MotoGP: Morbidelli takes Teruel victory to move further into championship contention

Round 11 of the 2020 MotoGP World Championship took place in MotorLand Aragon for the Grand Prix of Teruel. Takaaki Nakagami started from his first career front row, while championship leader Joan Mir was back on row four. 

It was Nakagami who made the holeshot, leading into turn one ahead of Alex Rins and Franco Morbidelli who were the two riders to join him on the front row. Nakagami ran wide, though, pushing Rins out and allowing Morbidelli through into second place while Rins slotted into third ahead of Johann Zarco who was able to pass Maverick Vinales on the inside at turn two. 

Morbidelli was quickly promoted to the lead when Nakagami crashed at turn five on the opening lap. It was horrific misfortune for the #30, who had been relatively perfect all weekend, and looked nailed on to take at least his first MotoGP podium in Teruel. Unfortunately, it was all over within 30 seconds. 

After four laps, Morbidelli and Rins were beginning to pull away at the front of the race, while Johann Zarco was keeping championship combatants Maverick Vinales and Joan Mir at bay, Mir running in fifth place at this point after a terrific first lap from the #36 who started 12th. 

As Morbidelli and Rins were escaping, though, Alex Marquez was cutting through the pack and on the fourth lap he set the fastest lap of the race as he sat in sixth place just behind Mir. 

One lap later, though, and Morbidelli was under the race lap record in the lead as he started to put some time into Rins.

By lap 11, Mir and Marquez had both cleared Maverick Vinales and had caught Johann Zarco who still occupied third place with just over half the race remaining. If they could clear the Ducati rider quickly, their options were still open to challenge for the win in the closing stages as, although Morbidelli and Rins had pulled away somewhat from third-placed Zarco, they were not entirely out of reach. 

Mir was able to make his move almost immediately, passing Zarco in turn four and pulling away to deny the #5 any chance to reply. Marquez, on the other hand, was less fortunate. The Spaniard moved into fourth place ahead of Zarco in the final corner, turning underneath the Ducati as he was able to do so effectively last week. What Marquez didn’t count on was a strong run out of the final corner for the Frenchman, who was able to respond on the brakes with a perfectly executed block pass in turn one. 

While Marquez was able to replicate the move Mir pulled one lap after his compatriot in response to Zarco’s block pass, the exchange between the two cost them both precious time, and as Marquez established himself in fourth he had a sizeable gap to close to Mir, let alone Rins and Morbidelli at the front. 

Just a couple of laps after he passed Zarco for fourth, though, Marquez was down. He took a risk in choosing the hard front tyre, and it bit him at turn two on lap 14.

In Moto2 last weekend, Jorge Martin noted to Simon Crafar that when he was following other riders, he had some feeling on the front end in turn two, but when he found clear air that feeling disappeared. This is courtesy of the hot air coming off the bike in front helping to keep front tyre temperature high. In hot conditions this can be a disaster, leading to the front tyre overheating, but in the cool it can be, in a way, helpful, as riders who like to use a harder compound front tyre can get away with it as long as there is someone in front of them.

The Honda is well known for its preference towards hard tyres, so it makes sense that Marquez would take the risk with temperatures this weekend slightly higher than last when the hard was unusable. However, as soon as the Spaniard cleared Zarco and had some clear air, he hit the deck at the corner where front tyre temperature is most critical. 

Arguably, the choice of Marquez was a mistake, although it is also possible to say that a different choice would not have allowed him to fight for the podium in the first place. In any case, it completed a disastrous race for Honda, with Nakagami crashing out of what to some, like Cal Crutchlow, seemed like a nailed on win, and Marquez crashing out of a potential third successive podium. 

With Mir clear in third now, not having to worry about Marquez behind, it was expected that he would close in on the two leaders. However, the #36 simply did not have the pace of them, and he eventually settled for third.

Similarly, in the closing stages, Rins settled for second after some warnings from the front end, and that allowed Morbidelli to build his gap to over one second and take a commanding victory in the Grand Prix of Teruel, his second of the season. 

