It is odd that MotoGP has a 20-race calendar and in late August we have just reached the halfway points. After having the first ten races in a 147-day period, the final ten events will take place over 84 days. This includes one new race and a pair of triple-headers stretching from the Pacific region to the Middle East before ending in Europe.
Much has happened in the first half of the season that has seen a new weekend format and a shake up in the main players each weekend. What can we glean from the first half before moving on to the second act of 2023?
Is this Francesco Bagnaia's championship to lose?
Yeah, pretty much. Up 62 points with ten races remaining, it is far from being a runaway, but Bagnaia has been in control this season. He has won half the races contested so far and has finished second two other times. He has finished outside the points in the other three races, two of which were retirements, but nobody has been close to matching the Italian's consistency.
There were signs of the reckless ways early in the season when Bagnaia coughed up a substantial number of points in Argentina, Austin and France, but for the last five races he has not put a wheel wrong and hasn't looked close to going over the edge.
Adding to the difficulty of overtaking the Italian is Bagnaia's sprint race success. He has won four sprint races and stood on the podium for eight of them. No one is close to matching his points pace and even if he only has good sprint results for the rest of the season it will likely be enough insurance to keep the field at bay.
Bagnaia has been riding brilliantly, not overstepping the line, almost realizing the Ducati Desmosedici GP23 is significantly greater than the rest of the field and does not require being pushed beyond its limits.
Does anyone have a prayer?
Any optimist would try and muster up a yes. Mathematically, it is possible for someone else to win the championship. Crazier things have happened. It doesn't feel like this title is going to anyone but Bagnaia.
Jorge Martín is second in the world championship, but outside of three consecutive podium finishes that ended with his victory in Germany, he hasn't been close to Bagnaia. Martín has only six sprint race podium finishes and only two sprint victories as well.
For a period, it looked like Marco Bezzecchi was going to be Bagnaia's main challenger, but his retirement while riding second to Bagnaia at Silverstone was a significant blow to Bezzecchi's fight. Add to it Bezzecchi's lacking sprint success with only one victory and four podium finishes while finishing outside the sprint points twice and outside the top three in the other four sprint races.
Then there is Brad Binder in fourth, who has yet to win this season but even with his consistency Binder is 91 points behind Bagnaia before you hit Johann Zarco, a man who has never won a MotoGP race, 126 points off the top.
The best hope is Martín or Bezzecchi go on a tear in the second half, and sprint races could work in their favor. One double retirement weekend from Bagnaia combined with a sweep for either rider and they are back in it. It isn't over, but it is going to require a few fortunate weekends to turn heads.
That is the most realistic challenge and even that seems like a stretch.
Who has been a pleasant surprise?
Binder keeps up his consistent ways. The crazy thing is his best race was the Argentina sprint race where he rode from 15th to the victory only for Argentina to be his worst grand prix result in 17th, aside from his retirement in Germany.
With Jack Miller joining the KTM fold in 2023, it would have bee understandable if Binder fell to second in the Austrian make's pecking order, but Binder has finished ahead of Miller in eight of ten races. Every race Binder has been in the points he has been ahead of Miller. You cannot ask for more than that.
Last season, Binder scored points in all but one race and it earned him sixth in the championship, the best rider without a victory. He has already matched his 2022 podium finish total in the first ten races. Binder has been in the right position to win races but hasn't broken through yet. If he keeps up this pace, one of the final ten will go his way.
Where are the Japanese manufacturers?
At the German Grand Prix, for the first time since the 1969 Yugoslavian Grand Prix, none of the top ten finishers were a Japanese motorcycle. In fact, there wasn't a Japanese make in the top 11 of the German Grand Prix.
Then no Japanese bike finished in the top 13 at the British Grand Prix.
It is bad as both Yamaha and Honda have fallen from fray and are nowhere to be seen. Álex Rins' victory at Austin in April becomes more staggering with each passing race. Rins' victory is Honda's only top five finish this season. Fabio Quartararo's third in Austin is Yamaha's only podium finish as well.
Quartararo is the top Yamaha rider in the championship, 11th on 73 points, eight points ahead of teammate Franco Morbidelli in 12th. Rins has missed the last five races due to a broken right leg and he is still the top Honda rider in the championship, 14th on 47 points, 13 points clear of his LCR Honda teammate Takaaki Nakagami, the next best Honda rider through ten races.
