much stronger, and was in fact the best of the field.

"Honestly, I'm still worried about the Suzuki because I think they have a really good package," Quartararo replied when the above facts were pointed out to him by Autosport. "They were fast in Austria, they are fast here. Looks like we have something more, and for sure on Sunday they will be there. They will be there, like every time."

Quartararo's concerns aren't unwarranted. Mir has been the only rider of late to have shown anything you could consider consistent form in recent races of thiis dramatic 2020 campaign. Placing second in the Austrian GP, he was well on course for victory in the Styrian GP before it was red-flagged and ended up fourth at the restart due to the lack of a fresh front tyre. And he charged through from being four seconds adrift of Valentino Rossi at one stage in the San Marino GP to pinching third away from him.

In the last four races, Quartararo has scored just 20 points. Mir, by comparison, has registered 49. That Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso leads the standings by six points - having scored 45 points in the last three races - just goes to show how wildly unpredictable this season has been. Mir's form also highlights the deficiencies of the 2020 Yamaha.

Quartararo recently spoke of "getting used" to riding around the Yamaha's issues. Misano certainly suits the M1, as the San Marino GP proved, but with all that Quartararo and Maverick Vinales has said about the bike of late, it's not one you could reasonably call close to perfect. But, the imperfect bike - at least in Quartararo's hands - has got the legs over the "perfect" one.

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In FP2, Quartararo completed a 15-lap stint on the medium rear tyre. Beginning with a 1m33.625s, his pace at the end of the run was sitting at 1m32.697s, while the best of that 15 was a 1m32.273s. A brief three-lap run on the same tyre yielded a 1m33.077s on a compound which by that point had 19 laps on it.

Quartararo had excellent pace throughout the San Marino weekend, but an iffy start dropped him to fifth on the opening lap. And it was while stuck behind Vinales where his race fell apart. Admitting to getting "too excited" behind the works team Yamaha rider, once clear Quartararo said he "pushed like it was the last lap" to regain ground to third-placed Jack Miller and crashed.

Mir has a real chance of scoring his first win this Sunday, but it will largely hinge on how is Saturday goes. That his best shot at victory in the Styrian GP came from him starting fourth proves this

After a handful of dodgy launches at the end of Tuesday's Misano test, Quartararo found something to hopefully avoid a repeat this Sunday.

"I'm so happy because during the test I make eight starts, and in the last one 'I say OK, I'm trying a totally different position for the start and let's see how is the start'," he explained. "And I make a totally different [body] position and way of releasing the clutch with the gas, and I was like, 'whoa, looks like I can be so consistent'. This is something that will be great for the race because the average of today, the four starts that I did, three were much better than last week."

He also noted improvements were made to try and make overtaking a little easier, explaining: "We sacrificed a little bit of turning of the bike, we improved a little bit more in braking." Though he concedes the Yamaha's power deficit is still making overtaking a struggle, if his new way of starting comes good on Sunday, he seemingly has pace enough not to need to get involved in any fights.

Mir, by contrast, didn't necessarily show bad pace. His runs were shorter, the Suzuki rider keen to try all three rear compounds. On a soft slick with seven laps already completed, he managed a run of three solid low-mid 1m32s efforts - the best of which a 1m32.363s. On a new medium, he managed four low 1m32s - the best a 1m32.126s. However, this last run was his time attack.

But the problem Mir had in the San Marino GP was his pace not quite being as quick as it needed to be in the early laps. It was only a brief lull, as his speed increased when the tyre rubbered in. Given he ran fresh mediums for his time attack, it's hard to make a direct comparison to Quartararo's run to see if this has been ironed out. But he's still not quite sure why this problem exists.

"Actually, I don't know," Mir said when asked about it on Friday. "The important thing is that we worked today for this in the last exit with the medium tyre, and if you compare our lap times in the first two laps compared to the others, we miss some tenths. We miss probably two tenths, or something more.

"Then the tyre gets warm and the bike starts to work well and we are able to maintain the pace a lot. So, I improved because the pace is better than last weekend. But comparing to the other people today, I'm still missing something in the first two laps."

That, however, won't prove to be the biggest issue if he doesn't make a step forward on Saturday. With both riders yet to put in soft tyre time attacks, it's hard to know how much of the 0.480s actually separates both of them on the Friday timesheets.

Around three tenths split Quartararo in third and Mir in eighth in qualifying at Misano last week. Mir is also yet to start from the front row in 2020, while Quartararo has missed it just once when he was 10th at the Styrian GP.

Mir has a real chance of scoring his first win this Sunday, but it will largely depend on how his Saturday goes. That his best shot at victory in the Styrian GP came from him starting fourth proves this.

The Suzuki rider thinks getting his GSX-RR on the front two rows is "possible". At both Jerez and Red Bull Ring, which have hosted repeat races, Mir has made up two places in qualifying - 12th to 10th at Jerez, and sixth to fourth in Austria. A similar gain on Saturday will tag him onto the back of the second row and put him into a prime position to challenge for victory.

Then hopefully we can finally settle this weekend's hot debate on just what the "perfect" bike is. However, right now, it's the imperfect one that has the edge...