MotoGP returns to Europe for what some consider the real start to the championship campaign.
The first three rounds are all outliers for their own various reasons.
Portimão is a rollercoaster of a track featuring corner combinations not seen anywhere else on the calendar.
Termas de Río Hondo is one of the lowest grip surfaces of the season — and that’s before the rain arrived.
Austin is the most physical riding challenge of the championship, never mind its patchwork of asphalt quick fixes.
But this weekend MotoGP arrives in Jerez, one of the sport’s most storied circuits and one on which every team and rider is intimately acquainted. It’s the first weekend of the year we’ll see the bikes in their natural habitat, the first round the competitive order will really start to shake out.
So who has something to prove now the list of excuses is beginning to dwindle?
FRANCESCO BAGNAIA
Francesco Bagnaia doesn’t need to win the Spanish Grand Prix for the points, sitting second in the standings and only 11 points behind Marco Bezzecchi, but he does need a strong performance this weekend to begin the process of banishing some demons.
We all thought — even he thought — that the mental attitudes that saw him crash out of so many grands prix last season had been expunged by the time he put his hands on the championship trophy. He started this year with the sort of confident swagger of a rider who had it all worked out.
Yet he’s crashed out of two of the opening three races in a season he should on pure pace be dominating already.
He’s doled out the same frustrated executes after both mistakes — that he doesn’t understand the crashes. He even suggested after his accident in the US that he was falling off because the bike was too good, though he’s since walked back that unusual criticism, admitting that he’d simply pushed too hard through turn 2 trying to escape Álex Rins’s clutches.
But Bagnaia denied that it was pressure or a lack of concentration that forced the error; rather it was a matter of meeting the bike at its limit instead of discovering suddenly that he’d crossed the line.
“I have to understand more of the situation,” he said. “It’s more difficult going two tenths slower by yourself than going two tenths slower by your bike.
“But it’s better right now, because if I had the potential and if I understand the situation, like I did in Portimão or in the sprint race, you have an abundance.
“So it’s better to follow it like this and try to be more smart in some situations.”
If he’s going to put those lessons into practice, Jerez is a good place to do it. This was the start of what was at first a stuttering comeback that delivered him the title last year. He knows how to be quick here.
He’s still comfortably the title favourite, but this weekend is shaping up as an early test of how difficult Bagnaia intends to make his own championship defence.
ENEA BASTIANINI
Enea Bastianini scored an early win on Thursday when the doctors declared him fit to race this weekend.
He fractured his shoulder blade during the first sprint of the year in Portugal, meaning not only has he missed all three grand prix races, but he’s yet to see a chequered flag at all as a Ducati factory rider.
It’s left him without a score and 64 points off the championship lead. He also has one race fewer to close that margin, with the first Kazakhstan Grand Prix cancelled this week, albeit the new sprint format means there’s still 629 points up for grabs this year.
It’s the worst possible start for a rider who had been tipped to shake up the title battle alongside teammate and reigning champion Bagnaia.
But just because he’s back doesn’t mean he’s really back. He arrives undercooked and lacking racing fitness — the last full weekend he completed on a MotoGP bike was in Valencia last November.
“I know the situation,” he said. “I’m not 100 per cent.
“I will have to adapt to the speeds of MotoGP, the critical part will be the management of the race and to keep the pace high.”
But he knows it’s still crucial to bring home at least a few points to open his account and get the ball rolling if he’s to stand any chance of closing the gap.
“It’s important for me to try to bring again the confidence with the bike and try to bring a little bit some points,” he said. “I‘ll be happy if I can stay in the top 10 — it would be a good result.”
JOAN MIR
Suzuki’s two former riders are experiencing contrasting fortunes on their new Honda bikes this season.
LCR rider Álex Rins is in fine form, winning in Austin at a canter and making bullish noises about the potential of the difficult Honda bike.
