[cycleworld.com] - Valencia MotoGP Report

[Ninjette Newsbot]

The 2023 MotoGP World Championship came down to one last race in Spain.

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In Suzuki’s last MotoGP race-—maybe ever, but at least for the foreseeable future—factory rider Álex Rins rode home to a bittersweet victory. Rins finished the season in seventh place overall. (Andrea Wilson/)To realists, 2021 MotoGP World Champion Fabio Quartararo’s chance of renewing his title was microscopic: In the last race of the year, he had to win and rival Francesco Bagnaia had to finish 14th or worse. Because Quartararo was able to qualify fourth, and because he is very fast, Bagnaia’s task was to stay out of harm’s way and finish decently.

Meanwhile, in an outstanding but championship-irrelevant last ride on his Suzuki (who have now retired from the series), Álex Rins won by four-tenths of a second from Brad Binder (KTM).

As it turned out, Quartararo was able to finish fourth, 1.9 seconds behind Jorge Martín (Ducati). Bagnaia rode into ninth, making himself champion as the odds insisted he must.

Here are the points standings at the end:

Bagnaia 265

Quartararo 248

Bastianini 219

Espargaró, A. 212

Miller 189


It’s hard to believe—and heartbreaking as well—that at one point in the season, Yamaha’s Fabio Quartararo had a massive 91-point lead. In the second half of the season he saw it all slip away, and the 2021 champion finished second in 2022. (Andrea Wilson/)Bagnaia, speaking before the race, said, “For sure I will take some risks at the start to be away from the trouble,” meaning the chaos of push-and-shove on cold tires that describes every start.

He had received advice from 15-time world champion Giacomo Agostini (now 80 years old). Ago said, “Do what you know how to do, because it will be enough.”

I saw Agostini practice this preaching at the final event of 1967, the Canadian GP, when he was in a season-long contest with Mike Hailwood on the 500 Honda RC181. To become champion for the second year in a row, all Ago had to do was put his MV Triple* third or better.

At the start, Hailwood did what he could to annoy or anger Agostini, but he was imperturbable. Hailwood then “cleared off to win” by 37 seconds, in the process showing his indifference to the big Honda’s vigorous weave (today’s “pumping”) off the corners. In third and fourth were two Canadian-owned Matchless G50s.

On Sunday Bagnaia was never higher than sixth, and never needed to be.



The weekend had begun with a Friday demonstration of the value of shared information. In FP1 the Ducatis were here and there. In FP2 they impressively solidified up front.

This was a microcosm of the season. In early races it was clear that satellite riders on 2021 or older Ducatis had a palpable advantage over the GP22s, for which there was no established setup. That took time to discover, during which the smooth professionalism of Quartararo made hay in the form of a 91-point lead.

As the Ducatis matured, Quartararo found top finishes harder to achieve. His best going was on his own, when his “great circle route” corner-speed lines did not cross the “V-shaped lines” of the point-and-shoot opposition.

As always, Quartararo concentrated on the race at hand, refusing to be led into fretful discussion of “human interest” topics, like “How does it feel to see your point lead ebbing away?” When he suffered reverses, his response, as in previous years, was to respond blandly that “I will learn from this.” He always emphasized that he was giving everything he had; there was no other way, given the Yamaha’s continuing shortfall in power and acceleration. Current MotoGP rules “freeze” engine development in-season (except for new or low-scoring teams, for whom there are temporary “concessions” in terms of in-season engine development and maximum number of engines per rider).


Bagnaia led KTM’s Brad Binder for a bit. All he had to do was finish 14th or better, and that was if Quartararo won. (Andrea Wilson/)Given the above, and given that one of the most dangerous things a rider can do is try to win on a bike that’s almost fast enough, Quartararo’s at-the-limit riding this year has been wonderfully consistent. Many a rider has suffered serious injury while trying to create speed where there is no more. Having the judgment and consistency to go fast while avoiding a similar fate is rare.

Bagnaia has described his own dissatisfaction at making so many mistakes (five DNFs this season!), and he worked hard to understand his own temptations and to reshape his approach to achieve consistency.

