September 2020

Franco Morbidelli who is the San Marino MotoGP winner emerged the first in the Barcelona MotoGP FP2 which was held in Catalunya as he was able to beat KTM and Ducatti. Morbidelli’s teammate Fabio Quartararo who was the pacesetter in FP1 encountered problems before the start of the FP2 session. The two Petronas SRT Yamaha bikes topped in the overall timesheets of the Friday’s Catalunya Free Practice session for the Barcelona MotoGP. Franco Morbidelli was top overall recording a time of 1m 39.789s after beating Quartararo’s FP1 time by six tenths of a second. Ensponsorama racing’s Johann Zarco closed in on Franco Morbidelli’s time managing to get his time in the 1m 39s bracket. Brad Binder(KTM Factory racing) came in third closing the top three pacesetters on Friday. Many riders were able to get faster lap times in FP2 than FP1. Morbidelli, Binder and Suzuki’s Alex Rins were able to set the pace in the FP1 after Fabio Quartararo. Monster Energy Yamaha’s Maverick Vinalez and Valentino Rossi were also able to improve their lap times in FP2. Pol Espargaro(KTM Factory racing) completed in 4th place in the overall rankings. The champion leader Andrea Dovizioso(Ducatti Team) ended up 6th in FP2 after being 2nd in FP1. After setting the pace in FP2, Morbidelli was then down at Turn 10 – unhurt – with 24 minutes to go as the San Marino GP winner sat just over a tenth off teammate Quartararo. Before Morbidelli crashed, Zarco crashed at Turn 5 rider okay with Repsol Honda Team’s Stefan Bradl also crashing unhurt, the German biting the dust at Turn 2. The wind was up and was playing a factor with tyre temperatures, making it tricky for the premier class in the second session of the weekend. In the mid part of the session, a lot of the riders were trying to get some race pace work done with the timesheets not really changing much. With 14 to go, eight tenths covered the top 11 Alex Marquez (Repsol Honda Team) improving in FP2 to jump up to just outside the top 10. Zarco then came back out on his second GP19 machine and was able to go quicker, slotting in just ahead of Alex Marquez to make it 12 riders within a second heading into the final 10 minutes of FP2 cue the time attacks. A few soft Michelin tyre lap times came in but it was still Quartararo who held P1, thanks to his FP1 time. Mir and Rossi went close with the Spaniard sitting just 0.010 off Quartararo’s pace, as two Hondas then rose to the fore in FP2 and on the combined times. Takaaki Nakagami (LCR Honda Idemitsu) and Alex Marquez went into the top five after stringing great laps together, but the goalposts were about to be moved significantly. Rookie Binder finished FP1 down in 21st position as he attacked the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya for the first time on a MotoGP machine. But, clearly, it hadn’t taken the South African too long to work out how to tame the RC16 beast in Barcelona Binder blitzed his way to P1 with a 1:40.008 to stretch four tenths clear of the field. Nakagami completed the top five on the combined times after finishing FP1 just outside the top 10 in P11, the Japanese rider sits just ahead of Quartararo who encountered issues when coming out of pitlane to start his time attack. The 21-year-old was unable to get out and dropped to P6 after sitting as the fastest rider in FP1, but remains safely in the top 10 for now. In form Mir finishes 7th despite improving his time from FP1, Pol Espargaro and Alex Marquez rise into 8th and 9th respectively after finishing FP1 in 16th and 20th marked improvement for the two Spaniards. 10th went the way of Rossi, The Doctor slips two places from FP1 but holds onto the final provisional automatic Q2 spot ahead of Saturday’s action. Dovizioso didn’t improve his FP1 time that was good enough for P2 this morning, the Italian slipping to 15th in FP2 as both he and teammate Danilo Petrucci who sits P22 failed to go quicker in the afternoon session.

