MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The start of the Asia-Pacific MotoGP tour is supposed to throw up surprises. When MotoGP arrives at tracks that the teams and factories don't know as well, the field should be leveled. The established order should be shaken up, and outsiders get a look in.

At the end of the first day of the Indonesian Grand Prix at the Mandalika International Circuit, the first of MotoGP's so-called flyaways (though that depends on where you depart from), the fastest four bikes are the four Ducati Desmosedici GP24s, the dominant machine of the 2024 season. A Ducati GP23 is in fifth, with two more GP23s in the top ten. Only Alex Márquez, who crashed trying to set a fast lap, languishes outside the top ten.

Normal order very much restored, then. Enea Bastianini just edged out Jorge Martin by four hundredths of a second, after Martin became the first rider to smash the lap record. Franco Morbidelli took a solid third on the second Pramac Ducati, while Bastianini's Ducati Lenovo teammate Pecco Bagnaia fired in a last desperate fast lap to take fourth.

The return to Misano has been a return to the current Natural Order in MotoGP. Despite a damp start in the morning, by the afternoon, the timesheet gave a very clear picture of the lie of the land. I will let Marc Márquez explain.

"We know that always in the Covid times, the second GP [at the same track] was always super tight. And in fact everything is very tight, everything is fast, everybody is fast," the Gresini Ducati rider told us.

But that closeness belied the fact that there are two riders who are a cut above the rest at the moment. "It's true that when it's better grip conditions, the pattern of this year is it looks like Martin and Bagnaia do a step, and in fact today, they were much faster than us."

A cut above

The timesheets bear this out. On Friday afternoon, Pecco Bagnaia did a lap of 1'30.902 on a set of medium tires which had 14 laps on them, just over half race distance. Jorge Martin did a 1'30.844 on a set with 12 laps on them.

Nobody else got close. Marc Márquez did a 1'31.3. Enea Bastianini a 1'31.4. Maverick Viñales did a pair of 1'31.6s, and Pedro Acosta matched that on a used soft rear. Bagnaia and Martin have four tenths on the rest of the field, and will be battling for victory at the head of the field. There will be a larger group behind fighting over the last place on the podium, most likely with Marc Márquez at their head.

At the event Dorna had chosen to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the FIM Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing World Championship (that's MotoGP to you), MotoGP put on a show. Leaving aside the arithmetical arguments (2024 is the 76th season, but Silverstone was the 75th British Grand Prix, so debate naturally subsided), the event was a proper celebration of the sport.

There was a nod to history - Les Graham's AJS Porcupine, the bike which won the first ever GP world championship back in 1949, took pride of place on the grid. And the bikes were all decked out in retro liveries, paying homage to the past of the manufacturers, teams, and riders in the sport. Some going back further than others, perhaps, but that, too, is a reflection of the sport.

We were all loving the liveries until the start of the race. All of a sudden, we were cruelly reminded of just how much we rely on our visual memories when trying to figure out who is who. So when Brad Binder had a problem with a badly slipping clutch off at the start, holding his hand up to warn those behind him, we were suddenly cast into confusion.

Once upon a time, the Sachsenring was Ducati's kryptonite. The circuit had everything the Desmosedici couldn't do: turn easily and hold a tight line.

Those days are long gone. In last year's Sunday grand prix at the Sachsenring, the first five bikes across the line were all Ducatis. And the other three Ducatis followed behind Jack Miller, the lone interloper from KTM to disrupt the Ducati party.

So what happened? "The bike itself is an all round package now," Jack Miller explained, the memory of riding a Desmosedici around Sachsenring still relatively fresh in his mind. "Just watching the race back from last week in Assen you can see the bike does everything."

In a rather frosty first press conference of the day, containing the three Ducati riders currently leading the 2024 MotoGP championship, Marc Marquez concurred with the Red Bull KTM Factory rider's assessment. "The Ducati is working well in every race track, compared to other manufacturers who have more up and downs, like a rider," the Gresini Ducati rider told us. "But Ducati is working well in every race track, and the tracks where they are struggling a bit because another manufacturer is faster, we are there. So here if you have turning and you have rear grip, it's done. So they have a very good compromise."

The long slog to success

By the time you read this article, there is an 80% chance that the information contained within it will have been superseded. We are in the middle of MotoGP Silly Season, and in the run up to the series resuming in Assen after a short break, announcements are being made. As we saw with the news that Aprilia have signed Marco Bezzecchi to a "multiple-year deal", which is the latest fad in contract press releases, and is code for a two-year deal with options to extend. And usually, options to terminate early, though those are almost never invoked.

So where does the Bezzecchi announcement leave us? As I have written previously, and we have discussed on the Paddock Pass Podcast, Bezzecchi was part of a chain of rider (and team) movements expected to take effect before the next summer break ends and MotoGP reconvenes at Silverstone. There are more moves in the pipeline, and some may even come this week.

First, an overview of what is available and what isn't. The signing of Bezzecchi leaves just two factory seats (tentatively) open. Bezzecchi will partner Jorge Martin at Aprilia, Marc Marquez joins Pecco Bagnaia at the factory Ducati Lenovo squad, and Pedro Acosta and Brad Binder are KTM's new Red Bull Factory Racing superteam.

Open seats