The pain of watching Marc Márquez
For a split second, when Márquez took pole position for the season opener at Portimão and finished third in the opening sprint race, it felt like Márquez was on for something magnificent and the magic was back. Then he plowed into Miguel Oliveira early in the grand prix, injured his arm and missed three races. He proceeded to fall at both Le Mans and Mugello before fracturing his thumb in Germany and forcing him to miss that race and the Dutch TT.
He had another accident at Silverstone before his finished 12th in Austria, his first grand prix finished this season.
Márquez has these sparks where it feels like he still has it, but the Honda backslide has finally caught him as well. After years of being the one man to draw success out of that bike, Márquez is no longer the all powerful. He is struggling like the rest of his Honda cohorts.
The crashes and dropped points could be pointed as a world-class rider doing all he can to drag a bike up the grid. One cannot help but imagine what Márquez would achieve if he was on even a Gresini Ducati.
Plenty of rumors are floating about a potential departure from Honda. Márquez's contract runs through 2024, but it feels like if he wants one more shot at the world championship, it will have to come elsewhere. Can he afford one more year trudging around on the Honda? The partnership is one of legend, but it could be time for each to go their separate ways for the better.
Sprint Races
Back in the middle of April, I wrote about how I liked sprint races in MotoGP after initially not liking the proposed introduction of them for the full season.
I still like them, but as mentioned above, they do change the complexion of the championship thanks to the points that are offered.
Remove the sprint points and the championship would like the following (Difference from actual championship positions):
1. Francesco Bagnaia - 165 (-)
2. Marco Bezzecchi - 133 (+1)
3. Jorge Martín - 119 (-1)
4. Brad Binder - 103 (-)
5. Johann Zarco - 100 (-)
6. Luca Marini - 93 (-)
7. Aleix Espargaró - 88 (-)
8. Álex Márquez - 65 (+1)
9. Fabio Quartararo - 65 (+2)
10.Jack Miller - 63 (-2)
11. Maverick Viñales - 62 (-1)
12. Franco Morbidelli - 58 (-)
13. Augusto Fernández - 49 (-)
14. Álex Rins - 38 (-)
15. Fabio Di Giannantonio - 37 (+1)
16. Takaaki Nakagami - 33 (+1)
17. Miguel Oliveira - 30 (-2)
18. Enea Bastianini - 21 (-)
19. Raúl Fernández - 14 (+1)
20. Dani Pedrosa - 9 (+1)
21. Lorenzo Salvadori - 9 (+1)
22. Jonas Folger - 9 (+1)
23. Michele Pirro - 5 (+2)
24 Joan Mir - 5 (+2)
25. Danilo Petrucci - 5 (+2)
26. Stefan Bradl - 5 (+2)
27. Pol Espargaró - 4 (-3)
28. Marc Márquez - 4 (-9)
It would at least feel a little more like a championship. Bezzecchi would still be rather close. It would look a lot like what we saw last year with Bagnaia taking on Quartararo.
Martín would be closer than he is now despite being down in third. It would still feel like this was far from over. One slip from Bagnaia and it could tighten up considerably.
This illustrates how sprint points become insurance for bad Sundays, and how sprint points only increase the gaps between those at the top. Just like stage points in NASCAR and sprint points in Formula One, it doesn't make anything close, it only spreads out the field even more.
Unlike Formula One, MotoGP's sprint races are at least a tad intriguing and are not necessarily carbon copies of what will be seen during the grand prix. Are they helping bring in more viewers and increasing the exposure and popularity of MotoGP? That remains to be seen, but we had a great crowd at Jerez and Le Mans. Silverstone looked better than last year.
There are still concerns about the physical toll it will put on riders. Those concerns have been expressed from day one. Let's get through the season and then regroup on sprints.
Who can draw positives from the first ten races?
Somewhat under-appreciated, Álex Márquez has come out strong in his first season on a Ducati. Last season, Márquez's best finish was eighth. This year, he has finished better than eighth in six of the first ten races, including a podium from pole position in Argentina and a sprint victory in Silverstone. He has retired from four grand prix this season, but Márquez is the leading Gresini rider after a period when people just wrote him off.
