Why MotoGP's returning king can make or break Mir's 2020 legacy

Such is the otherworldly aura that radiates from Marc Marquez that, even after he sat out almost an entire season, and will miss the first two races this year, we start a new MotoGP campaign seriously considering his title prospects.

The last time we saw the six-time world champion on his factory Honda, he was pulling out of the Andalusian Grand Prix last July as he conceded defeat to his recently broken right arm. Three operations later, Marquez’s arm has healed to a point where he can ride again, but on Monday he confirmed that the opening double-header at Losail, comprising this weekend’s Qatar GP and next week’s Doha GP, will take place without him as Stefan Bradl once again stands in.

The world championship needs Marquez back, to provide a reference to the rest of the grid, which will in turn allow it the chance to prove that the results we saw in 2020 were no accident. But the world championship that Marquez will return to has taken on a wildly different complexion to the one he left.

PLUS: What Marquez will we get on his much-needed MotoGP return?

Nine riders won grands prix last season, the campaign won by Joan Mir on the factory Suzuki. In Marquez’s absence, more riders were able to realise what they are capable of. Suzuki started 2020 believing it could fight for the championship with its new bike, but few predicted that would come to pass. Now it starts 2021 on what is largely its title-winning bike with the target on its back.

Joan Mir, Team Suzuki MotoGP

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

COVID-19-enforced cost-saving measures mean all but KTM and Aprilia will contest the 2021 season with their 2020 engines. Aprilia can continue development because it’s still a concession manufacturer, while KTM’s allowance was a compromise for losing its results-based concessions last season courtesy of its three grand prix victories. 

PLUS: Why 2021 is Aprilia's most important MotoGP season 

Mir has maintained throughout this winter that Marquez will surely be favourite for the title if he comes back in good time and is fully fit. But the make-up of this season remains a mystery. MotoGP is hopeful of a full 19-race schedule, but the COVID-19 situation worldwide remains in flux, and already the US and Argentinian GPs have been postponed. They surely won’t be the last to lose their slots either.

Neither Mir nor Alex Rins are completely sold on Suzuki’s new chassis, which wasn’t as strong as the 2020 version under braking, and so both will likely start the year on the older one

Consistency carried Mir to his maiden crown last year. He scored the most podiums of any rider in 2020, despite only one of those being a win, and it’s this trait that the rest of the field will need to get on top of to take the fight to Suzuki.

Suzuki’s pre-season was under the radar. Neither Mir nor Alex Rins are completely sold on Suzuki’s new chassis, which wasn’t as strong as the 2020 version under braking, and so both will likely start the year on the older one. Mir admitted that he felt only 70% ready to start the season, but Rins is convinced that, come the Qatar GP this weekend, Suzuki will be up there, just as it was on MotoGP’s last Losail visit in 2019.

Suzuki’s title defence took on an interesting note during the off-season when talisman team boss Davide Brivio departed for Alpine in Formula 1. All is calm within Suzuki as it moves forward with its new management committee, made up of seven high-profile figures from the race team. But Rins and Mir will be evenly matched, and there could be disruption in their stable dynamic with Brivio’s absence.

Harmony is something that must be had at Yamaha this year after a difficult 2020. The use of the adjective ‘difficult’ seems odd given that the Japanese marque won half of last year’s races. But the factory team’s new line-up of Maverick Vinales and Fabio Quartararo ended the season dejected as the inconsistent 2020 M1 demolished their title hopes.

Yamaha promised during the off-season that its new chassis would be closer in spec to Franco Morbidelli’s ‘A-spec’ M1, essentially the 2019 frame, which he rode to three victories and runner-up in the championship for Petronas SRT. 

Maverick Vinales, Yamaha Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

After initial uncertainty about the feeling of the new chassis, it was praised as being a step forward over the 2020 version, with better turning. Yamaha rounded out the test 2-3-4 on combined times and displayed strong race pace. Vinales, who led the Yamaha charge, feels the 2021 bike is “ready” to race.

“I felt very comfortable on it from the first lap, which is always a good sign, and also the lap times come quite easy,” says Vinales of the new chassis.

But both Vinales and Quartararo are cautious. Yamaha has always gone well in Qatar, and it always performs strongly in testing, when there is an abundance of Michelin grip on the circuit. The problems tend to come during race weekends when there’s also Moto2 Dunlop rubber down, as well as on low-grip tracks. 

PLUS: How Yamaha's new MotoGP era can unchain Vinales 

“The bike feels really, really good because the track has a lot of grip,” warns Quartararo. “So, I think we will struggle in Portimao… tracks where there is low grip I think we will struggle.”

The inability to develop its engine will leave Yamaha once again defenceless in a straight line against Ducati and Honda, but Vinales in particular focused a lot of time in testing to perfect the M1’s starts to ensure he can get out front from the off and ride his own lines. 

The most crucial element of Yamaha’s title challenge will be how both Vinales and Quartararo deal with the bad days, which they often didn’t do so well in 2020. Yamaha’s bringing of “substantial” updates to Morbidelli’s older bike suggests this time it’s spreading its eggs across all of its baskets. 

What Valentino Rossi gets up to in his new surroundings is largely inconsequential to this. His focus remains upon trying to stay competitive enough to justify extending his MotoGP career as he enters his 26th season of grand prix racing (and 22nd in the top tier).

