Anyone who’s done a bit of long-haul travelling in their time will know the frustration of having their bags lost somewhere on the journey and the ensuing wasted time chasing up the location of their missing items.

But it could be worse. They could’ve lost several MotoGP bikes.

That’s the prospect facing the motorcycle racing tour on arrival in Argentina. The people turned up only to discover that their bikes and other equipment hadn’t made it thanks to a plane fault in Mandalika.

Intercontinental luggage retrieval is hardly the work of a moment, particularly with the freight sector severely constricted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. A cargo flight was sent back from Argentina to rescue the stranded bikes from Indonesia, but then that broke down too, this time in Mombasa, Kenya, blowing out the expected arrival time to Friday

And so here we are, with Friday running cancelled and an up-ended schedule for Argentina’s first grand prix since the pandemic.

SO WHAT’S THE NEW SCHEDULE?

In a word: busy. In two: very busy.

All three categories have had one practice session cancelled — down to two for Moto3 and Moto2 and three for MotoGP — all of which will be squeezed into Saturday before qualifying.

Final MotoGP practice will still take place as a precursor to the regular two-segment qualifying format.

An extra 10 minutes has also been added to all three Sunday warm-up sessions as further compensation for the lost track time.

But even if organisers have done their best to minimise the disruption, there’s no escaping the missing track time and the condensed running order, which will give teams substantially less time to consider the lessons of first practice before acting upon them for qualifying and then Sunday’s race.

This is particularly bad news for the 10 riders who have never raced here in the premier class and the further four — Francesco Bagnaia, Miguel Oliveira, Joan Mir and Fabio Quartararo — who have done so only once.

And when you consider everyone’s last time at Termas de Rio Hondo was 2019 anyway, everyone will be desperate for laps to maximise their comfort for this condensed weekend.

The little-used circuit will be dirty and dusty too, which means we should see a substantial ramping up of grip as the two days progress, presenting something of a moving target for race balance.

Spare a thought too for the team mechanics who will likely have to pull all-nighters to prepare their equipment arriving on Friday night in time for what is now an early Saturday morning start. It’s a glamorous life, this motorsport lark.

CAN POL TAKE THE LEAD AT HONDA?

Marc Márquez is out for this race, which is thoroughly unsurprising after reporting the return of his double vision in the aftermath of his massive crash in Indonesia. Honda confirmed his absence and Stefan Bradl’s substitution in the lead-up to this race but has remained tight lipped about Márquez’s prospects for the United States in just a week’s time.

There’s bad news too for customer squad LCR, who will be missing Takaaki Nakagami thanks to a positive COVID-19 diagnosis. He won’t be replaced given the team shares Bradl as a reserve.

It comes off the back of a frustrating weekend for Honda in Mandalika quite apart from Márquez’s monster highside. The team — in particular Pol Espargaró — was buzzing after appositive Qatar but slumped backwards in Indonesia, for which the team blamed the sudden introduction of the revised Michelin casings to cope with the expected track temperatures.

Honda boss Alberto Puig then got into a minor war of words with his Michelin counterpart, Piero Taramasso, over the sporting fairness of the sudden swap.

Combined with questions about whether the new bike had been harming Márquez’s comeback chances, it’s clear the team needs to settle and move on with a clear head, which is a prime opportunity for Espargaró to reassert himself as a man capable of flying the Honda flag.

The form guide is with Honda too, the manufacturer having won four of the last six races at this sweeping circuit, including the previous two. And with Márquez out and his future uncertain, now is the time for Pol to establish himself as a consistent team leader.

IS IT AT THIS RACE KTM WILL STRETCH ITS LEGS?

KTM will surely be Honda’s main challenger, with the Austrian marque enjoying a strong run of form through the first two races.

Brad Binder’s excellent second in Qatar was backed up by a marvellous wet-weather win for Miguel Oliveira in Indonesia, and resultantly KTM leads both the teams and the constructors championship ahead of Yamaha and Ducati respectively.

And it could’ve been a sweep, with Binder only two points behind Enea Bastianini in the riders standings, had the South African not been constrained with a ride height issue — he completed the full race distance with his ride height device stuck down, masking what he believes would have been podium-contending pace to match his victorious teammate.

But the two riders’ main hurdle will be experience. Whereas Espargaró has raced here every year since the Argentina’s 2014 return to the calendar, Oliveira has done so only once on a MotoGP bike, and Binder never has. That said, the former is a two-time podium-getter in Moto2, and the latter finished on the rostrum once in Moto3.

A competitive bike could also push the KTM rookies deep into the points after both failed to score last time out. Australian Remy Gardner took a podium here in Moto2 in his third visit to Argentina in 2019, whereas Raúl Fernandez has been here just once in Moto3, finishing in the lower reaches of the points.

CAN QUARTARARO AND VIÑALES REVERSE EXPECTATIONS?

Fabio Quartararo has been keen to emphasise the shortcomings of his 2022-spec Yamaha all season, though a strong second-place finish in Indonesia in the wet at least cooled that tense situation somewhat.

He has low expectations for Argentina though — or he had, anyway.

After a dreadful first race in Qatar, he identified Termas de Rio Hondo as the weakest track for his underpowered bike before Mugello in May. His bike’s aero kit is too draggy, and this track isn’t as aero dependent because the risk of a wheelie, which bike aero is designed to combat, is low.

“It’ll be a disaster there,” he said last month.

But the reigning champion has moderated his tone since that motivating race in Indonesia.

“This is not my personal best track, but I think we can do a good job here,” he said. “In Indonesia I was feeling a lot better with the bike. We tried something new, and that paid off.

“I’m very curious to see if that will also be the case here.”

We can only wait and see whether his experimentation, perhaps combined with the freneticism of the weekend format, will pay off.

He’s not the only one hoping to use Mandalika to bounce into a stronger result. Maverick Viñales, having been shown up this season by Aprilia teammate Aleix Espargaró, believes he too struck set-up gold last time out but couldn’t show it in the rain.

“If it were up to me, I’d have raced in Argentina as soon as the Indonesian race was over,” he said. “At Mandalika, we made an important step forward in terms of settings … which makes me highly optimistic for the upcoming rounds.

“I‘m convinced that we are extremely close to finding full confidence.

“It’s a matter of putting a lot of details together and creating a perfect synergy, but we are on the right path.”

The Aprilia is more than competitive enough to be a top-10 regular, and given Viñales is a previous winner of this race, this could be the weekend he makes things click.

WHO NEEDS POINTS?

You’d never have guessed during testing that Francesco Bagnaia would be starting the third round of the season from 20th on the title table with a single point to his name, but the 2021 championship runner-up has had that rough a start to the season.

A crash in Qatar gave way to a subdued performance in Indonesia after appearing to be spooked when he almost crashed in the wet. Jack Miller was at least able to open his account with fourth in Mandalika to get the factory Ducati squad on the board, and the Australian is confident they have the bike beneath them to perform, but Borgo Panigale and Pecco in particular need to string a clean weekend together to start their championship campaigns before they’re considered at risk of never getting going at all.

Similar can be said for Suzuki, for so many the dark horse for the title after preseason testing. Hamamatsu has been lukewarm so far this season, with some mid-top-10 finishes, although things could’ve been much worse for 18th-starting Joan Mir in Mandalika had rain not allowed him to cut through the field with a bike he thought wouldn’t finish the race had conditions been normal.

The Japanese marque hasn’t really shown its hand in the way we expected so far this season, but its bike should suit this track, so now might be the weekend to finally put its cards on the table.