2020 Et Cetera Predictions: Revisited

We are looking at a dozen different championships today. Most of them faced different seasons because of the pandemics. Most of these series had rounds cancelled or moved or tracks took on multiple race weekends instead of one. One series avoided the pandemic. One was swallowed up and vanished. We can look and see at how our ideas from nearly 12 months ago aged. 

1. MotoGP: There will be at least three first-time winners
Correct! 

There were five first-time winners in 2020 and three of those came in the first five races! 

No surprise, Fabio Quartararo was the first to achieve his first MotoGP victory and he did it in the opening race from Jerez. Quartararo followed it with his second victory in the second Jerez race and then Brad Binder took a surprise victory at Brno on the KTM!

Two weeks later, KTM had another winner and it was Miguel Oliveira, who slipped on through after Pol Espargaró and Jack Miller went wide in the final corner of the Styrian Grand Prix from the Red Bull Ring. Espargaró had been leading into that final bend and if he had held on, he would have been the third first-time winner. Instead, it was Oliveira. 

We're not done yet. The next race was at Misano and Franco Morbidelli picked up his first career victory. Six races. Four first-time winners. 

Incredible... and we still haven't gotten to the fifth first-time winner, the MotoGP champion Joan Mir, who won the European Grand Prix from Valencia! 

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?
Not the pandemic, but Marc Márquez's injury in the first race of the season from Jerez. 

While battling Quartararo for the lead, Márquez fell off and fractured his right arm. He tried to return for the next race but could not compete. Then he fractured the plate in his arm after closing a window and that ended his season. Now, Márquez's start of the 2021 season is in jeopardy due to a slow recovery

If Márquez was healthy, he wins at least ten races this season. No rider was spectacularly consistent in 2020. Quartararo would have gotten his victory, if Márquez was competing. Yamaha was on another level at Jerez. Outside of that, I am not sure the KTMs of Binder and Oliveira would have broken through. Perhaps, Morbidelli would have had his day and with how good the Suzuki was, Mir could have gotten a victory, but I am not entirely sure three first-time winners would have occurred with a healthy Marc Márquez. 

2. Indy Lights: The winner of the first race of the season does not drop out midseason
Well... Indy Lights was cancelled this season due to the pandemic. We didn't even get one race in. There was a qualifying session held at St. Petersburg and David Malukas topped it, but not long after that the St. Petersburg weekend was shut down. 

With ten cars entered, and not all of those committed to a full season, Indy Lights did not attempt a season. Its future remains in jeopardy, though there is optimism a 2021 season will happen.

3. Supercars: At least four teams and at least two teams from each manufacture win a race
Correct! 

Ford had DJR Team Penske drivers Scott McLaughlin and Fabian Coulthard picked up victories, as well as Tickford Racing drivers Jack Le Brocq and Cameron Waters.

Holden had Triple Eight Race Engineering driver Jamie Whincup win four races while Shane van Gisbergen won four races, including the Bathurst 1000 with Garth Tander. Brad Jones Racing driver Nick Percat took a surprise victory in the second race back from lockdown in Sydney and Percat would follow it with another win in the second Sydney weekend. Erebus Motorsport made it three Holden team with a victory when Anton de Pasquale won in Darwin. 

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?
I don't think so. DJR Team Penske and Triple Eight were always going to win races. Waters was going to win for Tickford Racing. If there is one surprise it is Walkinshaw Andretti United did not win a race despite Chaz Mostert finishing fifth in the championship and that would have been a suspected Holden team to pick up a victory. 

4. World Superbike: American Garrett Gerloff will be no better than the fifth-best Yamaha rider
Wrong! 

Gerloff did great! He was the surprise of the season and finished 11th in the championship with three podium finishes, including a runner-up finish at Estoril. He was the fourth best Yamaha rider with Toprak Razgatlioglu in fourth, Michael van der Mark in fifth and Loris Baz in eighth.

Federico Caricasulo ended up 14th, the fifth Yamaha rider and I thought Caricasulo would hold the advantage after four seasons in World Supersport, where he won six races and he was runner-up in the championship last year. 

Instead, Gerloff took to WSBK like a duck to water and even was on standby for the MotoGP European Grand Prix if Valentino Rossi did not pass a COVID-19 test. That is a quick rise for Gerloff and I am excited for what is in store for his future.

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?