On the other end of the spectrum, I think Franco Morbidelli's season has been good when put in context. Morbidelli has second 65 points and outside of a fourth in Argentina, he has only finished better than tenth on one occasion, but he is only eight points behind his Yamaha factory teammate Fabio Quartararo. Considering Quartararo has been first and second in the championship the last two seasons while Morbidelli was 17th and 19th, Morbidelli being eight points behind Quartararo is a rather remarkable rebound. It shows Morbidelli isn't being thoroughly thrashed.
Look at it as through ten races Morbidelli has scored 89.04% of Quartararo's point total. If you had said Morbidelli would have over 89% of Quartararo's point total through the first ten races at the start of the season, that would have been considered impressive. Let's give Morbidelli his due.
The rider needing a reverse of fortune the most is...
Enea Bastianini. One shoulder injury has derailed Bastianini's season and after an impressive campaign on a year-old bike last season, his first year with the factory team has been a nightmare of sorts.
Five races missed and his best finish is eighth in the five races he started. Bastianini hasn't been close to Bagnaia in his five starts this season. Can it get better? Yes. Will it get better? It comes down to Bastianini's fitness and comfort on the bike. This can easily be written off as a lost season with attention turned to 2024, but Bastianini could use a handful of good results to boost his confidence before this season ends.
Is there any silly season drama?
As a matter of fact, yes there is, and it is with one of the top manufacturers.
KTM has effectively five riders for four bikes. Moto2 championship Pedro Acosta has been waitlisted at the moment for a 2024 MotoGP ride as KTM has all four of its bikes tied up for next season. The factory team is set with Binder and Miller. GasGas Tech3 has Augusto Fernández and Pol Espargaró on the books, but Fernández appears to be the most likely to lose his spot to make room for Acosta if an alternative option cannot be found. MotoGP is not allowing KTM to expand as it is holding two spots should another factory effort want to join the series.
With all this at play, Acosta is left ready for the move but without a dancing partner. This will continue throughout the second half of the season.
Elsewhere, Álex Rins is moving from LCR Honda to the factory Yamaha.
Johann Zarco is leaving Pramac Ducati for a vacant spot at LCR Honda.
Both Mooney VR46 spots are not sewn up for 2024. Marc Márquez is potentially interested in a move. Franco Morbidelli could be in the running for a Ducati ride. Plenty of balls are still hanging in the air.
What to expect from the second half?
The final half of this season looks much different from the second half of last season. Qatar and Indonesia moved from the first two rounds of the calendar to the back half of this season. Qatar is actually the penultimate round. The inaugural Indian Grand Prix will take place in month's time. Barcelona leads off the second half after being a June round for much of its existence.
Ducati will continue to succeed. It won four of the returning nine rounds last season, and it had at least one bike on the podium in all nine of them. Surprisingly, it had multiple podium finishers in only two of those races.
KTM won two of those races last year. More specifically, Miguel Oliveira won both of those races for KTM last year, and to get even more specific, Oliveira won in wet conditions at Indonesia and then won in Thailand. Suzuki won at Australia and Valencia last year, so those two races will have new winners. Fabio Quartararo won at Barcelona last June.
Bagnaia will continue his form. He is going to win at least two or three more races and continue to bank sprint points. There will be races where he settles for a third or fourth if he cannot challenge for the lead. The championship will easily be his, but due to the abundance of points thanks to sprint races, he likely only clinches a round early, which is good for keeping people tuned in, but it will feel inevitable.
There will be plenty of competition from other Ducati riders. Marco Bezzecchi levels out and pulls ahead of Jorge Martín. KTM will break through and get at least one victory as Binder makes a push for a top three championship position. Last year, Aprilia faded in the second half. I don't think Aprilia repeats that slide but it will not see a significant bump upward in results.
As for Yamaha and Honda, they will at least have one or two good races, something that lifts the spirits. Anything more than that is hard to fathom.
India is a fun question mark. The long straightaways of the Buddh International Circuit should favor Ducati. The circuit has not been used much in the nearly ten years since the final Formula One race there. However, it could race like Austin, which saw Honda win ahead of Ducati, Yamaha and two Aprilias.
There will be at least one surprise winner, either someone who hasn't been a great this year or someone just outside the main picture who has never won in the top class or has not won in quite some time.
