‘You can’t tell a tiger he shouldn’t go for the kill’: 2020 MotoGP Spanish Grand Prix

“As soon as the Yamaha has a Ducati in front of us we lose our potential,” he said on Thursday. “They are faster on the straights, so we can’t use our corner speed.”

He could’ve been forgiven for panicking, but he didn’t. It took him two laps to repass both Ducatis, then he settled into a smooth, unruffled pace and went after Viñales, who was already in trouble with his soft front tyre.

The soft front seemed like a mad choice, when every other rider on the grid except team-mate Valentino Rossi, had chosen the hard. Viñales confirmed afterwards that the softer tyre – which nearly had him on the ground several times once it got hot and bothered – had cost him the chance of winning the race.

In fact it was a great choice, because it gave him the confidence to push hard from lights outs. If he had gone with the hard, Márquez would have disappeared into the distance in the early laps and wouldn’t have needed to take the risks that had him off the track on lap five.

With both Márquez and Viñales out of the fight Quartararo had an easy run to what will almost certainly be the first of many MotoGP victories. Remember he might have won four races last year if Márquez hadn’t been around, because he came very close to beating the Spaniard at Misano, Buriram, Motegi and Valencia.

No doubt Quartararo – whose career was falling apart until he won the 2018 Catalan Moto2 race – is now in the race for the 2020 world championship. Even during his rookie season, riding a lower-spec YZR-M1, he was stronger than Viñales, because he has a cooler head and a better ability to adapt to changing grip conditions, a vital talent during the Michelin era. Perhaps Viñales has improved since then, but so too has Quartararo.

Does Yamaha’s first one-two since Le Mans 2017 mean the factory has finally dragged itself out of the doldrums where it’s been stuck ever since the advent of the triple M era – Michelin and Magneti Marelli – in 2016? Maybe, maybe not. Because just as Quartararo would’ve finished second at Jerez last year if his gear shifter hadn’t broken, so too would he have finished second this year if Márquez hadn’t got carried away in the first few laps.

Jerez flatters the Yamaha. Its superior corner speed – through Jerez’s faster turns: Four, Five, Seven, Eight, 11 and 12 – makes it the perfect bike for the track. Quartararo and Viñales will have a great chance of another win at Jerez on Sunday, but after that things may get more complicated

There is little doubt that Quartararo is the most talented French Grand Prix racer in more than seven decades of world championship racing. It’s curious that it’s taken the French this long, because France was the first nation of bike racing. French riders, teams and machines dominated the first major competitions – the Coupe Internationale of 1904 and 1905 – and much petrolhead vocabulary – carburettor, for example – comes from the French.

It’s a sign – Ducati’s best Jerez performance since 2006

It could be argued that Ducati’s Jerez race was better than Yamaha’s. If the Andalusian circuit is just right for the M1 it is very wrong for the Desmosedici, because while the inline-four M1 loves long, sweeping corners the V4 Ducati hates them. So much so that Andrea Dovizioso’s and Jack Miller’s third- and four-place finishes were Ducati’s best Jerez result since Loris Capirossi won there in March 2006.

This suggests that Ducati has made a bigger step forward into 2020 than Yamaha. And if that’s the case the Bologna factory has its best chance of winning the MotoGP title since Casey Stoner hightailed it to Honda at the end of 2010.

Dovizioso – still hurting from a recently plated collarbone and still engaged in trench contract warfare with Ducati – played down the Desmosedici’s performance throughout the weekend.

“I’m still not that good in the middle of the corner,” he said on Saturday. “I’m riding in a different way to last year and I still don’t have the confidence to do what I need to do.”

That caused the Italian – runner-up to Márquez in 2017, 2018 and 2019 – problems in the race. “I was exhausted because I couldn’t ride the bike the way I want and I’m still not comfortable on the bike.”

Dovizioso’s problems come more from Michelin’s 2020 rear slick than from the GP20. The new rear tyre features a softer construction that forms a bigger footprint for more grip, which isn’t necessarily a good thing when you need to slide the rear into corners.

This was Jorge Lorenzo talking in 2018, when he was flying on the Desmosedici: “You have to use a lot of rear brake, especially in corner entry, because if both wheels are in line and not sliding, the bike wants to go straight to the gravel. You need to steer the bike like a boat, with the rear.”