Perhaps, but the pandemic doesn't explain why Caricasulo was as far off as he was, considering he knew majority of these tracks and Gerloff was new to almost all of them. 

5. World Supersport: Randy Krummenacher wins an even-numbered race
Wrong!

This is a little messy. Krummenacher ran the first race at Phillip Island with MV Agusta and then left the team before the season restarted citing "serious breaches on the part of (MV Agusta) that compromise both the rider's performance as well as his professionalism, reputation, and personal integrity." 

It was announced about three weeks after Krummenacher's departure that MV Agusta was disqualified from the Phillip Island round after it was found the team's engines were unsealed without permission. It is not clear if this is why Krummenacher left, it could be completely coincidental, but not many riders leave a team after one race for serious breaches. 

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?

Yes and no. 

Yes, because if the pandemic doesn't happen, perhaps Krummenacher runs a few more races and perhaps whatever breach happened doesn't happen. We will never know, but here we are. 

However, Andrea Locatelli won the first nine races and 12 of 15 races. Yamaha won 13 of 15 races. Kawasaki won twice. MV Agusta had four podium finishes all season. It might not have mattered.

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
This one is a little confusing.

Unlike past GT World Challenge America seasons, when it was Pirelli World Challenge, there was no overall champion this season. There were three class champions, but no main champion. Which matters because the #1 Ferrari won with Squadra Corse and Martin Fuentes in the Pro-Am class while the GT World Challenge Europe Endurance Cup championship went to Alessandro Pier Guidi and AF Corse Ferrari.

In GTWC America's Silver class, the #93 Racers Edge Motorsports Acura won that title with Shelby Blackstock and Trent Hindman and scored 300 points. The only problem is Racers Edge was uncontested in the Silver class for seven of 11 races. Pro-Am drew the most entries every race. Blackstock and Hindman did win five of 11 races overall while the Pro-Am class took six overall victories and Squadra Corse won three races overall. 

GTWC America did not keep an overall points championship. When this prediction was made I thought there was going to be an overall champion for that series, like there had been under the PWC banner. 

If you applied points to the overall results of each race, the #93 Acura comes out on top with 208 points over the #1 Ferrari on 183 points. I guess I am going to say, "Correct," though it doesn't feel right, but it doesn't feel wrong either. 

Belgian Audi Club Team WRT won the GT World Challenge Europe Sprint Cup title with Dries Vanthoor and Charles Weerts. 

The Intercontinental GT Challenge championship will be decided this weekend in the Kyalami 9 Hours and an Italian manufacture will not win that championship. Porsche drivers Earl Bamber and Laurens Vanthoor lead on 31 points, one ahead of teammates drivers Matt Campbell, Mathieu Jaminet and Patrick Pilet. Bentley drivers Jules Gounon, Jordan Pepper and Maxime Soulet are third on 28 points. BMW drivers Nicky Catsburg and Augusto Farfus are on 25 points. 

Markus Winkelhock has an outside shot at the championship on 22 points, as do Honda drivers Mario Farnbacher and Renger van der Zande with 19 points. Another batch of BMW drivers, David Pittard, Martin Tomczyk and Nick Yelloly are on 18 points. Frédéric Vervisch also has 18 points and could win the championship, as he will share an Audi with Weerts and Mirko Bortolotti. Mattia Drudi and Patric Niederhauser are also on 18 points and will be in another Audi with Christopher Haase. 

Of the 12 entries in the Kyalami 9 Hours, nine of them have at least one driver that could win the IGTC championship.

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?
There were clearly other things that affected this prediction. 

7. Asian Le Mans Series: None of the class champions sweep the season
Correct!

In LMP2, G-Drive Racing won the first two races, and I got nervous, but Carlin won the final two races. 

In LMP3, there were four different winners in four races with Inter Europol Competition, Nielsen Racing, Graff and ACE1 Villorba Corse each getting a victory. 

The GT class also had four different winners in four races with D'station Racing AMR, Car Guy Racing, Team JLOC and HubAuto Corsa. 

Heck, if you even include LMP2 AM, that did not have a sweep. RLR MSport won the first race. Rick Ware Racing won the second and third race with the #52 Ligier and then Rick Ware Racing won the final race with the #25 Ligier. 

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?
No and we can definitely say no because the 2019-20 Asian Le Mans Series season concluded prior to the pandemic taking over the world.

