Today, the Gresini Racing Team announced that their immediate future lies with Ducati.
The Italian team, now run by Nadia Padovani, the widow of team’s founder Fausto Gresini, will lease Ducati Desmosedici machines from the Bologna factory for the 2022 and 2023 MotoGP seasons.
Since the beginning of the season, the media has been buzzing with HRC’s tales of woe. After seven rounds, the factory sits fifth in the manufacturers championship, 91 points behind Yamaha and Ducati (who are tied for first place), and just 10 points ahead of Aprilia.
To put that into perspective, all four Honda riders – Marc Márquez, Pol Espargaro, Alex Márquez, and Takaaki Nakagami – have contributed to Honda’s total of 52 points, while Aprilia’s stopgap second rider, promoted tester Lorenzo Savadori, has added just a single, solitary point to Aprilia’s total, Aleix Espargaro having scored the other 44.
The situation for the Repsol Honda team is, if anything, even worse.
Episode 213 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this show covers the MotoGP action from the Catalan GP at Barcelona.
On the mics, we have Steve English, David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Adam Wheeler, as the quartet covers an eventful and surprising weekend in Catalunya.
Fabio Quartararo has been hand a three-second penalty after the conclusion of the Catalunya Grand Prix at Barcelona, for riding with his leathers open.
The Frenchman’s leathers came open in the first half of Lap 21, after which he discarded his chest protector, and he went on to finish the remaining laps with the leathers completely open, the wind having forced the zip open completely.
Saturday at Montmelo made several things crystal clear in MotoGP. We saw one rider emerge as the clear favorite for the win on Sunday. We saw just how critical tire choice and tire management is going to be at Barcelona.
And we saw just how much pressure riders are under, whether it be seeking a tow to get through to Q2, celebrating a quick time in FP3 like a victory, or crashing out twice in an attempt to save a seat for next year.
Above all, we saw just how fast Fabio Quartararo is in Barcelona. The fact that the Frenchman was the only rider to get into the 1’39s in FP4 was not that much of a surprise; the Monster Energy Yamaha rider has been quick all weekend after all.
What was a little more surprising is that nobody else managed it, Maverick Viñales getting closest, but still over four tenths behind his teammate.
What should be more worrying is the fact the vast majority of Quartararo’s laps in FP4 were 1’39s: 8 of his 12 flying laps were 1’39s.
His 9th fastest lap was quick enough to have secured fourth place, his 1’40.278 faster than Johann Zarco’s best lap of 1’40.286. Quartararo’s 10th fastest lap was a 1’40.290, just 0.004 slower than Zarco’s best time.
Once upon a time, Barcelona was regarded as one of the great motorcycling tracks, all sweeping corners demanding the utmost concentration and skill.
So much of a motorcycling track was it that a couple of sections had to be put into it to make it a better track for cars, and especially for F1.
The grand sweep of La Caixa had a hairpin inserted, to give the cars somewhere to brake. And Turn 13 had a tight little chicane added on the inside, to slow the cars down before they got onto the straight.
Four fat tires meant they were at risk of going through the final corner so fast that would be within spitting distance of the sound barrier by the end of the straight.
Another week, another race track. We are a third of the way into the 2021 MotoGP season (probably, possibly, pandemic permitting), and things are starting to move fast. A third of the way now, and in three weeks’ time, we will be at the halfway mark.
It is hard to overstate how important this part of the season is. Jerez, Le Mans, Mugello, Barcelona, and Assen are the guts of the season, the foundations on which championships are built.
By the time we pack up for the summer break – a long one this time, five weeks between Assen and Austria, with Sachsenring taking place before Assen instead of after, its usual slot – we should have a very good idea of who is in the driving seat for this year.
What makes the triumvirate of Mugello, Barcelona, and Assen key? They are fast, punishing tracks that test man and machine.
They are riders’ tracks, where a fast rider can make the difference, but they also need a bike to be set up well in pursuit of a good result. There are no shortcuts at those three circuits, no relying on one aspect of the machine to get you out of trouble.
The bike has to do a lot of things well, from braking to turning to accelerating. That needs a good crew chief to analyze strengths and weaknesses, a competent team to find the right balance between them, and a good rider to use that bike between them.
If motorcycle racing is about finding the best compromise between braking, acceleration, turning, speed, the Mugello-Barcelona-Assen is the ultimate test of that.
Maverick Viñales’ lackluster 2021 season has caused another casualty. Today, Yamaha announced that his crew chief Esteban Garcia would be leaving his role with immediate effect, to be replaced by Silvano Galbusera.
Galbusera was the easy choice, as the Italian veteran is already involved with Yamaha as the crew chief working in the test team, working with Cal Crutchlow to help develop the YZR-M1.
The change has perhaps been predictable. Viñales has been making veiled comments about his team making the wrong decisions during the weekend.
Another seat in the MotoGP is spoken for in the 2021 Silly Season, as Remy Gardner will be making the step from the Moto2 paddock into the premier class.
Signing with KTM, Gardner will find his rookie season inside the satellite Tech3 squad, though it remains to be seen which of the current Tech3 riders will be making way for the young Australian.
Episode 210 of the Paddock Pass Podcast is out, and this show covers the MotoGP action from the Italian GP at Mugello.
On the mics, we have David Emmett, Neil Morrison, and Adam Wheeler, as the trio covers a somber weekend under the Tuscan sun.
2021 is proving to be a more normal year than last year in many different ways.
One of those is the fact that in addition to racing at the more traditional MotoGP tracks, MotoGP’s Silly Season is kicking off pretty much on schedule.
Mugello is traditionally the point in the season at which teams and factories start to think about next year, and 2021 is no exception.