Miller – his 2021 Ducati factory team contract already signed – was grinning all weekend. “The good thing with the GP20 is that I have a good feeling with the front,” he said on Friday. “I’m able to understand, ‘Oh she’s tucking’, so she’s not going away unexpectedly. I can feel what’s happening.” It’s impossible to overestimate the importance of this facet of chassis performance in getting the best out of Michelin’s current front slick

“The championship is wide open,” he said after the race. “Here we didn’t see the benefit of our bike, but there’s a couple of tracks coming up where we’ll be able to let its stretch its legs and show what she’s really got.”

The 25-year-old Aussie is referring to Brno and Red Bull Ring – venues for round three, four and five – which are known as MotoGP’s open-air dynos, where the Ducati’s close-to-300-horsepower engine can really do its thing.

Miller had one small but significant problem on Sunday – the end of his GP20’s right handlebar, where the brake protector attaches to the clip-on between the throttle grip and bar end – which he caused numbness in his hands and probably cost him the podium.

Towards the end of each corner Miller shifts himself forward by dropping his inside shoulder, which pulls him over the front of the bike to reduce wheelies on the exit. This contortion makes it impossible to hold the inside handlebar in the normal way. This was a particular problem at Jerez, with so many long corners.

“At this track you’re always outside of the bike and in modern MotoGP you hang half your hand off the grip going through the corners,” he explained. “Because of the issue [with the brake protector attachment] my hands went numb, so I couldn’t be smooth on the throttle, so I was a bit of a sitting duck.

“Without that I feel I should’ve been on the podium. The heat made the race physically and mentally draining. My body was absolutely cooking, with the other bikes hanging around me. My hands were boiling, feet were boiling, but I never felt out of breath.”

Ducati is putting more resources than ever behind Miller. If can keep his cool he may just turn out to be the factory’s number one hope for the title.

One giant leap for KTM

If Ducati has taken another small step towards winning the MotoGP world title then KTM has taken one giant leap. During winter testing there was little sign that the Austrian factory’s 2020 RC16, with its all-new chassis, would be much better than the 2019 iteration, so perhaps Jerez was a one-off, but Pol Espargaró and rookie Brad Binder were so strong throughout the weekend that they will surely be in the hunt at other venues.

“We were faster than the Ducati everywhere – on the brakes, entering the corners and corner speed.”

Espargaró was buzzing after the race, finishing 6.9 seconds behind Quartararo and less than a second off the podium, following a spirited battle with Miller, Dovizioso and Franco Morbidelli.

“At one point I thought I had the speed to catch Maverick, but the problem was that overtaking a factory Ducati was an impossible mission,” he said. “We were faster than the Ducati everywhere – on the brakes, entering the corners and corner speed. They just had a bit better traction and the only place they were faster than me was on the straight. Now we are on the same level as the others – we are in the game now.”

Espargaró’s problem was his overheated front tyre, which increased pressure, thus shrinking the contact patch. “The temperature was massive, because I was behind the Ducatis.”

KTM needs to work on horsepower for the next few races – the factory still runs under concession rules, so unlike Ducati, Honda, Suzuki and Yamaha (which have their engine specs frozen until 2022) it can introduce new engine specs during the season.

Binder’s astonishing debut – he had winning pace!

Despite all the drama unfolding out front, Binder’s MotoGP debut stunned pit lane. Incredible but true, the 2019 Moto2 runner-up and 2016 Moto3 champ ran a pace that would’ve put him on the podium and perhaps even on the top step, but for a lap-seven mistake that had him off the track and dead last.

On lap nine, when Quartararo took the lead, Binder was in last place, 29.002 seconds behind the leader. When the South African crossed the finish line in 13th place he was 29.640 seconds behind the winner.

“It was almost good,” he grinned. “It was quite exciting, because to be riding with these guys I’ve looked up to my whole life was awesome. Everything was going well until I got to Turn Five on lap seven. I grabbed the front brake and locked the tyre, then when I used some angle into the corner I lost the front. I just managed to pick it up and took a trip through the gravel. I need to say sorry to the team because we could’ve got a good result. We live and we learn – I made a mistake and next time I’ll be better.

“I was super happy with the bike. After practice I knew I could be there, but I didn’t realise I’d be able to sit there comfortably. That was a bit of a shock. I expected to be absolutely on the edge from lap one to the end. It turns out that a MotoGP race is still just a motorbike race at the end of the day.”

Binder’s debut was as impressive as those of Márquez in 2013 and Quartararo last year. MotoGP has another new star.