We are back with our annual look at a plethora of series from around the globe. There are just too many series to do specific predictions for each. In this case we will make one prediction for notable series, from domestic series to international, two wheels and four.
1. MotoGP: There will be at least three first-time winners
Fabio Quartararo should have picked up his first career victory in 2019.
Álex Márquez will be moving up to Honda.
Those are the two obvious candidates for first-time winners in MotoGP in 2020. It seems like it will be only a matter of time for Quartararo. The younger Márquez is another story. He is on the right bike. His brother Marc was the only one to get a handled of the Honda in 2019. It would be a slightly foolish to think Álex will jump on the bike and immediately be keeping up with his brother or in a few cases beating him. However, it would not be crazy if Álex figures it out and he pulls out a victory.
It would be easy if I said there would be at least two first-time winners with Quartararo and Á. Márquez but let's make this interesting.
Aleix Espargaró, Johann Zarco, Tito Rabat, Francesco Bagnaia, Takaaki Nakagami, Brad Binder, Pol Espargaró, Iker Lecuona, Miguel Oliveira, Joan Mir and Franco Morbidelli are the other riders entering 2020 without a MotoGP victory.
Mir could do it. Zarco was the guy knocking on the door for a while and then made the wrong career-move, went to KTM and now he is at the team that finished last in the championship in 2019, Avintia Racing Ducati. Binder has shown strength in Moto3 and Moto2, has been a contemporary to Álex Márquez for a few seasons and maybe 2020 is the year KTM surprises us. Pol Espargaró has done a good job with KTM. He would be a worthy winner.
On top of that, it is MotoGP; we have seen plenty of surprise winners. All we need is a rainy day and then anyone could be champion.
2. Indy Lights: The winner of the first race of the season does not drop out midseason
Last year, Zachary Claman won the first race at St. Petersburg, he had a good season going, was fourth in the championship and his season ended after the sixth race of 2019.
It was a shame because Claman went to IndyCar, had respectable results in IndyCar, went back to Indy Lights and it seemed like it was going to be a great chance for him to get track time and potentially win the scholarship to get back to IndyCar.
Things have gone quiet on Claman's career and the 2020 Indy Lights grid is still a work in progress. We know Robert Megennis is staying, David Malukas will remain, Kyle Kirkwood dominated the Indy Pro 2000 championship and has the scholarship and Nikita Lastochkin will move up with Exclusive Autosport after five years in the Road to Indy between U.S. F2000 and Indy Pro 2000 where he has made 75 starts, has zero victories, two podium finishes and 18 top five finishes.
I don't think we are going to have a repeat of the Claman situation, at least I hope we will not. Indy Lights really cannot afford that.
Setting the criteria, this has to be if the driver runs fewer than 70% of the races and then does not return. If the driver runs the first five rounds, misses one because of injury, illness or funding but returns and runs the remainder then that does not count as a midseason drop out. Now, if the driver runs the first four races and then does not run again until the finale, this will count as a drop out.
3. Supercars: At least four teams and at least two teams from each manufacture win a race
In 2019, three teams won a Supercars race, the Ford teams of DJR Team Penske and Tickford Racing and the Holden team of Triple Eight Race Engineering.
Both full-time Penske entries of Scott McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard, both full-time Triple Eight Race Engineering entries of Jamie Whincup and Shane van Gisbergen and Chaz Mostert of Tickford Racing were the winners. That was it.
In 2018, five teams won a race. In 2017, five teams won a race. In 2016, eight teams won a race.
Things have taken a turn and that happens when McLaughlin has a historic season but I think 2020 will see the pendulum swing and a few more different winners. McLaughlin, Whincup and van Gisbergen are all going to win a race. Mostert is moving to Walkinshaw Andretti United. That team has too much invested into it not to have some success. I think it will get back to the top step.
David Reynolds was sixth in the championship in 2019 but did not pick up a victory for Erebus Motorsports. Tickford Racing retained Lee Holdsworth and Cameron Waters. Waters had six podium finishes in 2019. Will Davison had two runner-up finishes in 2019 and he will return for 23Red Racing.
4. World Superbike: American Garrett Gerloff will be no better than the fifth-best Yamaha rider
This is a big jump for Garrett Gerloff. The American rider was third in the 2019 MotoAmerica Superbike championship behind Cameron Beaubier and Toni Elias with four victories and 15 podium finishes from 20 races.
That is good but World Superbike is a lot more competitive than the top Superbike championship in the United States. This isn't the AMA Superbike of old where Ben Spies could leave and then immediately win the World Superbike championship and be in MotoGP the year after that.
Gerloff is 24 years old and he is going to race on 13 tracks that are completely new to him. Add to it that the other Yamaha riders are Toprak Razgatlioglu, Michael van der Mark, Loris Baz and Federico Caricasulo. You have two World Superbike race winners, a World Superbike race winner who has spent time in MotoGP and the reigning World Supersport vice-champion. Gerloff is a fish out of water.
