MotoGP: Championship battle heats up in Aragon, Rossi forced to sit out

One week on from a dramatic, damp French Grand Prix, the MotoGP World Championship moves on to round 10 of the 2020 season, the Grand Prix of Aragon at MotorLand. 

MotorLand is known for a few things. Firstly, it’s long back straight, but also the fast, sweeping double left-hander at the end, as well as the dead-stop 90-degree left that starts the lap and often causes carnage on the opening lap.

It is also known for the Marc Marquez corner, the long, sweeping 10th turn that leads into the relative non-event of turn 11. Marquez himself will not be present this weekend, meaning that there will be a new premier class winner of the Grand Prix of Aragon this weekend. 

Only three riders other than Marquez have won in the premier class in MotorLand, those being Casey Stoner (2010, 2011), Dani Pedrosa (2012) and Jorge Lorenzo (2014, 2015). Marquez has won the last four years at the circuit which is closest of the MotoGP tracks to his home town of Cervera, as well as in 2013. The #93’s spectacular performance in 2019 in the first practice session in which he was almost two seconds faster than the second-fastest rider at the end of the session is the type of thing you can expect from the reigning World Champion when things are clicking perfectly. 

In 2020, they have not clicked perfectly at all, in reality. The #93’s defence of his eighth world title has been non-existent since the broken humerus in the Spanish Grand Prix. But not only Marc Marquez has struggled to click, so has his brother and teammate, Alex, in 2020, his rookie year in the MotoGP class. The reigning Moto2 World Champion had scored only two top 10 finishes before Le Mans, and no top sixes. Compared to fellow rookie, Brad Binder, the #73’s season was looking pretty dire until he discovered a good feeling with the Honda RC213V on Michelin’s wet tyres at Le Mans last weekend and took his first podium with second place in spite of starting down in 18th. Can Marquez repeat the feat this weekend? Probably not, but the Spaniard will have gained significant confidence from his performance last weekend and now, going into his home Grand Prix at the track where he took his first podium in Moto2, maybe the rookie can take another step in the dry after the previous one in the Misano test. 

Aside from Marquez, the big winner in Le Mans was the winner himself, Danilo Petrucci, who won his second Grand Prix and proved that when he has a good feeling he is able to be competitive in the MotoGP World Championship. This will have been of comfort to KTM and the Tech 3 team, having watched the rider they signed before the season got underway in Jerez struggle to find the kind of form that saw him win in Mugello last May. 

Similarly, the race would have been a boost for Ducati, who have now won two races in 2020 – only Yamaha has more – and they saw their lead rider, Andrea Dovizioso, close in in the championship. 

In fact, of the realistic championship contenders, Dovizioso was the most successful in France despite losing paces at the end as a result of losing grip in the tyres. In comparison to the Italian, championship leader Fabio Quartararo finished ninth, with Maverick Vinales and Joan Mir directly behind him. 

It means that going into Aragon, the top four are split by 19 points. Joan Mir is second, 10 points behind Quartararo, whilst Dovizioso is third, 18 points adrift and Vinales fourth with a 19-point deficit. 

Last season in Aragon, whilst Marquez was out front and won by almost five seconds, Andrea Dovizioso finished second ahead of Jack Miller who completed the podium with the two Ducati riders coming on strong at the end of the race with better tyre endurance than Vinales and Quartararo who had been second and third, respectively, for most of the race. 

In the end, Vinales lost out to Miller on the final lap to be dropped from the podium, but the theme was that the Yamahas were not able to look after their tyres as well as the Ducatis. 

This season has not seen the same pattern play out, as Ducati – especially the factory riders – have struggled to make the new Michelin rear tyre work with their Desmosedici. In comparison, the Yamahas have been able to take advantage of the extra grip provided by the softer rear construction of this year’s tyre to maximise their corner speed advantage whilst not suffering from tyre wear in the same way as in recent years. It will be interesting to see this weekend if the same patterns are born out – especially for Dovizioso it will be important to reduce his deficit this weekend and next before the double-header at the tight, twisty Ricardo Tormo circuit in Valencia. 

Similarly as interesting will be how Suzuki get on this weekend. Last year, the Hamamatsu brand suffered in Aragon not simply for pure speed but for contact which caused both Joan Mir and Alex Rins to lose a winglet from their respective GSX-RR machines. On the contrary, in 2018 Rins and his then teammate Andrea Iannone both fought for the podium, so there are reasons to be hopeful about the chances of Suzuki this weekend, and for Mir to reduce his 10-point gap to Fabio Quartararo atop the standings. 

With Iannone still somewhat in mind, it is interesting to point out that his hearing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport began this week and it is likely that by the time the MotoGP paddock leaves Aragon after next weekend’s inaugural Grand Prix of Teruel Aprili will know whether they need to keep the #29 stickers floating around. 

This comes at an interesting point for the Noale marque, as Aragon has traditionally been a good circuit for the RSGP. Aleix Espargaro finished seventh in MotorLand last season, and in both 2016 and 2017 took sixth place. Espargaro put this down to the RSGP’s relative comfort in braking with lean angle compared to in a straight line, and the significance of this in Aragon where there is only really one straight line braking zone: that of the first turn. 

Of course, Aprilia rolled out an all-new RSGP for 2020, so it will be interesting to see whether that characteristic and strong point remains and whether it will prove especially advantageous this weekend. 

