Michael Scott | November 4, 2020
Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
Racing in Shadowland
It was the ever-direct and controversial Casey Stoner who came up with the notion: the 2020 MotoGP series—well, it’s not really a World Championship.
He has a point.
First of all (like the USA’s so-called “World Series” in baseball), it doesn’t span the world. All 14 (rather than the planned 20) MotoGP races are in mainland Europe. True, the opening round in Qatar went ahead but only for the junior classes. Eight of the 14 are on the Iberian Peninsula, one of them in Portugal and the rest in Spain.
Secondly, the main man isn’t there. With Marc Marquez on duty, the perpetual question was always: who will come second? But Marc’s AWOL, and now seems certain to remain so over the forthcoming final triple-header. And it really isn’t quite the same without him.
Less of a championship.
Champions only have to beat who is there. Which is just another way of saying: “You have to be in it to win it.”
The same is true, thanks to the curtailments and cancellations of Covid, of all the various championships. They are measurably reduced, with or without the presence of a defending champion. (And, by the way, with Rossi also absent from the last two rounds, there wasn’t a single former champion on the MotoGP grid at Aragon.)
Does this make the winners lesser champions?
This is not a view I would like to put to Cameron Beaubier, after his utterly dominant American season. Nor, for example, to Aussie rider Josh Brookes, unlikely to value his second BSB crown less than his first, just because of a shorter season and no Showdown. Nor to Superbike superman Jonathan Rea.
Try saying it to new Moto2 leader Sam Lowes who has in the past three races come into truly world-beating form, even if only able to express it in Europe.
Nor would the ultimate MotoGP Champion take kindly to any undervaluation of the crown—whoever that will turn out to be. Currently it’s a close one between new leader Joan Mir, triple race-winner Fabio Quartararo, double winner Franco Morbidelli and single winner Maverick Vinales, not necessarily in that order.
Interestingly, Mir leads without having won a single race. If he keeps this up, he would become the second rider in 75 years to take the crown without a win in that year. The first was 1999 champ 125 Emilio Alzamora, nowadays Svengali to Marc Marquez and several other Spanish racing hotshots.
This fact serves to underline the point.
Champions only have to beat who is there. Which is just another way of saying: “You have to be in it to win it.”
Likewise, they only have to win the series as it is.
Still, the absence of Marc Marquez has left MotoGP in a strange shadowland. Like an orchestra without a conductor, playing from memory.
The result has been a totally unpredictable series of eight different winners in 11 races, rookies and satellite riders taking wins and podiums, and a nail-bitingly close and unpredictable title fight.
It is pretty certain it wouldn’t have been like this if Marc hadn’t spannered himself in the first race. For the past few years, his speed has stretched the pursuit, left everybody else panting. Instead of the luxury of developing their own tactics, riders would have the race dictated to them. All they could do is try to scramble to catch up.
This is an unforgiving template and gave rise to few surprises.
Unlike when the whole thing is thrown wide open, in the absence of an obvious leader.
Then, to quote the favorite cliché of at least one TV commentator, “Anything can happen … and usually does.”
It has certainly stimulated and rewarded the imagination.
One reward has been desperately close racing. For example, the top 10 at the first of the two Aragon rounds was over the line within 9.6 seconds. This is the second-closest premier-class top 10 in racing history.
Among unexpected outcomes have been at tracks where races were run on consecutive weekends. The feeling in the paddock may have been all Groundhog Day, but the results sheets were anything but repetitive, as everyone went faster than previously, and in no particular order.
No one could have predicted the way favorites have come to the fore, only to slump again. In fact, the only reliable expectation, as the year has worn on, has, itself, been an inversion. For the past three years, Dovizioso has been the steadfast counterpoint to Marquez’s superiority. Now, race after race, he can’t even qualify in the top 10 to go straight into Q2. And just to prove the erratic equation, he did win a race anyway.
Which kind of racing is better? Ragged-toothed scrapping, or academic excellence? Is perfection worth more than excitement? That is an argument between purists and sensation seekers. Personally, I enjoy both but, perhaps perversely, lean towards the former.
But whatever the preference, we must respect all the champions just the same.CN