MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

While all eyes were on Ducati at the Buriram MotoGP test, especially because of the choice they faced between racing the GP25 or sticking with the GP24 and looking for improvements, it was easy to miss the other big stories on the grid. Stories which directly affect Ducati, as it happens. Because unlike last year, where Ducati pretty much had a free run at the MotoGP championship, it looks like the other manufacturers have made a big step in competitiveness.

Not enough to make betting on anyone other than Ducati winning the championship look extremely foolhardy. But enough to cause Ducati more than just inconvenience. MotoGP in 2025 does not look like being a one-horse race any longer.

Stepping up

It may sound strange, but Aprilia has come out of testing quite well, despite Jorge Martin injuring himself in the first couple of hours of the Sepang test. The bike is a big step forward, which I'll come to later. But the bigger step has been for Marco Bezzecchi, who has really grown in his role as factory rider in Martin's absence.

At the end of the first day of the shakedown test at Sepang, Dorna sent out a press release and a small selection of photos to media outlets. You can read the press release below, but the photos provided a few interesting clues to what the factories have been working on. So here are the photos, with a few things I noticed.

Pedro Acosta (above), in pristine leathers on a clean Tech3 GASGAS RC16 (well, a KTM actually). Given the amount of dirt on the track (see below), this must be one of his early laps on the bike. More significant was the Spanish rookie's best time. His lap of 1:59.385 after a single day on a dirty track at Sepang is three tenths faster than Augusto Fernandez was after nearly six days of testing at Sepang in 2023. Fernandez had set his best time on a track that was well rubbered in, and with six days of testing under his belt. For Acosta to be this quick straight away is a sign that he might just live up to the hype.

I am not a fan of the Red Bull Ring at Spielberg. It is an overly simplistic circuit – a bunch of straights with an omega in the middle to prevent it from being a basic trapezoid layout, stuck up against a hillside. Because it is basically three long straights and an extended left hander, speeds reached are high, and there is very little runoff. Add in a couple of blind crests where riders have a tendency to crash – the exit of Turn 1, the exit of Turn 3 – and you have a recipe for disaster.

That recipe came terrifyingly close to completion at Turn 3 in 2020. Johann Zarco clipped the front wheel of Franco Morbidelli's Yamaha on the way up the hill toward Turn 3. The bikes were traveling at such a speed that both Zarco's Ducati and Morbidelli's M1 shot across the track at Turn 3, Morbidelli's bike passing in between the Yamahas of Maverick Viñales and Valentino Rossi, Zarco's Ducati flying just over the head of Maverick Viñales.

Maverick Viñales' decision to leave Yamaha at the end of the 2021 season raised all sorts of questions. Who would take his place in the factory Monster Energy Yamaha team? Can Franco Morbidelli be bought out of his contract with the Petronas SRT team? And if Morbidelli goes to the factory team, who do Petronas take to replace Morbidelli?

Valentino Rossi added another layer of complexity to those questions at the Styria Grand Prix by announcing he would be retiring from MotoGP at the end of this year. Now, Yamaha had not one, but two seats to fill. Where would Yamaha find two riders ready to move up to MotoGP? Do Petronas look to the WorldSBK paddock, or at Moto2? Do they want young riders, or should they look at veterans like Jonathan Rea or Andrea Dovizioso?

The race that weekend saw the issues around Yamaha and Viñales multiply exponentially. Viñales' abuse of his Yamaha M1, holding the bike on the stop in fifth gear in frustration caused Yamaha to finally lose patience with the Spaniard. He was first suspended, then had his contract terminated with immediate effect, leaving Yamaha with a seat to fill for the remaining seven races of 2021.

Can the 2021 MotoGP season match the weirdness and wildness of 2020? The circumstances are different, but the path which led to Qatar 2021 has laid the groundwork for another fascinating year.

2021 sees two trends colliding to create (we hope) a perfect storm. There is the long-term strategy set out after the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 by Dorna CEO Carmelo Ezpeleta, with support and backing from the many bright minds in Dorna and IRTA. After Kawasaki officially withdrew at the end of 2008, and Honda came within a couple of board meetings of pulling out of MotoGP, Dorna threw their weight behind the teams.

With the grid dwindling (Suzuki pulled out at the end of 2011, after being down to a single rider), the MotoGP class was switched back to a maximum engine capacity of 1000cc, and four cylinders, while the CRT class was introduced as a second tier inside the premier class. Payments to teams were gradually increased, and over time, Dorna, with the backing of the teams, pushed through restrictions on electronics, introducing a spec ECU and then spec software to run it, and a price cap on satellite machines.

It might be an exaggeration to call today's news that Andrea Dovizioso is to test the Aprilia RS-GP MotoGP bike at Jerez from April 12th to 14th a bombshell, but it certainly raised a few eyebrows. The Italian had previously turned down the offer of a full-time ride with the Noale factory for 2021, despite Aprilia extensively courting his services. So for Aprilia to offer a test ride is no surprise. For Dovizioso to accept is certainly interesting.

The press release announced by Aprilia states very clearly that this is not an audition for a permanent ride. "It will not be a ‘trial matrimony’ but an opportunity to turn some laps together without any binding commitment for the future," Aprilia Racing CEO Massimo Rivola is quoted as saying. But the fact that Dovizioso accepted the offer suggest that may change in the future.

The return of WorldSBK to the Czech Republic proved to be a race weekend to remember. Tensions between Jonathan Rea and Tom Sykes overflowed, Alex Lowes delivered on his long held promise and we saw flashes of promise from elsewhere on the WorldSBK grid.

Kawasaki tensions overflow

That Rea and Sykes don't like each other has been clear since the start of their tenure as teammates. The 2013 world champion had been the center of attention at KRT for years and Sykes had developed the ZX10R into the best package on the grid. It allowed him to win races and become a consistent force at the front of the field. Since Rea joined in 2015, however, his power has been eroded within the team and his potential on track has been limited. Their dislike for one another has been clear to see for years but on Sunday it boiled over.