MotoGP has already been in its summer break for two weeks, but with another two weeks until the world championship returns to a circuit, it is a good point to look at where the championship sits after nine of 19 races.
Though there were some alterations to the front end of the calendar, the 2021 season has moved along at a respectable pace. The season opened with a doubleheader in Qatar, but the last seven races have been in Europe and there are still another five races in Europe before MotoGP is scheduled to leave the continent. No riders have missed a round due to COVID-19 protocols, but there has been a fair share of injuries.
Through nine races, four manufactures have won a race, but unlike last season, we have yet to see a customer team score a victory. Nine races and nine factory victories. Customer teams won five of first nine races last year and eight of 14 races overall.
Let's get a little more in-depth.
Where do we stand?
Through nine races, Fabio Quartararo is the championship leader with 156 points from nine races. Quartararo has scored points in all nine races, he has four victories, six podium finishes, and he has started on pole position five times.
Behind the Frenchman is a pair of Ducati riders, Johann Zarco sits 34 points back with Francesco Bagnaia 47 points behind. Defending champion Joan Mir is in fourth on 101 points with Jack Miller making it three Ducati riders in the top five on 100 points. Miller is the only other rider with multiple victories this season.
Quartararo's Yamaha teammate Maverick Viñales won the season opener at Qatar, but his only other podium finish was second at Assen and Viñales is 61 points behind his teammate. KTM got off to a slower start, but Miguel Oliveira had three consecutive podium finishes, including a victory at Barcelona, and Oliveira carries a four-race top five streak into the second half of the season. The Portuguese rider is 71 points back.
Aleix Espargaró has the Aprilia up to eighth on 61 points, one ahead of Brad Binder and Marc Márquez rounds out the top ten with 50 points. Márquez is nine points ahead of LCR Honda's Takaaki Nakagami and his factory Honda teammate Pol Espargaró.
Franco Morbidelli sits on 40 points, seven ahead of Álex Rins. Álex Márquez and Enea Bastianini are tied on 27 points. Bastianini is the top rookie in the championship. Danilo Petrucci has 26 points from his first nine races with KTM. Jorge Martín took a surprise pole position and surprise podium finish in the second round, the Doha Grand Prix, but he missed four races due a broken hand and foot suffered in practice from Portugal, and he has only scored six points in his three races back. Martín has 23 points.
Valentino Rossi has 17 points, three ahead of his half-brother Luca Marini. Iker Lecuona sits on 13 points. Stefan Bradl scored 11 points in three races, two as Marc Márquez's substitute and one as a wild card. Lorenzo Salvadori has four points, Michele Pirro picked up three points as a Ducati wild card at Mugello, Tito Rabat picked up a point substituting for Jorge Martín.
Garrett Gerloff is the only rider without a point this MotoGP season. The American substituted for Franco Morbidelli at Assen and Gerloff finished 17th, two positions outside the points.
What is Fabio Quartararo doing right?
Credit has to be given to Yamaha for providing a better bike this season. Many of the deficiencies we saw in 2020 have been addressed and a Yamaha has been on the podium in eight of nine races.
However, Quartararo is more confident on the bike and after we saw frustration take over many times in 2020, Quatararo has remained even keeled the entire season. He has been on the podium in all but three races, but at no point has he been shaken to the point of overcompensating and costing himself points like last year.
The one race where it looked like he had gotten it all wrong was Jerez, where he was leading quite comfortably before he dropped like a rock. It turned out he suffered a serious case of arm pump mid-race and had to hold on. That didn't send his season into a spiral. He rode a smart race in the wet at Le Mans and finished third and followed that up with a victory at Mugello, a track where Yamaha would have been chewed up and spat out if it had been on the schedule in 2020.
There was the odd incident at Barcelona where Quartararo removed his chest protector mid-race and he cut the course late, earning him a three-second penalty, relegating him down to sixth, but followed that questionable performance with a third in Germany and leading a Yamaha 1-2 at Assen.
It looks like Quartararo has brought a different approach to this season, and combined with an improved Yamaha, we are seeing the Frenchman flourish.
How will the season play out now that Maverick Viñales announced his Yamaha exit?
After the Assen round, Viñales took no time to announce a buyout of his final season from Yamaha, making him a free agent for the 2022 season.
While Quartararo has made adjustments during the offseason, Viñales appears to be stuck and still has difficulty getting everything out of the bike. Head-to-head, Quartararo is beating Viñales six to three in the races, one of which was Barcelona where Quartararo beat Viñales on the road, but the three-second penalty put the Frenchman directly behind the Spaniard. In qualifying, Quartararo holds the edge seven to two.
Quartararo is Yamaha's clear number one and Viñales' future remains a little murky. Viñales has been linked to Aprilia for next year, but that is a risky jump for him. While Aprilia is having a nice season, it still has a lot to prove and if Viñales cannot get all he can out of the Yamaha, what makes us think he could at Aprilia? We also cannot forget Aprilia is bringing the factory operation in house next year after Gresini Racing operated it since 2015.