Factory rider Joan Mir, however, is languishing with just one 11th-place finish to his name for the year. He failed to start in Argentina owing to a concussion picked up in the sprint, and he crashed in the US.
The 2020 world champion has generally looked less comfortable, it’s been leading to some uncomfortable questions about Honda’s rider line-up.
The most difficult is whether the Japanese marque has put the former Suzuki teammates on the wrong bikes and whether Rins ought to be leading the factory team.
LCR boss Lucio Cecchinello has been quick to shoot down suggestions that a mid-season switch could be on the cards.
“That‘s nonsense,” he told Speedweek. “Such a team change is out of the question. I can guarantee that.”
And to be fair to Mir, the list of riders to struggle for form at the factory Honda team is long and prestigious, comprising the likes of Dani Pedrosa — at least in his later years — Jorge Lorenzo and Pol Espargaró.
But that kind of chatter — which reportedly originated from former LCR leader Oscar Haro — will only grow louder the longer it takes for Mir to get to grips with his bike. And he’s running out of time before Honda alpha Marc Márquez makes his comeback, now pegged to next month’s French Grand prix.
FRANCO MORBIDELLI
He’s the perpetual inclusion on any list of under-pressure riders, but with every passing underwhelming race the ticking clock grows louder on his time in the factory Yamaha team.
He’s been able to count on two lifelines in recent weeks. His strong performance in Argentina was welcome tonic and a reminder of what he’s capable of when things are working his way. He must also be buoyed by factory Yamaha Superbike rider Toprak Razgatlıoğlu reportedly performing unimpressively in his first MotoGP test day, scuppering his chances of jumping on the M1 next year.
It elicited a little bit of extra public support from Yamaha management, who have thrown their weight behind Morbidelli to make the case for himself as the preferred candidate for 2024 — but there’s also been a loose deadline set for a decision to be made.
“The ideal scenario, to be honest, for us if … Frankie can continue to perform very, very well,” Yamaha managing director Lin Jarvis told the MotoGP website earlier this month.
“Really our number one choice would be to continue with Frankie.
“Obviously, to be frank, all of these types of considerations, [it’s] really the end of the first half of the season.
“Then we need to know, he needs to know — everybody needs to know for their planning for next year.”
If not Morbidelli, then Pramac’s Jorge Martin has intimated that he’s on the market after being denied the factory Ducati seat this season, though the Spaniard would presumably need to find some consistency between now and that loose deadline of the mid-season break.
That makes Jerez the first of a six-weekend run to deadline day. No time to waste.
HONOURABLE MENTION: JACK MILLER
Jack Miller has had a commendable start to 2023, finding himself more at home on his new KTM bike and even having race-winning or at least podium-getting pace last time out in Austin before he crashed.
Perhaps the relative ease of his transition from Ducati to KTM is why he’s amped up the stakes this weekend.
“Made a bet for the weekend,” Jack Miller’s wife Ruby posted on social media. “If Jack wins, I’ll let him get a new boat.”
Miller said he’s been mulling buying another boat in recent weeks as prices fluctuated but that winning his first race on KTM would be the trigger he needed to do the deal.
The Aussie has already claimed a win in Jerez, coming in 2021 in his first season on the factory Ducati bike, and he said he was optimistic ahead of this weekend.
“The victory is always the goal, confidence is high,” he said, per Crash. “I feel good, comfortable with the bike.
“I feel fast, competitive, in good shape, the bike is in good shape — I am quietly confident with the experience that I’ve gained on the KTM.”
HOW CAN I WATCH IT?
The Spanish Grand Prix is ive and ad-break free during racing on Kayo and Fox Sports.
Timed practice starts tonight at 6:45pm (AEST) and 11pm.
Free practice is at 6:10pm on Saturday followed by qualifying at 6:50pm and the sprint at 11pm.
Warm-up starts at 6:45pm on Sunday, with lights out on the Spanish Grand prix at 11pm.
