MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

One more day of practice, and then the final points of the season are up for grabs. On Saturday, Jorge Martin has a chance to snatch the MotoGP crown from Pecco Bagnaia, while Bagnaia needs to clean up on Saturday and Sunday to be in with a chance.

Martin stands a chance of becoming the first rider in the MotoGP era to win a title while riding for an independent team. There are some caveats on that claim - Martin has a contract directly with Ducati Corse, rides the same spec Ducati GP24 as Pecco Bagnaia (the few differences are solely down to personal preference, not availability), and the Pramac squad has full factory backing.

But it is still an incredible achievement - the factory Ducati Lenovo team has priority when it comes to processing the data from all of the teams, and the apparatus of Ducati Corse is built with the objective of ensuring the factory team wins the MotoGP title.

So it speaks volumes of the fairness of Ducati that they have proven themselves willing to treat both factory rider Bagnaia and Pramac satellite rider Martin so scrupulously fairly. Ducati have made a very public point of not interfering in the title battle.

Equal opportunities?

Double world champion Casey Stoner had made suggestions in the Italian press that he didn't think Ducati would allow a rider for a satellite team to win the title. In today's press conference, neither Bagnaia nor Martin would countenance any such suggestion. "Boring..." Bagnaia said when asked. "For me, I'm grateful that Ducati let me fight with the same tools and I think it's what is fair and that's it," replied Martin.

Although there is some truth to the point that Ducati loses face with sponsors if they allow a satellite team to win, you can also turn that on its head. With both Martin and Pramac leaving at the end of the season, Ducati can use the loss of the rider's championship to prove a point. Though the Aprilia is possibly better than its current riders are allowing it to show, it is clearly a step below the Ducati. What we will probably see next year is the #1 plate on a bike struggling to compete, while the rider who lost the title will be engaged in another hard battle for the championship with another factory Ducati.

Allowing Jorge Martin to compete with and beat Pecco Bagnaia while on the same bike allows Ducati to appear magnanimous. But it is also the perfect way to underline that the reason Martin is fighting for a title is precisely because he is riding a Ducati. Ducati win either way.

All year counts

Martin was also asked what would the key to winning the title over the course of this weekend, but he returned to a point which I have brought up before. "I mean, I think the key was all the season," Martin responded. You do not win the title on the last weekend of the season, he said, you win them with how you do throughout the entire season. "For us I think it means like, every race you win the title and in the last round you just go to take the medal."

It was the work over the full 20 weekends that made the difference. "So I think I bit like this, I think the key was all the season. For sure now something can happen, but the important thing is the work we did all the season, all the 19 races until now. We tried our best in every race. And now it's time to understand what we need to take that medal home."

Bringing that medal home will require understand the tires. Michelin have brought 1400 tires to Barcelona, rather than their usual 1000, to handle the much cooler conditions. Normally, when MotoGP comes to Barcelona, it is the summer, and swelteringly hot. But as I left the media center this evening around 7pm, it felt genuinely cold. That is quite the difference to the last time we were here.

The issue when MotoGP races at Barcelona in May or June is always the heat, and how the combination of air temperature and hot sun makes the greasy. As is the case at Jerez, colder temperatures may make the track a little grippier.

Grip remains the same

Not that it makes a great deal of difference, according to Luca Marini. "For me, it doesn't change. Just a little bit more grip. Still very demanding for the tires on the right side, with such long corners, you spin for a long time. But a little bit more grip. More easy to stop the bike in braking. And more speed in the straight with less temperature."

To deal with that range of temperatures, Michelin have brought four different front and three different rear compounds. On the front, an asymmetric soft front, the symmetric medium and hard from the race here in May, and an asymmetric hard front with a softer left side. On the rear, the medium and hard from May, and an asymmetric soft with a softer left side.

That is a lot of tires to choose from, although some choices are relatively easy to make. The symmetric hard front and the hard rear tires will probably be left on the shelf, unless the temperatures soar through the roof. But there are still some unknowns to work through, and not a great deal of time to do so.

Work to do

"It's difficult because we are racing in a track where we could have more tricky situations," Pecco Bagnaia said. "Because it's cold, because we have four front tires, three rear. We had to work a bit more on that. More riders are fast here because the track is not the easiest one so have to be careful on the tires and we know perfectly that Aprilia and KTM are fast here."

Jorge Martin agreed. "For sure it's tricky, because it's the GP with the most tires that we have. I think it's really good because we have some new compounds, a bit softer on the left side. So it's kind of like Valencia. I think it's a bit more safe because already in the race that was really hot, it was really tricky on the left. So imagine here. I think this will be really interesting and also the rear softer compound so maybe we need to change the strategy for the Sprint, so let's see. For sure a lot of work tomorrow to try to try all of them."