All the pieces are laid out for this to be an untimely move. It could be a significant blow to Viñales' career if he makes the switch and mightily struggles, whether it is his fault or not. It would closely mirror Jorge Lorenzo's decisions in his final three seasons in MotoGP.
I don't think Viñales will be an obstacle to Quartararo's championship hopes. My worry is Viñales will not be there to help take some points off of Quartararo's championship rivals. There will probably be three or four more races where Viñales is the better Yamaha rider on that day, but he needs to be a regular top five finisher in the final ten races to help his teammate the most.
Is this where we mention Marc Márquez?
Sure.
Márquez missed the two Qatari rounds as he continued to recover from his arm injury and returned for the third round at Algarve while still not fully 100% and prone to re-aggravating his injury.
While his season started slow, Márquez had a respectable first start in Portugal, qualifying ninth and finishing seventh, the top Honda rider. He ran into a bout of bad results at the end of spring. He threw away a possible victory at Le Mans in the wet when he fell off the bike and had two more falls on the second lap at Mugello and eighth lap at Barcelona.
The good news is Márquez kept up his winning streak in Germany and won in convincing fashion over Oliveira and Quartararo.
Márquez has still been recovering in this first half of the season, and he suffered a horrendous accident at Assen, only for him to get up and continue that weekend, but he admitted he was shaken after it and it showed in qualifying, as he ended up 20th on the grid. He rode up to another seventh-place finish and was again the top Honda rider.
It is clear he is still conscious about his injuries, and that does cost him a bit. Many believe if the Assen accident does not happen in practice he qualifies somewhere in the top ten and likely finishes on the podium. Hopefully, this month off has allowed him to fully heal up and he will feel more confident on the bike, but he is 106 points behind Quartararo in the championship. Márquez could win the final ten races and Quartararo could finish third in the final ten races and Quarataro would still be the champion.
That is not happening, but I think Márquez can pull out another victory or two and get on the podium more. His Sachsenring victory is his only top five finish this season. He will climb up the championship table.
Who is overachieving?
If you had told me at the beginning of the season the top two Ducati riders in the championship would be Johann Zarco and Francesco Bagnaia, I would have guessed something was going horribly wrong for Ducati.
Instead, Zarco and Bagnaia are second and third in the championship respectively. Zarco has four runner-up finishes from nine races. Bagnaia has two runner-up finishes.
Zarco has scored points in every race, has set fastest lap twice and won a pole position. His 122 points are more than his last two seasons combined and his most points in a MotoGP season was 158 points in 2018.
Bagnaia was a slight surprise promotion to the factory Ducati team considering he had a combined 101 points in his first two seasons, and he had only two top five finishes in his first 29 MotoGP starts. Through nine races, the Italian has 109 points, and he has scored points in eight of nine races. He also started the season with a pole position in Qatar.
While Zarco and Bagnaia leads the way for Ducati, it should be said Jack Miller is not underachieving. Miller has two victories, but the one thing holding him back are two retirements. Miller is only eight points behind his teammate Bagnaia. If you give him one of those retirements back, he is ahead of Bagnaia and if you give him back both, he is likely ahead of Zarco as well.
I set the expectations that Aleix Espargaró could end up somewhere between tenth and 15th in the championship riding for Aprilia. Espargaró is eighth in the championship, and he has scored points in seven races. His Aprilia teammate Lorenzo Savadori has four points. Imagine how Andrea Dovizioso would lift this team?
Who is underachieving?
I don't want to say Suzuki across the board considering defending MotoGP champion Joan Mir is fourth on 101 points and he has finished on the podium three times with six top five finishes, but Álex Rins cannot get a break this season.
Rins finished outside the points for four races and then missed Barcelona after an injury cycling ahead of the race. He was 11th in his last two starts. Rins was in the top five of the championship the last three years. He had at least one podium finish within his first eight starts in each of those three seasons. So far, his only top five finish was fourth in the Doha Grand Prix.
Just ahead of Rins in the championship is Franco Morbidelli, and while Morbidelli is on the Petronas SRT Yamaha, he did win three races and stand on the podium five times in 2021. He was second in the championship, and now he is 13th on 40 points with only one podium result and he missed Assen due to a knee injury suffered during training.
The Honda has been a difficult bike for everyone not named Marc Márquez in recent years, but Pol Espargaró's testing pace was encouraging. Through nine races, his best finish is eighth and Espargaró has nine fewer points than Márquez despite Márquez starting two fewer races. Márquez has beat Espargaró head-to-head in five of seven races and the only races Márquez has lost the intra-team battle were two of his three retirements.
Is it hard to watch Valentino Rossi?
Yes.
Rossi has 17 points from nine races. His only top ten finish was tenth at Mugello. At 42 years old, it looks like the wondrous ability has left Rossi, and he held on one year too long. He has not been remotely competitive and when you saw how good Petronas SRT Yamaha looked last year, you would have thought he could at least be fighting for top five positions and end up on the podium once or twice. That has been far from the case.
There is a good chance this will be it for Rossi. I hope the second half of the season will get better. It could, especially if Yamaha can get Rossi and Morbidelli up in the order in necessity to aid Quartararo's championship hopes. I have to think Rossi will end his MotoGP career better than scraping the bottom of the barrel for points.