Fabio Quartararo, Andrea Dovizioso, Joan Mir and Maverick Vinales are the top four in the 2020 MotoGP standings and also fill the top four in the Catalunya MotoGP FP1. The top four in the 2020 MotoGP World Championship standings filled the leading positions as the Catalunya MotoGP which kicked off in Spain with Fabio Quartararo the quickest over Andrea Dovizioso. As is becoming a frequent occurrence for the Frenchman in his second season of MotoGP, Quartararo was in fine form out of the box on the Petronas SRT Yamaha to take control early on at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya before steadily chipping away at his own benchmark. Eventually posting a best of 1min 40.431secs on his final revolution, it placed him four tenths up on championship leader Dovizioso, who enjoyed arguably the best start to a race weekend this year in second place. Coming into the weekend unclear of whether his inconsistent Ducati would have pace, the Italian made full use of trailing Joan Mir before going on to play best of the rest to Quartararo. Mir endured an eventful start to his weekend, suffering an unusual crash early on at the tricky downhill Turn 5 left-hander which, though low speed, sent his Suzuki GSX-RR somersaulting through the gravel trap. Undeterred, he returned to track later to post the third fastest time, ahead of the fourth rider to currently sit within four points of the top in the standings, Maverick Vinales. Local hope Aleix Espargaro fired in a quick late lap to climb to fifth on the Aprilia, ahead of Franco Morbidelli, Alex Rins and Valentino Rossi. Making his first FP1 appearance since Styria despite injuring his ankle on Wednesday as Cal Crutchlow hit the ground running with a solid run to ninth position on the LCR Honda, while Miguel Oliveira rounded out the top ten. Save for Dovizioso, it was a disappointing start to the weekend for Ducati broadly with Johann Zarco its next best representative in 13th, while Misano standout Pecco Bagnaia and Jack Miller were 15th and 18th respectively. It was also a low key opening for KTM beyond Oliveira, with Iker Lecuona 14th, after crashing late on at Turn 2 ,Pol Espargaro and Brad Binder 13th, 16th and 21st respectively.

Rossi says he will be taking three of his current crew members at Yamaha to Petronas for 2021 MotoGP season. This comes as he prepares to announce his new deal before the end of the 2020 MotoGP season. The three current crew members that will be joining Rossi for the 2021 MotoGP season include crew chief David Munoz, data engineer Matteo Flamigni, and rider coach Idalio Gavira. This means that the current veteran Southern Hemisphere major crew members Alex Briggs and Brent Stephens, won’t be working with him in 2021 for the first time since he made his premier class debut in 2000. Valentino Rossi’s new petronas deal is expected to be announced officially on Thursday and the 7-time world champion also announced that the new contract signing will be formalised later in the Barcelona MotoGP weekend. “Like I said last week, we tried to sign during the weekend [at the Grand Prix of Emilia Romagna] because between the two races at Misano we fixed all the details,” said Rossi. “The situation is very clear, I will race with Petronas next year, but the contract is long and we’re in no hurry. “During this weekend, I will sign it and I will continue next year with Yamaha and Petronas, and we’ll let you know as soon as possible!” He also brushed off the latest delay as simply being due to all parties taking their time in ensuring that the deal is perfect before pens are finally put to paper. “Sometimes in MotoGP we sign the contract for next year too early and sometimes you’re already thinking of next season before the current one is over. Step by step, everyone is signing a lot earlier – for example, we sign a lot earlier than Formula One,” he added. “I agreed with Yamaha and with Petronas from Jerez, but because we are OK we haven’t made the deal in a hurry. It’s an important contract so there are things to fix: the technical details, the bike, the team. “In general we’re not in a hurry and I’m happy.”

Valentino Rossi will be anouncing his move to Petronas Yamaha SRT this week at the Catalan Grand Prix. The deal has been very much anticipated after it has been delayed for weeks, after the announcement was expected to be made in the Austrian Grand Prix. A series of meetings have been going on between Yamaha boss Lin Jarvis, Petronas Yamaha CEO Razlan Razali and Valentino himself in the last couple of weeks trying to get to an agreement on the deal, but finally the deal has been confirmed and it will be announced on Thursday at the Barcelona circuit. The final details of the contract were being put in place last week as the MotoGP events took place at the Misano Circuit for the San Marino and Emilio Romagna MotoGP. With Rossi being in his homeground and the other parties being at the same venue, it was easier to have face-to-face talks as Razlan Razali confirmed on social media. Valentino Rossi signed a year-long contract for 2021 with the Yamaha satellite team which is based in Malaysia. The contract does not last for just one year as there are speculations that Rossi may be looking for retirement, but because all the contracts will be coming to an end for the satellite team as they will be preparing for reorganisation for the 2022 MotoGP season. The deeper details of the contract are yet to be known, with the specification of his new bike and how much of his current crew will be joining him at Petronas SRT Yamaha which have seemed to be very difficult to come up with an agreement in the talks. On the other hand, some of Fabio Quartararo’s crew are looking forward to move with him from Petronas Yamaha to Factory Yamaha, and some of the straight personnel swap has been put in place to ease the transition between the two teams for the two riders. This could in turn open the door for the long waited VR46 Yamaha MotoGP team to join the grid for 2022. That’s an idea reinforced by rumours that the Petronas SRT squad is unhappy with its current status as a Yamaha client team while many of its independent rivals are becoming an increasingly key part of their respective factory set-ups. It’s not the first time a Yamaha satellite team has felt that way. Tech3 boss Herve Poncharal admitted in an exclusive interview after his team’s first win with KTM at the Styrian Grand Prix that he’d wanted more from Yamaha. Having moved to KTM in search of a closer factory relationship, he admitted that he thought Yamaha was moving in that direction with Petronas – but it seems according to The Race’s sources within the team that progress has been more limited than it appears from the outside. “When we were with Yamaha it was coming, they were starting to understand,” said Poncharal. “You always feel a little like you’re a weight on your factory – ‘oh we’re concentrating on the top guys, leave us alone, but they realised when I left them that they lost something they needed.” “Of course, Razlan stepped in and they did very well. He’s got the support of a huge sponsor, they picked up the right riders, and if you went to Yamaha now and told them that an independent team is a weight, they would disagree.” Should Petronas SRT decide to look elsewhere, there is a strong option available for it in the shape of Suzuki. Having admitted that it’s all but necessary to have a satellite squad for 2022 in order to further speed its rapid development, Suzuki has also hinted that its plan would be to field four identical machines instead of two different specifications as Yamaha currently does.