It is also, perhaps, important to remember that Aprilia are working with a motor that they cannot fully exploit yet for reliability concerns, which has ruined their acceleration from slow speed corners so far this year – with one of the major features of Aragon being the slow exit from turn 15 onto the long, downhill straight towards the final two corners this could prove particularly costly this weekend.

The final major point for the MotoGP class coming into this weekend is that Valentino Rossi will not be taking part. The #46 tested positive for COVID-19 before travelling to Aragon, and will therefore miss the Grand Prix of Aragon and, most likely, next weekend’s Grand Prix of Teruel. This weekend’s race will be the first since Rio 1999 that no current or former premier class champion will be on the grid for the premier class race, and the news of course means that there will only one factory Monster Energy Yamaha on track this weekend, the first time the factory Iwata squad will miss a rider since Rossi was ruled out of the 2017 San Marinese Grand Prix. 

There is a possibility that Rossi will be replaced next weekend, not by any necessity to do so by the rules which require a replacement rider after 10 days, but by some potential requests from sponsors. The obvious candidate to replace Rossi would be Yamaha test rider and five-times World Champion, Jorge Lorenzo. However, the Spaniard was over three seconds off the pace at the recent Portimao test, so Yamaha might decide to overlook the #99 in favour of a World Superbike rider. Since the WorldSBK season ends this weekend in Estoril, there is an opening for one of Yamaha’s Superbike riders to jump on the Grand Prix bike. 

Back in 2017, Michael van der Mark was on duty to replace Rossi in Aragon should he not have been fit to ride after the broken leg that kept him out of the aforementioned San Marinese round, but with the Dutchman off to BMW next season, this is unlikely, to say the least. Van der Mark’s 2020 teammate, Toprak Razgatlioglu, would also be a candidate but for his Red Bull personal sponsorship which would doubtless rule him out of riding the Monster Energy-backed machine; and that leaves three other potential candidates: Loris Baz, Garett Gerloff and Andrea Locatelli. 

Baz has previous MotoGP experience and filled in for Bradley Smith in 2018 at Silverstone on the Red Bull KTM, although the cancellation of that race means the Frenchman hasn’t raced in a Grand Prix since Valencia 2017 on the Avintia Ducati. 

Gerloff, on the other hand, has never ridden a Grand Prix bike, but has impressed in his rookie season in WorldSBK. It is, though, the American’s first season in Europe, so perhaps not. 

Locatelli, in comparison to Gerloff, has a lot of experience in Grands Prix, having raced in Moto3 and Moto2 between 2014 and 2019, this year moving to the World Supersport Championship where he became a dominant champion, earning a ride alongside Razgatlioglu in the factory Yamaha team for next season’s WSBK series. However, having never ridden a 1000cc machine before, it is unlikely that he would be catapulted straight onto a MotoGP bike with no testing. 

So, if Rossi is replaced, it will be by Baz or Lorenzo, but the likelihood is that there will be just one factory Yamaha in action across both Aragon rounds. 

In the Moto2 class, Luca Marini goes to Aragon with his championship lead still mostly in tact over Enea Bastianini, who reduced the margin to 16 in Le Mans with an 11th while Marini was unable to score after his practice crash on Friday which left him with ankle injuries which will likely still be a factor this weekend. 

The battle is no longer between the #10 and the #33, though, as Marco Bezzecchi’s third place in France, and the win of Sam Lowes, brought the #72 and #22 right into the mix. Bezzecchi is 20 points down on his teammate heading into what is round 11 of the 2020 Moto2 World Championship this weekend, whilst Lowes is 22 adrift. Of the four contenders, only Lowes has finished on the podium in the intermediate class at Aragon, with a win back in 2016 – that being his most recent triumph before last weekend. 

Of course, Jorge Martin took a dominant victory in the 2018 Moto3 Grand Prix of Aragon on his way to that year’s lightweight class title. However, since his positive COVID-19 test before the first Misano race, Martin has not scored a point, of course missing both Misano races before retiring from Barcelona and crashing out in Le Mans. The Spaniard looked somewhat back to form last weekend in France, though, despite his crash. He was running towards the front in difficult conditions before his quite vicious high side at turn 10, and the day before had challenged for pole before a crash midway through the Q2 session. 

Martin’s high side last weekend was replicated by Xavi Vierge a few laps after the #88 hit the deck. For Vierge, the result was worse as he broke an ankle with which he will try to ride this weekend, although whether that proves either safe or possible remains to be seen.

Vierge was not the only injured Spaniard in France last week, as Aron Canet suffered a nasty finger dislocation that necessitated surgery in the week. That means the #44 will sit out this weekend and will be replaced by Xavi Cardelus who finished third in the first Moto2 race of the second Aragon round of the European Moto2 Championship two weeks ago.

The story of the lightweight class coming into this weekend is less dramatic, but the championship battle is just as fierce as the top four are separated by just 20 points. Although a fourth DNF of the season last weekend saw John McPhee slip to fifth in the championship and 37 points adrift, the title fight has welcomed in both Tony Arbolino and Celestino Vietti, last week’s winner. Albert Arenas was able to reclaim his championship lead last week as Ai Ogura struggled to ninth, but his advantage is only six points and the Japanese took his first Grand Prix podium in MotorLand just over one year ago.