Can anyone stop "changed" Bagnaia as Ducati tightens its grip on MotoGP?

MotoGP’s new campaign begins at this weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix with the biggest format shake-up the series has undergone in decades as the sprint revolution comes to town. In a kneejerk bid to overturn the slide in television and trackside interest suffered by the series over the past couple of years, every round of the 2023 calendar (and there is a record 21 of those) will feature a sprint race run on Saturdays to half the distance of the following day’s grand prix.

Unlike Formula 1’s sprint races, which are essentially a final stage of qualifying, MotoGP’s Saturday race will be independent of the grand prix and the grid for both will be decided via the usual time attack. How the sprint races will actually increase enthusiasm for MotoGP is uncertain at this point, but what is sure is that it will have a major impact on the destiny of this year’s world championship.

Not only does it double the amount of races – and, therefore, the risk factor – but sprint races will add an extra 252 points to the 525 already on offer in 2023. So, in an already tight field, the margin for error has diminished further.

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Based on what we’ve seen in winter testing, it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Ducati stamping its authority upon the season. The Italian manufacturer’s unorthodox journey to its first crown in 15 years in 2022 highlighted the shortfalls of its rivals, particularly Yamaha with Fabio Quartararo. But this should take nothing away from the fact that Ducati ended 2022 with a motorcycle far superior to its rivals’, and looks to have taken another step with its GP23.

Across the five days of winter testing in 2023, Ducati riders – on a mixture of 2022-spec and 2023-spec machinery – took a clean sweep of the times. In Portugal, a humble Francesco Bagnaia set an unofficial lap record to top the test outright, his 1m37.968s met with a “f***ing hell” from an onlooking Quartararo.

“I saw at this moment that Ducati and Aprilia are unbeatable,” reigning world champion Bagnaia said on the penultimate day of the Sepang test. “They are very competitive. But it’s very difficult to know, because sincerely it was easier to understand the tests years ago. Now, looking at the pace, looking at everything, you don’t know which tyres, which part of the bike they were testing.

Bagnaia was encouraged by the progress Ducati has made over the winter

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

“So, I don’t know. But at this moment it looks like we have more advantage than last year. But I don’t want to say anything before the race because I already did this mistake [last year] and I don’t want to repeat the same mistake.”

The mistake Bagnaia made last year was bigging up his chances after a two-day test at Jerez in November 2021, only to find during the pre-season of 2022 that the updated GP22 was not ready to mount a title challenge. This ultimately forced his record-breaking bounce back from a 91-point deficit to win the title. That said, the Italian made his title challenge harder than it needed to be with five DNFs (four of which were his own fault).

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That school of hard knocks carried on off-track, where a drink-driving offence in the summer in Ibiza and a bizarre tribute helmet to famed North Korea supporter and spousal abuser Dennis Rodman at the San Marino GP piled on unnecessary pressure. But the Bagnaia who finished up the 2023 pre-season in fine form is a rider who genuinely seems to have learned from what happened last year and has grown accordingly. This has transferred to the way he’s been riding, as former team-mate and current KTM rider Jack Miller noted.

"This year he seems more of a changed man, a confident man, and he’s riding pretty impressive" Jack Miller

“He’s looking stronger this year than last year, even in the run he had in the back end of the season in 2021, the run he had coming back into last season,” the Australian said. “I think this year he seems more of a changed man, a confident man, and he’s riding pretty impressive.”

Given the Ducati has always been strong on one-lap pace (the marque secured 16 of the 20 poles on offer in 2022), that should play to its strengths in the sprint races. Ally that to the impressive long-run pace Bagnaia had in testing, and the competition will have to step up in a big way to dethrone him.

That threat could well come from within. New team-mate Enea Bastianini’s pre-season didn’t deliver any standout moments, but four wins in his sophomore year on a 2021-spec Ducati last season mark him out as a major threat, as did his inability to allow Bagnaia an easy run to the championship in the latter stages of last season’s campaign. The Pramac duo of Jorge Martin and Johann Zarco are always brimming with potential, while Alex Marquez’s switch from Honda to Gresini on a 2022-spec Ducati looks to have unlocked untapped form from the Spaniard, whose two world championships at junior levels and double MotoGP podiums are often unfairly overlooked.

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Aprilia enjoyed a strong winter with an RS-GP that was, according to Aleix Espargaro and Maverick Vinales, a bit better all round than its race-winning predecessor. While headlines in testing focused on its radical Formula 1-style aero push, the Aprilia was solid over a single lap and on long-run pace.