I am pulling for Gerloff. American motorcycle racing has waned. There has not been that next generation to follow Kenny Roberts, Jr., Nicky Hayden, Colin Edwards and Ben Spies in international racing. Add to it the top domestic series was ruined a decade ago and it is just starting to recover but it is significantly diminished and the quality is not there yet.
Hope for the best but expect the worst and I am afraid the results will not be there for Gerloff and he will be quickly replaced in the Yamaha fold.
5. World Supersport: Randy Krummenacher wins an even-numbered race
Krummenacher had four victories in 2019 on his way to taking the championship. However, Krummenacher won the first, third, fifth and seventh races. In the Swiss rider's World Supersport career he has six career victories, five of which were an odd-numbered race in that calendar.
The one caveat is Krummenacher is leaving Yamaha and will join MV Agusta in 2020. Yamaha won 10 of 12 races in 2019, swept the 2018 season and won six of 12 races in 2017. That is a record of 28 victories in the last 36 races for Yamaha. MV Agusta only had two podium finishes in 2019 with Kawasaki responsible for the other two victories in 2019. The most recent MV Agusta victory was the 2017 season opener at Philip Island with Roberto Rolfo.
The 2020 season could be another Yamaha beat down but for one of the six even-numbered races Krummenacher will end up on top.
6. GT World Challenge: Italian manufactures will not take multiple championships between World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup, World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup, Intercontinental GT Challenge and World Challenge America
Lamborghini took the Endurance Cup and World Challenge Europe titles with Orange1 FFF Racing, Ferrari took the World Challenge America title with R. Ferri Motorsport and Porsche took the Intercontinental GT Challenge title.
Ferrari has taken the last two World Challenge America titles. Prior to that the previous four champions were Cadillac, Porsche, McLaren and Porsche.
The Endurance Cup champions since 2014 were Audi, Audi, McLaren, Bentley and Mercedes-AMG.
Europe Sprint Cup champions since 2014 were Mercedes-AMG, Bentley and three consecutive Audi championships before 2019.
Intercontinental GT Challenge has only existed since 2016 and the champions have been Audi, Audi, Mercedes-AMG and Porsche.
These GT3 championships have been German-dominated for the most part. I think that will show up again. I think Ferrari has World Challenge America under its thumb with R. Ferri Motorsport. The other three championships will have plenty of competition and see Audi, Porsche, Mercedes-AMG, maybe even Honda fighting for silverware.
7. Asian Le Mans Series: None of the class champions sweep the season
Last season, CarGuy Racing swept the GT class. That is not going to happen again, even if it is only a four-race championship.
Let's go class-by-class: LMP2 had G-Drive Racing take the season opener after the Carlin entry got a penalty. Carlin has Harry Tincknell and Ben Barnicoat as drivers. Tincknell has an ELMS championship, won at Le Mans, won in IMSA and was in the Ford GT program. Barnicoat has had success in GT3 competition. Eurasia Motorsport has two cars, one has former Formula One driver Roberto Mehri and the other should have Nick Cassidy for a few races.
LMP3 had Inter Europol Competition take the season opener and that team is a regular LMP3 winner. This is the one class where I think it could happen but Nielsen Racing has two promising entries and Graff Racing has a good team.
The GT class is too deep. D'station Racing AMR won the season opener but CarGuy Racing is still there, Spirit of Race and HubAuto Corsa are race winners and Rio Haryanto is in an entry.
We are going to see a mix of winners in each class.
8. Super Formula: There will be at least two repeat winners in 2020
In seven Super Formula races in 2019 there were seven different winners. That is quite impressive. It is a series with plenty of quality drivers. There are more than seven potential winners on that grid. Kamui Kobayashi, Kazuki Nakajima and Lucas Auer were on the 2019 grid and did not win a race.
We could have three or four different winners to start the 2020 season and continue this stretch of different winners up to ten or 11 but that is unlikely.
It seems like Nick Cassidy will return and Naoki Yamamoto could return but he could have more Formula One responsibilities with Honda and one of the two Red Bull programs. These have been the top two drivers in Super Formula the last two years. It would be fun to have a season where both these drivers win two or three races each.
There have not been multiple repeat winners in a Super Formula season since 2017 when Pierre Gasly and Yuhi Sekiguchi each won twice and the champion was Hiroki Ishiura with one victory. The 2016 season saw Sekiguchi, Yuji Kunimoto and Stoffel Vandoorne each score two victories with the title going to Kunimoto.
There has not been a Super Formula season with multiple drivers with at least three victories apiece since 2007 when Takashi Kogure and Satoshi Motoyama each had three victories and the champion was winless Tsugio Matsuda, who started the season with two runner-up finishes, two finishes of third and then did not score a podium finish in the final five races of the season.