Who are Quartararo's biggest threats for the championship?
Nobody has been nearly as consistent as Quartararo and that is a scary thing ahead of the final ten races.
After Quartararo's shakiness in 2020, he has cleaned that up and if he is going to finish on the podium in six of the final ten races, the championship will easily be his.
Zarco has been there, but he hasn't been good enough. Mir won the championship last year because he was the most consistent despite not necessarily being the quickest, but Quartararo has built such a large cushion that this championship will not fall to Mir again.
I think Miller is the most poised for a championship fight, but he will have to avoid the mistakes and he will need to go on a run of victories. I think it would require Miller at least five victories from the final ten races and finishing ahead of Quartararo in eight of the final ten races to get the top spot.
Against everyone's favor is Quartararo is not making mistakes or having bad days. He suffered arm pump at Jerez, which cost him a podium finish if not a victory. There was also his disrobing in Barcelona, but outside of those incidents, Quartararo has yet to have a race weekend where he is lost and frustrated. That happened twice in every three races last year. It is tough to see where Quatararo will falter.
How does the schedule look going forward?
There has been a fair amount of rearranging during the summer break.
Japan and Australia are not happening. The Austin round has been rescheduled to replace Motegi, and Algarve will get a second race a week before the Valencia season finale in place of Phillip Island.
The first five races after summer break should be safe. Those are all in Europe. The first two races are in Austria with Silverstone, Aragón and Misano following. Austin should be safe. The United States is fairly open. The only concern would be if teams are not able to freely travel back after Austin.
Thailand and Malaysia have both remained on the schedule in October. With Japan and Australia gone, one has to wonder if both remaining Asia-Pacific rounds will hold on. If not, what does MotoGP do?
At the start of 2021, there were three reserve races. Portugal, which happened in April after Austin and Argentina were postponed, a return to Indonesia at the new Mandalika street circuit, and Russia at Igora Drive.
Portugal happened, but if neither Thailand nor Malaysia are set, I doubt Indonesia is a substitute option, and I doubt the teams are going to St. Petersburg, Russia in the middle of October.
MotoGP does have tendency to commit to doubleheaders to make up rounds. If either Thailand or Malaysia fall off the schedule, it is reasonable to expect Aragón, Jerez, Barcelona or any circuit on the Iberian Peninsula could get a race. Austin is another option for a doubleheader at the start of October, but Austin has already been mentioned as a possible site for a Formula One doubleheader and Formula One will be at Austin three weeks after the scheduled Grand Prix of the Americas. If Austin does not get a second Formula One date, it would not be surprising if the American track hosted a second MotoGP race.
There is a chance neither race is made up, but I doubt MotoGP would want a full month between Austin and the second Algarve race, the penultimate round of the season. I would expect at least one makeup race in October if neither Thailand nor Malaysia happen.
How will this second half of the season play out?
Yamaha struggled at the Red Bull Ring last year and the next two races will be at the Austrian circuit. While Rossi was fifth in the Austrian Grand Prix, all four Yamahas finished ninth or worse in the Styrian Grand Prix.
The Red Bull Ring is a Ducati track, and the Italian manufacture has won every Austrian Grand Prix since it returned to the schedule in 2016, and it nearly had the Styrian Grand Prix won before Oliveira slipped on through. KTM had a coming out party last year in Austria. I expect both manufactures to remain competitive and hold the advantage in those two races.
The second half of the season balances out good and bad for Yamaha. Yamaha swept the Misano races last year, Quartararo already has a victory at Portimão this year, Yamaha won at Valencia last year and Quartararo had a strong Thailand Grand Prix in 2019. But Yamaha has never won at Austin, has not won at Aragón since 2015 and has only one victory in the last nine Malaysian Grand Prix.
I do not expect the ground to fallout from underneath Quartararo, but he is not going to waltz to the championship. The Austrian races could be damage limitation. Silverstone could be in his favor, but he has not finished in the points in his last four starts at the circuit. He was fourth in Moto3 in 2015 and that is his only points scoring result at the British circuit.
Some of these tracks are not Ducati's bread and butter either. It has never won at Aragón, only one victory in the last 14 Misano races and only two victories in the last 14 Valencia races. Ducati has only four podium finishes in seven Austin races while Yamaha has six. Austin has been Marc Márquez's playground. The Honda might be a questionable bike, but if Austin can to the second half what the Sachsenring was in the first half, then Márquez could take points off both and level the playing field for one round.
With how everything has played out through nine races, I think Quartararo holds on to take the championship. Miller will climb up and finish ahead Zarco and Bagnaia, though one of Zarco or Bagnaia will get a victory in the final ten races.
Mir will remain consistent, and a victory could fall his way, but I would not be surprised if the 2020 champion goes winless in 2021. Viñales will crack the top five in the championship and score at least one more victory. After a month off, Márquez should find more confidence off the rest, and he could get to sixth in the championship.
Brad Binder will get back on the podium, but still finish significantly behind Oliveira in the championship. Rins and Pol Espargaró will each be notable forward movers in the second half of the season.