A fibrosis issue in his right arm cut short Espargaro’s running in Portugal, while Vinales focused solely on race preparation and not on out-and-out speed. But both felt at the Algarve track that they are ready to race, and it seems that Aprilia’s fairytale 2022 isn’t going to be a flash in the pan.

Now at KTM, former Ducati factory rider Miller is convinced that Bagnaia will hit greater heights in 2023

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

As testing entered its final day, Yamaha firmly looked like the third-best marque. Last year’s runner-up Quartararo warned after the first day of the Portugal test that Yamaha “will not be ready” for the opening round due to the problems he was having on the bike, which were in all areas bar braking. Chiefly, his main issue centred on not being able to extract pace on fresh rubber.

Numerous voices from Yamaha over the past few months have praised the fact that it has been churning out mountains of updates. As far as Quartararo was concerned, this was perhaps “too much”, as the M1 went from having a fairly stable base for three years to being radically different. So, to go forward, Yamaha took a step back and adapted some 2022 set-up ideas to the 2023 bike. And it worked, Quartararo making a lap time gain of 1.3s from day to day in the Portugal test.

“It’s not about new things,” Quartararo said of Yamaha’s “massive step” on the last day of testing. “Basically, it’s old things, but it was all about set-up and it was working pretty well because [on day one] on the time attack I made 1m39.6s on one lap. And [on day two] on the [race] pace I made 1m39s low, 1m38s high. So, it’s close to one second faster in the pace. It’s getting the tyre to work better, but also physically. [On day one] the bike was tough, it wasn’t turning. Basically, all the worst things you can have, and now we are back to good things.”

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The long-requested top speed gains have been delivered by Yamaha. It’s not going to blow Ducati away, but Quartararo feels that Yamaha is “in a better position” to actually be able to fight with its bike now. So, for the time being, Yamaha has averted disaster. The same can’t be said of Honda.

Throughout winter the Japanese marque and KTM have been vying for the spot as MotoGP’s fourth-best marque, with neither showing anything particularly positive when testing concluded. Eight-time world champion Marc Marquez wasn’t enamoured with the 2023 RC213V prototype when he rode it at the post-race Valencia test in 2022, saying then that it didn’t feel like it was a bike he could fight for the title with. That tone hasn’t really changed across the Sepang and Algarve tests. There were some positive steps, but seemingly only minor ones as he made his frank assessment of where Honda is.

“Unfortunately some of the things that Honda expected would work on track were not working like we expected,” said Marquez. “And then we were riding the same bike [on the last day in Portugal] as we finished with in Malaysia. It’s true that we changed the set-up a bit, my team organised a good plan and we did a few steps and I was feeling better and better.

“I was able to work on the rhythm, because when you try different things every run it’s more difficult. But now, for Portimao [in this weekend’s race], we cannot think about the podium or victory. We have to think about what we have, try to take the best. Also, the conditions will change, the rubber on the track. We will see, but at the moment if [at the test] was the race with the conditions we had on track we can fight for fifth to 10th, I believe.”

Quartararo believes Yamaha is in a better position to fight Ducati

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Honda, it seems, is running out of ideas as it faces the real possibility of suffering a third winless campaign in four years. Over the winter it brought in Ken Kawauchi, who spearheaded Suzuki’s bike development, as technical director along with ex-Suzuki riders Joan Mir and Alex Rins. While time is still needed for the new technical chief and riders to gel with the HRC structure, it is time that Honda can ill-afford as Marquez’s future becomes a topic of discussion.

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The Spaniard told Autosport last year in an exclusive interview that his “dream” is to stay with Honda, but that he will look at alternative options when his contract expires at the end of 2024 if HRC cannot give him the bike he needs to deliver his desire of a seventh MotoGP world title. With contract negotiations for 2025 likely to open up later this year, Honda needs to quickly transform its motorcycle.

"We cannot think about the podium or victory. We have to think about what we have, try to take the best" Marc Marquez

Now fully recovered from his myriad injury woes, there is no question that Marquez is still the best of the bunch on the 2023 grid. But he is only human, and there is only so much you can do with substandard equipment.

The introduction of sprint races and the questions surrounding whether anyone can dethrone the juggernaut of Ducati provide an intriguing storyline for MotoGP’s new era in 2023. But it is the developing subplot at Honda and its mission to keep its star asset happy that may well come to define the 2023 MotoGP season. And, as proven time and time again since 2013, Honda needs Marc Marquez more than he needs Honda…

Marquez has already written off his chances of a podium at Portimao, and Honda could face a fight to keep him if matters don't improve

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images