Maverick Vinales took first win of the 2020 MotoGP season after Francesco Bagnaia who was the race leader having a late crash giving the Yamaha rider victory in the Emilia Romagna Grand Prix. Vinales had struggled from pole position in the first Misano race last week due to a wrong tyre choice, but it was later rectified in approach to a new set-up in practice meaning he was much stronger from the race start on Sunday. The 25-year-old Yamaha rider took the lead from the fast-starting Pramac’s Jack Miller around Turn 4 on the opening lap and was able to create half a second gap, as Miller’s hopes of a podium quickly faded and he would drop out of the race on lap eight after experiencing an engine issue. Bagnaia on the sister Pramac bike was the rider following Vinales closely by lap two, with the Italian rider finding a way through on lap six at Turn 4 when Vinales on the Yamaha ran wide. Bagnaia later opened up a lead of over seven tenths, by harnessing the power of the Ducatti and the grip from the rear soft tyre. This gave the rider the edge to widen the gap to over a second a few laps later. With KTM’s Brad Binder behind, chaos ensued after crashing at the Carro hairpin around Turn 14 on the second tour having just moved into the podium places. Moments earlier, Valentino Rossi on the Factory Yamaha fell back from the top eight at Turn 4 and eventually pulled out having only completed 12 laps. Bagnaia’s gap held stable between 1.4s and 1.6s as he lead the bikes, as Maverick Vinales comfortably closing the gap behind to the Pol Espargaro on the Factory KTM and Petronas Yamaha SRT with Fabio Quartararo. Though the gap had come down to 1.1s by the start of lap 21, Bagnaia still looked in control until he crashed going through the Turn 6 left-hander.  This released Vinales into a dominant lead to the chequered flag to become the sixth different winner in 2020 and move right back into championship contention.  The battle for second was very tight in the closing laps as Factory KTM’s pol Espargaro was experiencing problems with his soft rear tyre fading due to wear. Fabio Quartararo tried to close in on him on the Petronas Yamaha but the race concluded as he took 4th behind Espargaro. Suzuki’s Joan Mir closed in on this pair having started from 11th and overtook Quartararo in lap 23 at Turn 1 for third, before taking the second position from Espargaro at Turn 4 on lap 24. Quartararo followed him through at Turn 4, but was hit with a long-lap penalty on the final lap for exceeding track limits too many times. The Petronas rider did not take the penalty loop and was hit with a three-second time penalty at the chequered flag, dropping him to fourth and promoting Espargaro to the podium being third. Miguel Oliveira came through from 15th on his Tech 3 KTM to complete the top five ahead of LCR Honda’s Takaaki Nakagami and Alex Marquez, who took his best result of the year on the works Honda in seventh. Andrea Dovizioso holds a one point lead over Quartararo in the standings after finishing down in eighth, with just four points now covering the factory Ducati rider, Quartararo, Vinales and Mir. San Marino GP winner Franco Morbidelli recovered from early contact after Aleix Espargaro crashed into him to finish ninth, with Danilo Petrucci (Ducati), Avintia’s Johann Zarco, Alex Rins (Suzuki) and Aprilia’s Bradley Smith claiming the final points. Tech 3’s Iker Lecuona crashed out of sixth in the latter stages, with Avintia’s Tito Rabat also crashing and joining Rossi, Bagnaia, Miller, Binder and Aleix Espargaro on the sidelines.