Morbidelli’s win was important for his championship, as with Mir back in third place the Italian was able to close to within a race win in the points. Petronas Yamaha SRT were expected to have one rider in the championship fight in 2020, but it seems heading to Valencia that they in fact have two horses in the race after an inspired choice for Morbidelli to pick medium tyres front and rear. 

Alex Rins’ second place saw him close in by four points on Joan Mir in the championship, meaning he leaves Aragon 32 points adrift of his teammate, whose third place means he extends his championship lead to 14 points over Fabio Quartararo. 

A strong charge from mid-race on brought Pol Espargaro fourth place. The temperatures were warmer for the Teruel GP than that of Aragon, and that helped the KTMs to make the tyres work better, and they were able to use the medium front tyre which they prefer. Espargaro was able to make the most of it.

It could have been two KTMs in the top five, but Johann Zarco was able to best Miguel Oliveira on the final lap, meaning he took his first top five in a dry race since he was on the podium in Brno, while Oliveira had to settle for sixth. 

Oliveira also had a decent battle earlier on in the race with Fabio Quartararo, with the Portuguese having better pace than the Frenchman but unable to match him on the brakes. Once Oliveira made his move stick, he was gone, while Quartararo’s race started poorly and got worse from there. 

The #20 was half a second behind Maverick Vinales at the end of the race, with Yamaha’s two main title challengers unable to match the pace of their stablemate, Morbidelli, out front as they slumped to seventh and eighth, respectively, at the flag. Adding to their troubles was of course the Yamaha’s inability to excel in a fight, where its riders can’t exploit its high corner speed and are exposed on the straights by the M1’s lack of power. It also looked like, in Quartararo’s case, that he was having to push into the corners too much, to carry a lot of entry speed to defend, and that was compromising mid-corner capabilities even further. 

Just under 2.5 seconda back of Quartararo was Iker Lecuona who returned to the top 10 for the first time since Styria as he equalled his best MotoGP finish of ninth, finishing ahead of Danilo Petrucci who completed the top 10. 

Cal Crutchlow confirmed a miserable day for Honda. As previously discussed, they lost both of their podium contenders in the first 15 laps, and for Crutchlow things were similar to last week as he struggled to pass bikes which were faster in a straight line than his RC213V, finishing 11th in the end.

Just 0.8 seconds back of Crutchlow was Stefan Bradl who had one of his best races of the season, finishing 12th and ahead of Andrea Dovizioso, who had as poor a race as he could have expected. In the middle, things were looking good for the #04, as he was fighting inside the top 10 and even closing in on championship rival Fabio Quartararo. But a mistake in turn eight after being passed by Aleix Espargaro was the beginning of the end for Dovizioso, who appeared to run out of grip at that point and struggled to 13th in the end. With 28 points now separating him from Mir, the maths work out okay for Dovizioso’s continued championship challenge, although his speed clearly does not. Since he won in Austria, Dovizioso has not revisited the podium and with Valencia next up on the schedule it is hard to see things getting better for the Italian. Realistically, only the weather can save Dovizioso’s hopes at this point.

Behind Dovizioso there were only two riders, as Tito Rabat reversed his fortunes of last week by beating Bradley Smith in the ‘battle for not last’, finishing 14th and 5.4 seconds clear of the #38.

There were six retirements from the race, although ironically the only two to crash out of their own accord were Nakagami and Marquez who, coming into this weekend, were the only two riders to have finished every race in 2020, with all of Nakagami’s finishes coming inside the top 10.

Of the other four to not finish, two were due to mechanical problems: Aleix Espargaro with an engine expiry at the end of the back straight as he was fighting for eighth with Quartararo, and Francesco Bagnaia whose Ducati mercifully let his horror weekend end 19 laps early. 

Finally, the other two to retire were Jack Miller and Brad Binder, who had no bad feelings between them after the latter clattered into the former in turn two on the opening lap after Miller checked up in the corner to avoid other people on the inside. In truth, Binder could do little about the situation, although Miller might have had some stronger words for him had his championship hopes still been somewhat more alive than they are, the Australian sitting 55 points back of Mir with three rounds to go.