Valentino Rossi, Petronas Yamaha SRT

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

He’s starting the year more buoyantly than he ended the last one, and perhaps the “beautiful” atmosphere the 42-year-old now finds himself in can end that win drought dating back to 2017.

PLUS: Can leaving a factory team end Rossi’s MotoGP victory drought?

At Ducati the drought is one of titles, and its youthful new line-up is gunning for its first in 14 years. Jack Miller’s unofficial lap record in the Qatar test was backed up by excellent race pace, and the Australian is exuding all the confidence offered by his branding as the pre-season favourite.

“I enjoy it a lot,” he says. “It hasn’t really happened to me ever in MotoGP, so it’s a fantastic feeling. But the biggest thing is to keep our feet on the ground, keep working towards the goal.” 

Bagnaia's season was blighted by way too many crashes, the Italian falling out of four of the final five rounds. That form simply won’t be acceptable at the factory team, not least because there will be four other fast Ducatis on the grid

If Miller is to be a true title contender, he must improve his consistency. He scored four podiums in 2020 with Pramac, one fewer than the season before, and has been without a win since 2016. Consistency will also be the key for his team-mate Francesco Bagnaia, also stepping up from Pramac. 

PLUS: How Ducati can channel Stoner with its latest MotoGP Aussie 

Although there were flashes of brilliance for Bagnaia in 2020, such as leading the Emilia Romagna GP and his San Marino GP podium, his season was blighted by way too many crashes, the Italian falling out of four of the final five rounds. That form simply won’t be acceptable at the factory team, not least because there will be four other fast Ducatis on the grid.

Johann Zarco and rookie Jorge Martin – who was the top debutant in testing – line up at Pramac, while last year’s Moto2 championship 1-2 Enea Bastianini and Luca Marini will ride for Avintia. All of them will be hoping to prove their worth for factory seats in the near future. 

In Marquez’s own backyard the challenge looks fiercer than it has for a few years. Pol Espargaro’s adaptation to the Honda RC213V following four years at KTM was remarkable during pre-season testing. After just four days, he was only 0.7 seconds off the pace on combined times with a qualifying run that certainly wasn’t representative. His long-run pace on used rubber was also encouraging, comparable to that of the Yamahas and Miller on the Ducati.

Pol Espargaro, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Much still has to be done before he is fully adapted to the bike, particularly its critical front end, but Espargaro feels he has things “under control” for the start of the season. He’s under no illusion about the task facing him in jumping onto the grid’s most difficult bike and taking on this generation’s greatest talent: “I feel this chapter of my career is an adventure – something to improve myself and at the same time discover within myself who I am, how fast I am.”

PLUS: Why Espargaro faces Marquez with no fear at Honda 

Espargaro believes the RC213V is the bike best-suited to his aggressive riding style, but it seems that Honda’s year without Marquez allowed it to build a machine slightly more tameable than its predecessors. Alex Marquez’s double podiums in his rookie season were proof of this, but a crash-strewn pre-season that left him with a fractured foot has somewhat hidden the younger Marquez brother’s potential coming into the season. But with Marquez Jr, his LCR team-mate Takaaki Nakagami and Espargaro, Honda should no longer need to rely on just one of its horses for top results.

KTM, on the other hand, may already be feeling the loss of its prized asset Espargaro. Fears of ‘super engines’ were bandied about last year by its rivals, and scepticism reigned when the marque’s motorsport boss Pit Beirer said that it hadn’t radically redesigned its engine over the winter. But it really seems that it hasn’t.

PLUS: Does KTM really need 'super engine' for MotoGP title challenge? 

The RC16 was 10km/h (6mph) down on the top Ducati through the Qatar speed traps in testing. And to add to that, testing in general was underwhelming. Double race winner Miguel Oliveira was its top rider in 16th overall, 1.3s off the pace, while 2020’s top rookie Brad Binder was 1.5s down after a crash-filled test.

As Oliveira noted, KTM had “hit a wall” in Qatar. But the blame has largely been laid at the door of the circuit, the Losail track’s nature preventing the RC16 from making the most of its key strength in braking, and especially turning with the front brake. But if we look at last year, KTM often struggled at places where it hadn’t tested, while its Qatar test last season was similarly average. So, things should be better for the opening two race weekends.

“I believe things are a lot worse on paper than they are in reality, or at least what they will be on the race weekend,” says Binder.  “We know this layout doesn’t suit us, but we have good ideas and I’m sure we’re going to get much closer to the front.”

Brad Binder, Red Bull KTM Factory Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

At the time of writing, Marc Marquez’s return date still isn’t set in stone. But it’s going to happen a lot sooner than anyone expected, which will unsettle some on the grid. Of course, there is no guarantee that the Marquez we get back will be the same after such a long layoff.

How Marquez reacts to the greater threat when he returns will not only decide his prospects of a seventh premier-class title, but it may well define how MotoGP championship battles shape up going deeper into the decade

And the game has changed since he’s been away. The grid is arguably more competitive than it has ever been, and there are more riders capable of winning GPs.

How Marquez reacts to the greater threat when he returns will not only decide his prospects of a seventh premier-class title, but it may well define how MotoGP championship battles shape up going deeper into the decade. For reigning champion Mir, how he stands up to Marquez’s attempts to reclaim what was his will forever define his 2020 title.

Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Repsol Media