The riders were almost universally happy with the way Michelin had responded to the situation. "I think that Michelin did a very good job," Bagnaia said. "We have to be happy because they give us the chance to be able to use one more spec, counting the tires, so they are letting us try different specifications. I think they decided to bring the correct spec."

Rubber hard, setup easy

There will be a lot of work to do on tire selection, but not so much on setup, Bagnaia explained. "Tomorrow will be a bit longer in terms of work because tomorrow morning we have to try maybe already two tires, in the afternoon again. So we had a bit more to do but the luck is that we already raced here in in May so more or less the bikes are already perfect. My feeling in May was super good. So I don't think I will have so much work to do in terms of setting, so maybe I can be more focused on the tires, but we will see."

Luca Marini agreed with Bagnaia. "Michelin bring us a very good allocation in my opinion. We will try to use the dual compound in the soft front tire, because here there is always a problem in the left corners, Turn 2 and Turn 5 especially. So it will be interesting to see the soft front tomorrow morning, how it will be. And in the practice maybe the hard option with the dual compound could be a very good option for the race. So this I think is the most interesting thing."

Marini was intrigued by the fact that Michelin had brought a soft rear to a track which is so hard on tires. "About the rear, they bring a very good soft tire, the softest option we have all season, and it's a little bit strange to see such a soft tire here in Barcelona that is so demanding on the tires," he said. "But for sure, to make a good lap time, it will be super funny."

Saying goodbye right

That soft rear was one of the reasons Aleix Espargaro was so confident of signing off his full-time MotoGP career in style. "I have confidence because we we race with the hard tire that I expect not to not use because it will be colder temperatures. So I expect to go softer compounds."

The softer rear from May, which is the medium this weekend, suited him much better, the Aprilia rider said. "I was very fast, I did the lap record with the soft tire and Michelin expect that this tire can make it into the race," Espargaro said. "This is why I'm a little bit more more happy and that I have the feeling that we have more chances." That still left him with a hill to climb, he admitted. "But anyway, it's gonna be extremely difficult, Ducatis the last three months they're flying."

Espargaro's friendship and affinity with Jorge Martin meant he was willing to pick sides. "I want 100% that the priority - you know guys that I love Jorge as my son and for me the priority is that he can make it," the Aprilia rider said. There was some self interest in that statement. "Obviously if he can do it on Saturday, maybe then he can help me a little me Sunday, just not going as full as they did in the last races that him and Pecco disappeared from the beginning. So there is no chance for the others. So if he can make it on Saturday, Sunday race can be a little bit more relaxed and we can have more chances."

Ironically, one of the best things that Aleix Espargaro can do to help Martin is simply to win one or both races. If Pecco Bagnaia is to have any chance of retaining his crown, he really needs to win both races, so any points Aleix Espargaro can take from Bagnaia are enormously valuable to Jorge Martin's title hopes.

Relighting old fires

Finally, it is a weekend of departures, of riders moving on to pastures new. And those leaving have some interesting reflections on what they are leaving behind. Such as Marc Márquez, who found a new family at Gresini who helped him rekindle his love for racing.

"Gresini becomes a super important team in my career only in one year," Marc Márquez told us. "I found the perfect atmosphere to be reborn like they said on the social media, to feel again that I'm competitive. And I find the perfect family, the perfect atmosphere, with my brother as a teammate, with the team like they were working always in the same way."

He had enjoyed being in a satellite team, Márquez said. "To be in a satellite team reminds me a bit of the passion of motorbikes," he told us. "Of course, in Honda I had my friends there and I had a very good human team, but the fact to be a factory team, everything is a bit more serious."

A satellite team is a little more casual, Márquez said. "More familiar and it reminds you more - of course in another way - but like a Moto2 team, when I was there. You speak with the boss of the team, so the ones that take the final decision. You can go to Nadia in this case and speak with her, 'I think this', 'OK, we go ahead'."

Good enough will do

The important thing was that Gresini had access to a competitive bike, Márquez said. As they had had in the past, with Sete Gibernau, Daijiro Kato, Marco Melandri. "A satellite team with a good bike, you can achieve very good things. As I did this year, as the other riders did in previous years with Gresini, and they have a very long history and long experience to manage these kind of situations." He was only living up to expectations, Márquez implied.

He was not worried about third in the championship, he said, as he had nothing riding on the result. "I don't have any bonus for third place, so … maybe for Enea! I don't know his contract..." Bastianini had admitted earlier that third in the championship would provide him with a generous payday.

"But for me, zero importance," Márquez insisted. "I mean, do you remember who finished third in 2022, or 2015? I finished third, but nobody remembers. So that third place is not changing my life." It wasn't his position in the championship which mattered, but the results and objectives he had hit in his season on a competitive Ducati. "My life changed about the goals I achieved this year."

New goals start on Monday. But first there is a championship to settle.

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