9. Super GT: No manufacture has a winning streak of three races or more in GT500
There has been a trend in Super GT that when one manufacture gets it right it gets it right.
Last year, Lexus won five consecutive races. In 2017, Lexus won the first four races of the season. Nissan won the first four races of 2016. Nissan had another three-race wining streak in 2015. Lexus closed out the 2013 season with three consecutive races. The 2012 season had a three-race winning streak for Nissan.
It happened of five of the ten seasons last decade. Lexus is rebranding with the Toyota Supra returning. That could mean a less successful season for that make, it could mean Nissan or Honda have a breakout year but I think it will be balanced.
10. DTM: Ed Jones has a better rookie season than Pietro Fittipaldi did
Jones will make a switch to DTM after three years in IndyCar. It is quite a switch for Jones. We don't normally consider IndyCar drivers to be on the radar for DTM. Other than Danny Sullivan, I cannot think of another driver who went from IndyCar directly to DTM.
Although, Pietro Fittipaldi ran IndyCar in 2018 and then was in DTM for 2019 but Fittipaldi is a bit different then Jones. Fittipaldi ran almost everything in 2018. He ran in the LMP1 class with DragonSpeed, he ran the season opener of Super Formula and he ran an IndyCar. Fittipaldi was not tied to any one series. He was searching the world but still had an eye on Formula One and he became a Haas F1 test driver for the 2019 season after his year skipping over the ocean into many different race cars.
Jones spent three years in IndyCar and before that was in Indy Lights for two years. It seemed like Jones would be set in IndyCar. His results were encouraging and someone would keep giving him an opportunity. The talent is clearly there because he got an Audi factory ride out of his time in IndyCar. That says a lot about Jones' talent.
Fittipaldi's rookie year was not spectacular. He scored 22 points and was 15th in the championship with six finishes in the points and his best finish was fifth.
This is a tough series and if you start slow the results will not go your way. The one thing in Jones' favor is Aston Martin has left the series and there is no guarantee the grid will have 18 cars next year. I think we are looking at 14-16 cars. In that case, Jones is going to win by default.
Here is how we are going to do this: Jones has to finish in a better percentile of the championship combined with scoring more points. With Fittipaldi finishing 15th in the championship with 18 drivers running majority of the races, he was in the top 83.333% of the championship. That means Jones has to finish better than the top 83.333%. If there are only 16 entries then Jones has to finish 13th in the championship or better and he has to score more than 22 points. If Jones is 13th but only has 20 points then this prediction will not be fulfilled. If there are only 14 entries then Jones needs to finish in the top 11 of the championship and score more than 22 points.
11. World Touring Car Cup: There will be at least one nightmare weekend for Goodyear
Oh Goodyear... Goodyear, Goodyear, Goodyear.
For some reason, Goodyear is making its way back into international motorsports. It is taking over as sole tire supplier in the LMP2 class in the FIA World Endurance Championship, although it is just re-branding Dunlop tires since Goodyear owns Dunlop. It is taking over the World Touring Car Cup, a random series for Goodyear to get in bed with.
Goodyear has basically only been in NASCAR for close to twenty years. It has not had spotless times in NASCAR. Goodyear has a reputation of getting it wrong and I feel like this will be too new for Goodyear. There will be one weekend when Goodyear is the storyline, drivers will be upset and it will sound familiar to NASCAR fans.
I could see that being the case for the Nürburgring Nordschleife round. I could see Goodyear's wet weather tire being garbage. It could be a hot race weekend in Vila Real, Aragón or Sepang where the tires cannot last the very short race distances.
You can expect a few hiccups for any new tire manufacture but I think Goodyear's hiccups will be quite noticeable.
12. WRC: Multiple Sébastiens win a rally in 2020
Let cut to the chase, Sébastien Ogier and Sébastien Loeb are both going to win at least one rally in 2020.
Ogier seems like a lock for one victory with the five-time champion moving to Toyota. Loeb moved to Hyundai for a few rounds in 2019 and those results were good but Loeb had one podium finish in six starts. In 2018, Loeb won Rally Catalunya, his final of three starts that year.
I think both will have at least one victory. It will be an interesting WRC season with it basically being Toyota vs. Hyundai. Ott Tänak is leaving Toyota fresh off a championship to Hyundai. Dani Sordo and Thierry Neuville will both be in the Hyundai camp. Sordo and Loeb will be part-time Toyota will have Jari-Matti Latvala, Takamoto Katsuta, Elfyn Evans and Kalle Rovanperä join Ogier. Latvala and Katsuta will be part-time. Ogier is definitely the leader of the Toyota camp. Hyundai will have a lot of big names and not a clear number one. That should be fun to watch.
Three sets of predictions down and two sets remain. Check out the NASCAR and Formula One predictions and the next set of predictions will come Monday.
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