It surely helped that his team eventually arrived at setups that could go fast at a more survivable level of rider effort. Riders who finish races actively measure and control risk so that they are wasting minimum time in mistakes (time is wasted in “gathering up” the bike after, for example, braking a meter or two too late, running wide, and having to slow to avoid the gravel).

Getting to Race Pace

Now consider the question of how best to apportion R&D to the various aspects of MotoGP. We know from recent rider comments that there is great advantage in being fast right from FP1 onward. This is because so much depends upon two products of the practice days:

1. To qualify in the first two rows, because this opens the desirable possibility of getting away first or with the lead group, saving tires that would otherwise be burned up in the process of working your way forward against strongly resisting rivals.
2. To reserve FP4 mainly for achieving a best-possible understanding of tire behavior through long runs.

This requires not only a strong workable setup for every track, but also to ride every lap to answer, if possible, the questions still outstanding. To do otherwise is what Mick Doohan (five-time 500 world champion, 1994–'98 inclusive) called “…just rolling around the circuit.” In practice, every lap, every corner must be a question whose answer may cut lap time or extend tire life on Sunday.


Binder eventually finished second at Valencia, sixth for the year, and will ride for KTM again in 2023. (Andrea Wilson/)Because weather so often interferes and leaves teams unsure of tire choices, the fallback is the unfortunate Sunday morning warmup, when desperate teams hope to “find something.” But warmup can be a questionable information source because morning temperature (or weather) can be different from race time. Tread-rubber behavior is strongly temperature-dependent.

Think of how many times the “almost there” younger riders have qualified well, yet in the race itself have found grip lacking from lap one, pushing them backward.

Also consider that the setup for qualifying is quite different from a race setup. In qualifying, tires too soft to go race distance are often the choice. To preserve tires for the last five race laps, spring and damping rates and rider technique must be kinder to tires than settings permitting strong qualifying laps. Electronics settings too are quite different—effectively two quite different torque curves.

Remember that in his early years American rider Ben Spies focused on qualifying, and that he did not become a Mat Mladin-beater until his advisers (including Kevin Schwantz) persuaded him of the preeminent value of optimizing lap time on used race tires (because that’s how you race).

What About Márquez?

Once again, observers certain that Marc Márquez will dominate 2023 were robbed of a preview today:

“Already from the start I realized there was some problem,” Márquez said. “Because if you check my starts during all the year, I always start strongly. But today I lost positions (he started second) and immediately I felt something.

“The torque was not the same as in the practice.”


“Do what you know how to do, because it will be enough.” (Andrea Wilson/)He crashed out on lap 10. When asked about the 2023 prototype he will ride here on Tuesday, he said, “Especially we need to understand the way to stop well the bike on the brakes. It’s so difficult to stop. Then we’re stopping the bike too much on the last part (when leaned over in the turn) and this means risk.”

It means risk because this is braking while sharing the front tire’s grip with turning.

One set of questions to be filled out on every post-practice sheet separates braking into its phases: initial, turn-in, and steady turning. As Márquez notes above, the Honda’s initial braking is deficient. That can mean there is not sufficient initial weight on the front to promptly transfer the rest of the bike’s weight forward and allow maximum braking. This in turn suggests that the “more accessible” 2022 Honda is either too low or too long to achieve the desired rapid weight transfer without front wheel locking. Differences can be quite small.

Comments after this week’s post-Valencia test will give valuable insight into what we can expect in 2023.

Looking to Next Year

Ducati has served its “time in the wilderness” from 2009 onward to the difficult stewardship of Andrea Dovizioso, whose untiring constructive criticism of the red bikes led to their present wide-spectrum strength. Will Tuesday reveal that Yamaha has now come in from the cold, with greater power at last integrated into its package? Will Marc Márquez find that Honda has either found a fresh way forward (what might that be?) or returned to building the stiff, instant-responding bikes that other riders have called “very physical”?

In view of the badge-engineered GasGas-KTM connection, is there any possible way that the value of Suzuki’s years of MotoGP R&D can remain in the paddock, rather than being rolled away to museum or trash compactor?

We will all know soon enough.


Riding off into the sunset, Bagnaia brings home Ducati’s first MotoGP world championship since Casey Stoner in 2007 and only their second ever. (Andrea Wilson/)