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Mandalika MotoGP Saturday Subscriber Notes: Yes, Bagnaia & Martin Really Are Trying To Win The Title

By David Emmett |

"It looks like this season is a championship of mistakes," Pecco Bagnaia said after the sprint race at Mandalika. "My idea is that it's arrived from the performance of the tires. The rear tires did an enormous step in front, but we are braking so hard because the rear is also helping a lot in the braking, but the front has more issues. Because we are entering much, much faster in all the corners. So the performance that Michelin improved this season is incredible. All the season, all the circuits we improved a lot the pace. But when you are at this limit is easy also to have a crash."

Marc Márquez was open to that idea as well. "Mistakes, because they are super fast and then everybody is riding on the limit. I feel fast but even like this they are faster. So when you are riding on the limit, every lap from the first to the last … I remember just five years ago the races were quite different. It was like, pushing some laps. Now you are pushing all the laps. And yeah, everybody can be super fast, but easier to do mistakes."

Why are we talking about mistakes? Because for the tenth weekend out of fifteen, one of either Pecco Bagnaia or Jorge Martin have made the kind of mistake that in other seasons would have been regarded as scuppering any hopes of a championship.

A comedy of errors

Bagnaia has crashed out of the sprint race at Jerez, Barcelona, and Silverstone, and out of the Sunday GP at Portimão, Aragon, and Misano 2. Plus, the Ducati Lenovo rider had to retire from the sprint race at Le Mans with a bike problem. Martin has crashed out of the sprint race at Mugello, and the GP at Jerez and the Sachsenring, plus he pitted for rain tires in the Sunday GP at Misano 1 when it stayed dry and scored a solitary point.

And now Martin has crashed again, out of the lead (again, as in Jerez and the Sachsenring) in the sprint race at Mandalika. The Pramac Ducati rider got off to a flying start, and was pushing for a gap when he lost the front at Turn 16 on the first lap. He remounted, came back through the field, and came just shy of scoring a point, crossing the line in tenth 1.4 seconds behind Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Given so many crashes and mistakes, it looks like neither Jorge Martin nor Pecco Bagnaia really want to win this championship. Four crashes (or five mistakes, including pitting) for Martin and six for Bagnaia look really bad in just fifteen (well, fourteen and a half) weekends. But this perception is wrong.

15
2024
MotoGP
Mandalika, Indonesia
Ducati
Enea Bastianini
Francesco Bagnaia
Jorge Martin
Marc Marquez
CormacGP
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Comments

Excellent article! I had not thought about (in spite of being a statistics/data analyst guy in a previous life) how the addition of sprint races affects the perception of "mistakes". Well done.

Nothing to do with your excellent article, David, but to me having riders crash and then yellow flags ruining other riders' qualifying laps seems to be getting more and more common. Not sure what can be done about it given the limited tire allocations; add the time under yellow onto the time of the session, maybe? Any thoughts on that, anyone? 

This is an unfixable problem. Adding the time on at the end is a recipe for an almost infinite qualifying session. TV schedules need to be stuck to, which would be impossible if time was added on for every yellow flag.

Also, how much time do you add on? The length of time the yellow flag was out? That doesn't really solve anything, because riders would still be losing a lap. A lap's worth? Then qualifying starts to expand rapidly.

The reason for the crashes is simple. The harder it is to overtake, the more important grid position is. Chalk up another problem to ride-height devices and aero.

No easy solutions to this one, no matter how dissatisfying the current situation is.

I understand that the yellow flag rules are there for rider safety but I don’t understand why the rule isn’t the same for qualifying as it is for the race. Unify the rules for both to be no passing under a yellow flag. If you make a pass under yellow in qualifying you lose the lap. With fewer riders on track in each of the qualifying sessions there is already less chance of a collision of riders after crashes. Too many good laps are lost with no apparent gain in safety that I can see. 

That’s the risk. Maybe they should go faster earlier. The rules shouldn’t change to support rider behaviour that is already pushing the rules with everyone waiting for a tow. 

No one HAS to wait till 2mins to go to put their quickest in. 

It’s a 15minute session. Use those minutes. 

