It is a fact of life that generally nothing ever works out the way it should. Fabio Quartararo pulled up trees in his 2019 MotoGP debut season, romping to seven podiums and six poles to strike some genuine concern within reigning world champion Marc Marquez for 2020.
And when the Honda rider broke his arm in a crash at the Spanish Grand Prix back in July, ultimately ruling him out for the rest of the season and possibly a further six months from the point of writing following a third operation, few thought anyone other than Quartararo would take over his throne.
But from kicking Marquez while he was down with back-to-back Jerez victories, this would ultimately be the high point of the Petronas SRT rider's season. Although Quartararo would win the Catalan GP (albeit only just, after Suzuki's Joan Mir wiped out a deficit of over four seconds to get to within a second of him on the final lap) he never visited the other steps of the rostrum and registered just one other top five finish around his victories.