‘You only use top speed once a lap’ — engine quandary behind Qatar MotoGP battle

The Ducatis had nothing for the 26-year-old Spaniard, who carved some beautiful moves on Jack Miller, Zarco and Bagnaia, so why weren’t they able to fight back?

Because they didn’t have the same corner speed, exit speed and low-gear acceleration. In MotoGP acceleration isn’t governed by horsepower, because all the bikes make far too much power. It is governed by the physical limits of grip and wheelie. Power doesn’t come into the equation until riders click into fifth and sixth.

“Maverick had a strong advantage in second and third gears – he was always gaining metres on us there,” said Pramac Ducati’s Zarco, who crossed the line 1.092 seconds behind the winner, a deficit of just five-hundredths of a second per lap.

During the second half of the race all the podium men had problems with the rear tyre losing grip and the rear end coming around as they attacked corners, but the Ducatis definitely suffered more.

“We need a better connection with the rear tyre into corners,” added Zarco, who was Viñales’s main challenger during the latter stages. “I was feeling good, so I tried to follow Maverick, but at that moment he raised his pace for five or six laps and I asked too much of the tyres, which is why the last three or four laps were complicated for me.”

Ducati will be crunching the numbers through its MegaRide tyre-modelling software as you read this. Perhaps the strong winds were the culprit, because when sand is blown onto the racetrack it gets between the tyres and the asphalt, working like sandpaper on the rubber, which increased degradation, plus the reduced grip increases wheelspin, which also hurts the rear tyre. Of course this would’ve also affected the Yamahas, but maybe it affected the Ducatis more.

No doubt the Ducatis also lost more performance due to the windy conditions. The Desmosedici has more wings than any other MotoGP bike and the greater a motorcycle’s surface area the more it will be affected by the wind. Also, Ducati ran with its front-wheel fairings during practice, then removed for the race, due to the wind. That can’t have helped either.

Bagnaia, who took the chequered flag one-tenth behind fellow GP21 rider Zarco, reckoned the changing conditions during the weekend affected him a lot. This is always an issue at Losail, with ambient temperature, track temperature and humidity changing each and every time riders go out on track.

“It was impossible to work for the race during the weekend,” said the 24-year-old Italian. “During FP2 we had to make a time attack to enter Q2 directly, FP4 wasn’t very similar to the race and today the conditions were difficult. Maybe I started to struggle after 15 laps because of the cold and the wind. Maverick had a great pace and more traction than us. I tried to follow him but he escaped. Maybe next time I will push less in the first laps.”

At the end of lap 15, Bagnaia was less than two tenths behind Viñales but that gap quickly grew as his pace dropped making him easy prey for Zarco. But then Zarco ran into tyre trouble and they both had world champion Joan Mir bearing down upon them. Suzuki’s GSX-RR was true to form, looking after its tyres better than the other bikes, making Mir the fastest man on the track in the final laps.

Mir swept past Bagnaia with two and a half laps to go and then set off after second-placed Zarco. He passed the number-five Ducati at the penultimate corner but made a mess of the final corner, which made him easy prey for the Ducatis as they swept towards the finish line.

“Maybe my mistake was to pass Zarco – I should have stayed behind him to use his slipstream,” said Mir, who was nevertheless delighted with fourth place after qualifying tenth. “It’s been a difficult weekend because I didn’t have a good feeling with the bike. You could see my face after every session – I’m not very good at hiding this sort of thing!

“During testing we tried a lot of things and maybe we got a bit lost. For some reason I wasn’t able to stop the bike. I had a lot of problems and qualifying was so difficult. I was pushing like an animal but the lap time was impossible. It was so frustrating and I was so angry. Last night we found a setting we used last year and all the problems we were having disappeared. I cannot say what we changed, but today the bike was so good.”

Zarco was overjoyed with his best result since the 2018 Spanish GP. The former Moto2 world champion has ridden the rollercoaster over the last few seasons: a nightmare with KTM in 2019, his career saved by Ducati last year, when his speed won him an upgrade from the Esponsorama team to Pramac, with a latest-spec Desmosedici GP21.

“I am so, so, so happy – I have so much happiness!” he grinned. “On the last lap I did everything I could do to go fast with tight lines to keep Mir behind me. He overtook me but thanks to the bike I could overtake him in the straight.”

Bagnaia’s tyres came good again in the final laps, allowing him to fight back.

“I wouldn’t have been happy without a podium, so risked a lot to chase Johann and Joan,” he added. “When I saw Mir go wide at the last corner I tried to exit even better than my fastest qualifying lap and on the straight it was impossible not to overtake him!”

No one had bigger rear-tyre issues than Bagnaia’s team-mate Miller, who went backwards after half-distance.

“We got a good start and I was able to push as I liked, but not too hard,” said the Aussie. “Then when Maverick came past I thought, ‘OK, now it’s time to start upping the pace’. I was able to drop into the low 55sec for a few laps and then – bang! – I hit a wall and started losing the rear. It was mainly the right side of the tyre. Off-gas was the biggest issue and as soon as you start losing it off-gas it’s difficult to carry any corner speed.”

So what does it all mean? Has Viñales finally cracked it? Has the stability of marriage and a baby on the way fixed his psyche? Will he find the consistency that’s always eluded him or will he fall back into his usual hot-and-cold habits?

It’s far too soon to say because Losail isn’t a good indicator of year-long performance. Since the first Qatar GP way back in 2004 only five times has the race winner gone on to take the title. The track is unusual and the conditions are unique.

Next Sunday’s Doha GP at Losail may give us more of the same or something different but we won’t see the true picture of 2021 until the racing moves back to Europe, to Portimao, Jerez, Le Mans and Mugello.