Those were simpler times. 

8. Super Formula: There will be at least two repeat winners in 2020
Wrong! 

There is still a race remaining in the Super Formula season, but this prediction is already locked up because through six races there have been six different winners. At most, we could have one repeat winner. 

Through the first six races, Ryō Hirakawa, Sho Tsuboi, Nick Cassidy, Tomoki Noiri, Naoki Yamaoto and Toshiki Oyu each have a victory. 

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?
A little bit, because while I cannot say for certain we would have had two repeat winners, you had drivers miss rounds because they were traveling out of Japan to compete in other series like the FIA World Endurance Championship, you had drivers that planned to run Super Formula and not compete (Pietro Fittipaldi) or only run one race (Sérgio Sette Câmara).

One thing the pandemic has affected is how the Super Formula championship will be decided. With the number of drivers who had to miss races due to conflicts with the 24 Hours of Le Mans and other WEC races, the decision was only the top five results out of the seven races would count toward the championship.

With one race remaining on December 20 at Fuji, Yamamoto and Hirakawa are tied on 55 points. Both drivers have had two finishes outside the points so they will not drop any points regardless of their results in the Fuji finale. 

Nojiri is third and he will drop at least one point, meaning the lowest his score can be is 47 points. If he scores four points or fewer at Fuji, his final score will be 47 points. To win the championship, he will at least have to finish second or better or finish third or better and earn bonus points for qualifying in the top three. 

Cassidy is dropping at least three points and his lowest possible score is 46 points. Like Nojiri, Cassidy has to finish second or better to win the championship. 

Kenta Yamashita has not won a race and he missed Okayama due to sports car commitments at Le Mans. The most points he could finish on is 55 points because if he wins the race from pole position, he will have to drop two points. However, he would lose on tiebreaker because he would have a victory and second to Yamamoto's first, second and third and Yamashita's next best finish is fifth.

9. Super GT: No manufacture has a winning streak of three races or more in GT500
Correct!

The winning manufactures in order were Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Honda and Honda

There was only one winning streak in Super GT's GT5000 class this season and it came in the final two races, and Honda was about a half-mile from not winning that race because the #37 Toyota ran out of fuel while leading exiting the final corner. This allowed the #100 Honda to take the victory, and ultimately the championship. 

If there had been no instances of a manufacture winning consecutive races, that would have been impressive. This is still impressive in what was a crazy 2020 season for Super GT. 

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?

I guess it did because the season was four races at Fuji Speedway, two at Suzuka and two at Motegi. Without the pandemic, we would have had races at Okayama, Buriram, Sepang, Sportsland SUGO and Autopolis, and perhaps one manufacture could have pulled out a three-race winning streak. 

10. DTM: Ed Jones has a better rookie season than Pietro Fittipaldi did
Wrong! Because Ed Jones lost his ride due to the pandemic. 

Jones was trapped in the United Arab Emirates and was not going to make the opening race. Audi replaced Jones with Harrison Newey when Jones wasn't going to make it. 

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?
Yes, because the pandemic ended up costing Jones his job. I almost think this one should be removed from the board. No one could have seen that coming. I am taking it down. 

11. World Touring Car Cup: There will be at least one nightmare weekend for Goodyear
Scrolling through the internet...

Scrolling through the internet...

Looking for any story involving Goodyear and WTCC...

I am not seeing anything... 

No nightmare weekends I guess. 

Good job Goodyear.

And Wrong!

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?

Possibly considering it did not visit eight tracks it had scheduled to visit including Macau, Sepang and Salzburgring. 

12. WRC: Multiple Sébastiens win a rally in 2020
Wrong!

I was hopeful Sébastien Ogier and Sébastien Loeb would each get a victory. Ogier won Rally Mexico and ACI Rally Monza, which clinched him the championship. Loeb only competed in two rounds, sixth at Rallye Monte Carlo and third in Rally Turkey.

Did the pandemic affect this prediction?

Yes, because Loeb was likely going to run more than two rounds with Hyundai. If we had a full 14-round championship, perhaps Loeb does six or seven rallies and maybe he wins one. Loeb might not have won, but he would have had more opportunities. 

Five for ten, with two predictions dropped because Indy Lights did not run in 2020 and the pandemic cost Ed Jones his job in DTM. Almost half of these predictions were notably pandemic affected.