The defining plot points from MotoGP 2020

The spread of coronavirus put this year's MotoGP World Championship in serious doubt, but the organisers pulled out all the stops to provide a shortened season on European soil. Nine different winners from fourteen races, and no fewer than fifteen podium finishers, turned 2020 into one of the most open and entertaining campaigns in memory.

As if the impact of a global pandemic wasn't enough, the introduction of a new Michelin rear tyre increased the unpredictability of the action on track, as the world's premier motorcycle racing series reflected the daily uncertainty of life in general.

The Marc Marquez mystery

There is one question that has remained a constant throughout this year. What would have happened if Marc Marquez didn't get injured? Some people believe that the exhibition of pure dominance that he was putting on at Jerez before he crashed and broke his arm was a sign of what was to come from the Honda man, and that he would have quickly negotiated the changing circumstances that seemed to upset the consistency of his rivals.

"Marc has proved that he always knows how to overcome problems better than the rest, because he has this huge capacity to adapt," said a Honda team member, who prefers to remain nameless. "I think that with so much unpredictability around, he would have won this title by four or five clear races."

As we await news on Marquez's next step on his rehabilitation plan, his fans can only cross their fingers and hope that the 2021 version of the six-time MotoGP World Champion is strong enough to blow away any questions that remained unanswered this year.

Nobody is hanging on his return more than Honda, who has gone through one of the worst periods in its racing history. Not only was 2020 the first season it has failed to win a race since 1981, but it scored just two podiums all year (both from Alex Marquez) and finished second-last in the manufacturers' standings, just ahead of Aprilia.

Consistency key to the crown for Joan Mir

In such an unusual season, with less rounds than usual and only nine circuits visited, the Mallorcan somehow came back from two no-scores in the opening three rounds to claim the title with a race to spare in just his second season at this level.

His maiden MotoGP podium in Austria was the springboard to a run of seven top-three finishes from nine races and a dizzying degree of momentum that saw him clinch Suzuki's first title in 20 years at Valencia.

PLUS: How Mir became Suzuki's humble hero

At the age of just 23, Mir is wise enough to recognise that it wasn't raw speed that won him this title but stability, a theory that is backed up by the numbers: he picked up 48.8% of the points on offer this year, which is the lowest percentage by any champion in the history of the series.

Mir is also the first rider to be crowned world champion without starting a single race from pole position since Wayne Rainey in 1992 - another element that proves it was his regularity in race spec rather than his pace over a lap that did the job.

Yamaha lose track

As if struck by the nostalgic melancholy of Valentino Rossi moving to the Petronas SRT garage next door in 2021, the factory Yamaha effort seemed to lose direction whilst the riders expected to take over at the wheel became more and more disorientated.

There is only one thing worse for a rider than not knowing why he is fast, and that is not knowing why he is slow, which is what has happened amidst the confusion at Yamaha - from a mix-up that ended with a penalty for breaching engine homologation rules at the start of the season, to the riders concluding by the end that the 2019 bike is actually better than the 2020 version.

PLUS: How Yamaha's engine woes haunted it in Portugal

The fact Franco Morbidelli finished runner-up in the championship on the older model backs up the convictions of Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo, even if Rossi preferred to point to Morbidelli's great form and his efforts in making the "minimal" differences between the two versions of the M1 seem much bigger.

When all is said and done, the 2020 version of the Yamaha did win more races than any other bike on the grid with four - one more than the 2019 version M1 and the KTM.

KTM is here to stay

Anybody who tries to say that they saw this giant leap in performance coming from the Austrian bikes this season is a liar. Predicting the odd podium at the start of the year could have been believable, but nobody expected three wins (only Yamaha won more) and eight podiums.

If this steep upturn in fortunes wasn't enough reason already for optimism at KTM's headquarters in Mattighofen, it will also be buoyed by the knowledge that it is the only factory out of those not granted concessions that will be able to roll out a completely new bike in 2021, thanks to a grey area in the rules that it stepped deftly around when development costs were restricted due to the effects of the pandemic.

The new KTM will be ridden by Brad Binder and Miguel Oliveira after Pol Espargaro, who has done the bulk of development work on the RC16 over the last four years, decided to make the switch to Honda - a move he has already admitted to questioning at stages, but remains steadfast his decision was for the better.

Ducati in no man's land

Even though the Borgo Panigale factory was able to leave Portugal on a high after claiming the manufacturers' championship, the truth is that this title does not hold the same weight as in Formula 1 simply because the statistic doesn't discriminate between the number of bikes that each factory puts on track.

As such, the comparison between Ducati, who has six machines on the grid, and Suzuki, for example, who has just two, is not a fair one. With Marc Marquez out injured, Ducati and its supposed lead rider Andrea Dovizioso were presented with a golden opportunity to achieve what the Spaniard had denied them for the past three seasons.

Instead, the fight ended up taking place within - between the egos of Dovizioso and Ducati general manager Gigi Dall'Igna - and it slowed both the development of the Desmosedici and the speed of the rider, who didn't score another podium after winning in Austria and slipped to fourth by the season's end. He opted to take a year sabbatical over staying in red, but the youth, freshness and strength that Jack Miller and Francesco Bagnaia will bring to the team next year are reasons for optimism amongst the Ducatisti.

Nobody wants to ride for Aprilia

Up until late Sunday night, Aprilia was trying to finalise a contract that would see American Moto2 rider Joe Roberts join Aleix Espargaro next season, but the fact they ended up confirming existing riders Lorenzo Savadori and Bradley Smith - who will fight it out for the second race seat alongside Espargaro during winter testing - can only mean that nobody else wanted it.

There is no other explanation for the fact that four riders - all of them without a MotoGP ride for next season - have all turned the opportunity down. Dovizioso, Cal Crutchlow, Marco Bezzecchi and Fabio Di Giannantonio all distanced themselves from a project that in the last few years has only raised more questions about Piaggio's true intentions.

Positive early signs from the 2020 bike last winter failed to materialise into anything more, with engine reliability issues leading to it being detuned and suffering a decrease in performance.

"Next year is very important for Aprilia because they will be the only factory with concessions," asserts Aleix Espargaro. "We have a new bike with a new engine and more parts to come. If we are not consistently in the top six in 2021, then we won't be satisfied."

Rise of the (satellite) machines

Series promotor Dorna Sports' big dream, which it has been working on for more than a decade, finally came true this season as the satellite teams rose up against the factories and the difference in machine performance was reduced to nothing.

Six wins shared between the two Yamaha Petronas SRT riders, as well as a pair for Miguel Oliveira on the Tech3-run KTM confirmed the great work that has been done since the series was reborn to balance out performance and make the races more entertaining.

For the first time since Qatar 2004, in Portugal all three podium finishers were from satellite teams.

"Recently we have seen satellite teams working better than factory teams," said Rossi. "On Sunday, for example, the top five bikes on the grid were from satellite teams and the sixth was a test rider [Bradl]. Times have changed and the era of a rider thinking he could only win if he was in a factory team has ended."