I don't view the solution as that difficult. The Q1/Q2 format arose out of a desire to make Saturdays more interesting, bringing in more spectators on that day for the promoters, and providing a marketable product for TV. And it worked. Yay...

But now we have the sprint races, which are far more compelling for fans than Q1/Q2 are. So, do we really need Q1/Q2? Why not go all the way back to when combined times for the last practice on Friday and the last full practice on Saturday set the grid? The sprint races prevents 2 full practice session on Saturday, so set the grid from P2 on Friday and P3 on Saturday. Maybe a short free practice afterward, using the time now taken up by Q1/Q2.

I doubt much will change because this is only a problem for the affected riders (or perhaps their heartbroken fans).  If it spices up the race or even better the championship then it's a win-win.  Having MM mired in P12 gave journos a story about his various present struggles in qualifying and fans something to anticipate, wondering how it would pan out on the first lap... would he charge forwards on the first lap, slump even further back, or perhaps make a great big pileup?

You're Dorna, where is the problem in any of that?  Entertainment is their product.  And Liberty will only amplify that.

On points rate, 2016 had eight different winners from four different manufacturers. This year has five winners so far, all but one (+1 sprint) of those has been a Ducati and all but 2 (+1 sprint) of those have been a GP24. 2017 only had 5 winners, the same as this year so far, but that was three manufacturers. Fastest Honda or not, if the Yamahas have it, you don't and if the Ducati or Suzuki have it too then you need to be Marc Marquez. This year, with exception of Mav in Texas, Pecco and Martin have been riding THE bike every weekend. They 'should' be on the podium every round. Ignoring the sprints, hand Jorge two 3rd places for his crashes out of the lead or Pecco an extra 48 points for his Sunday DNFs and things would look a fair bit different. For whatever reason, they are throwing large amounts down the road. 

If I remember correctly 2022 was the first time a rider won the title with more than 3 DNF in the season. Pecco, five DNF, 20 races. More races in the season, sprint era or not, means more chance to DNF and more opportunities to recover from the points loss but even then it is a new standard. Doohan's 1998 title, 14 races, 3 DNF, is in simple start/finish numbers not far from Pecco's 2022 title. However, those numbers do not reflect the quality of Doohan's finishes, 8 wins and three 2nd place finishes from 14 races. He could afford those DNF because he alone was dominant. Jorge and Pecco, because of the other, are not and they could really profit from less points than they were competing for when they crashed. This year, given their speed, they are making a right mess. Marc and Enea should be only mathematical chances, if at all, by this point.


Also, small mistake, 2018 only had 18 races, British GP cancelled, which bumps Marquez up to a fairly dominant 71% points haul. 

DE, in fairness, you’ve peddled the narrative of “no one wanting to win” before haha


Something to throw out - this is the first generation of riders in post-500s / MotoGP where no one is really saying they are among the greatest ever. Rossi into Stoner into Lorenzo into Márquez. Those guys were hard as nails and from the outside I don’t see it with the current guys. From that it seems like more mistakes are likely to happen. 

However…

The statistical insight was interesting to see how it compares - well, that it doesn’t. It’s probably that the two races a weekend makes it appear more than it is. Everything always seems like a disaster but to your point it really isn’t. 

That’s also not a problem; for us at home at least. It’s great that we’re getting wildcard stuff and people doing silly things. A fluctuating championship is good for everyone (except Pecco / Jorge and all the Ducati management!)

The nature of the mentality around the mistakes from Championship leaders is interesting. Martin on Saturday, like Bastianini today, looked to be thrusting through the limit. Are Pecco and Jorge looking human? Would an Alien not be making these errors on a GP24? Or are we in a strange era of bikes and rules shrinking the envelope of the limit whilst pressing a larger group of riders at it?

I think both.

Pedro Acosta and KTM, lovely! Clever rim seal device. (Joking). Really, that was pretty. Sorry the kid and us had to endure the disturbance under review. Lower grip level favored the bike a bit but it was all Acosta putting so many Ducatis behind him. 

Mourning a bit losing our front chasers Bastianini and Marquez today. They were often the tastiest dish of the meal for me. 

Martin crushed it. Curious into Motegi already, a good sign of a close Championship, aside from its obvious Red wash.