The wait is over! MotoGP is finally back after what feels like an eternity since pre-season testing wrapped up in Qatar back at the end of February.
Thankfully for us not much has changed in the rider department at least, the only change heading into this season’s new opener at Jerez being that Bradley Smith will line-up alongside Aleix Espargaro at Aprilia for the foreseeable future as Andrea Iannone continues to battle against a lengthy doping ban.
What has changed though is the calendar.
So far, no less than nine races have been canned – although all should return on next year’s schedule – with 13 currently locked in to make up the new condensed ’20 campaign, although a few more including the Malaysian and Thai contests could still take place towards the end of the year.
While the new calendar lacks variety – seven of the 13 currently scheduled contests will take place in Spain after all – it’s great that Dorna and the FIM have managed to salvage a serviceable menu in order for MotoGP fans around the world to get their racing fix.
Looking forward to this weekend though, the Jerez circuit in the south of Spain provides a beautiful backdrop to contrast the relentless chase for supremacy between the 22 participating riders.
Defending race winner Marc Marquez will want to open his ’20 account with the maximum 25 points to kick-start his quest to secure an incredible seventh premier class title, while last year’s pole-man Fabio Quartararo will be hoping to put his newly-acquired factory spec Yamaha M1 to good use and finally secure his elusive first victory in MotoGP.
Speaking of M1s, Maverick Vinales will certainly be in the hunt for victory on the ever-improving Japanese bike, while Valentino Rossi will be determined to finally end his three-year victory drought in what will be his final season riding for the factory Yamaha outfit. A manufacturer-supported program with the satellite Petronas SRT team beckons, but the seven-time premier class champion will be desperate to close his two-decade long stint as a full factory rider on a high note.
Also sure to be threats are the two little blue Suzukis steered by two-time MotoGP winner Alex Rins and ’17 Moto3 World Champion Joan Mir, the GSX-R well suited to the tight and twisty Jerez layout.
Ducati will be mourning the absence of their usual Qatar stomping ground – a venue at which they have taken five wins – especially as Jerez is a circuit that has previously exposed the Desmosedici’s mid-corner struggles.
They have managed just a sole victory at Jerez, way back in 2006, with Loris Capirossi at the helm.
Andrea Dovizioso, Danilo Petrucci and Jack Miller provide a stout rider line-up across their trio of GP20’s taking to the grid, although Dovizioso’s admission pre-season that the Italian manufacturer hadn’t made as much progress as hoped regarding its key weakness will worry them.
Dovizioso will also have to contend with the effects of his broken collarbone, which will surely still provide some sort of challenge having only had two weeks to recuperate.
Francesco Bagnaia will be hoping to put his new GP20 to good use as he fights for his future in red following a rather sub-par rookie campaign with his Pramac squad last year, with a factory Ducati seat a potential reward should he impress sufficiently and if Dovizioso decides to take a sabbatical following this season.
His greatest rival strangely comes from the small Avintia outfit in the shape of double Moto2 world champion Johann Zarco, who is hoping to rebuild his premier class career following a disaster ’19 season in which he split from KTM mid-season and found himself bench-warming for Takaaki Nakagami at LCR Honda towards the end of the year.
Zarco will take command of a ’19-spec Desmosedici with an eye to either snatching Bagnaia’s Pramac seat for next season, or maybe even vaulting this step and taking over from Dovizioso at the factory team with which he and Avintia will receive support from this year.
While not setting the timing screens ablaze across the three tests at Valencia, Sepang and Qatar respectively, Zarco displayed continued progress across the three tests and had begun to look like a solid top 10 challenger by the time the Qatar outing had come to an end.
Also looking to make a good impression at Jerez will be Alex Marquez, who makes his debut with the factory Honda team alongside brother Marc.
While some could say he already starts the year on the back foot mentally having been ‘relegated’ to the satellite LCR squad for ’21 and ‘22 in favour of Pol Espargaro, others will say that the pressure to perform has well and truly been buried and that he now has three years in which to grow and develop with Honda.
Whatever the case, Marquez will want to prove that his title-winning pedigree in both Moto3 and Moto2 transfer over to the premier class, and at the very least will hope to fare better on the RC213-V than predecessor Jorge Lorenzo.
Aprilia and KTM will also be keen to confirm their strong pre-season form, with Aleix in particular full of praise for his new RS-GP machine both in testing and also during the Covid-induced pause, saying on the progress made by Aprilia: “On a technical level, the growth in recent months convinced me, with the arrival of many reinforcements and the début of the 2020 RS-GP, which did so well in the tests.”
Aprilia stands to make further good progress up the field next year with LCR exile Cal Crutchlow looking ever-likelier to sign for them, the Brit well-respected up and down the paddock for his nous in developing machinery.
Whichever way you look up and down the pit lane, 2020 promises to thrill just as much as it always has – despite being slightly shorter than usual – and with several mouth-watering stories to play out across the next few months, FP1 at Jerez on Friday can’t come soon enough.
