MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

The tension which has been building up around the possibility of racing at Valencia after the devastating storms there defused after the MotoGP Safety Commission, the body in which the riders talk to Dorna and the FIM about everything of concern, from track safety to sporting regulations and more. Any journalist with a rider's phone number was messaging them the instant they emerged from meeting.

Which is how we found out that Dorna and the local authorities in the Valencia region had decided to cancel the 2024 Valencia round of MotoGP, set to take place from 15th-17th of November. Half an hour or so later, Dorna issued a formal announcement, stating that the round had been canceled and they were seeking an alternative location for the final event of the season. To the palpable relief of everyone concerned.

Normally at this point you would be reading a preview of the upcoming weekend's MotoGP round, an analysis of the track, a look at the strengths and weaknesses of key riders at the circuit, and what to watch out for. But the events in the east of Spain have cast a pall over this weekend, putting into perspective that as entertaining as MotoGP is, it is entirely trivial in the grand scheme of things.

All eyes are on Valencia in the MotoGP paddock. As the death toll from the severe storm that lashed the region west of the city continues to rise - the current figure stands at 155 in the region, plus 3 more in other parts of Spain - minds in the paddock are more on Spain than in Sepang.

Not just because MotoGP is due to hold a race at the Circuit Ricardo Tormo in Cheste in one of the parts severely affected by the storm. But also because there is a sizable contingent in the paddock who have either direct or indirect links with the Valencia region. Some live there, but a lot have friends and family there.

A matter of respect

And then there were two. With both Marc Márquez and Enea Bastianini finishing outside the top ten Sunday's Grand Prix of Thailand at Buriram, and Pecco Bagnaia storming to a superb win ahead of Jorge Martin, the 2024 MotoGP championship became a mathematical impossibility for Márquez and Bastianini. The title will be decided between Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia.

Sunday's race was a textbook example of exactly why Martin and Bagnaia are left. In extraordinarily difficult conditions, Pecco Bagnaia rode a near-perfect race to take victory, while Jorge Martin got his excess of enthusiasm under control after a couple of tricky moments and did exactly what he needed to if he is to win this championship: finish second behind Pecco Bagnaia.

The sprint race at Buriram may prove to be a momentous occasion in MotoGP. Two important barriers were broken. One that gets broken every year in MotoGP. And one that hasn't seen its like since 1996.

The most important barrier was Jorge Martin extending his lead to 22 points over Pecco Bagnaia. That means that with three Sunday GPs and two sprint races left, Bagnaia needs help from another rider if he is to defend his title. If Bagnaia wins all five races, and Martin finishes second, Bagnaia would outscore Martin by 21 points, 1 point short.

That doesn't mean that the title is in the bag for Martin. Far from it. The chance that Jorge Martin finishes second in every sprint race and GP is about as slim as Pecco Bagnaia winning all five races. Enea Bastianini and Marc Márquez have proven they can win races and end up on the podium, playing a role in determining the outcome.

"It's not an easy situation for both of them, and a long time ago, I remember what you can feel when you are in that position. You are not enjoying, you just suffering." That is how Marc Márquez characterized the predicament Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia find themselves in with three rounds to go. "You know that in three races you will know if you are a world champion or not."

It is hard to overstate just how much pressure both Martin and Bagnaia are under. There are fewer and fewer chances to make a difference, and the risk of a mistake grows exponentially each race. Everything they have done in the 17 rounds leading up to this final stretch has brought them where they are, and the weeks away from home and long flights between countries give them plenty of leisure time to ponder the blown chances and missed opportunities, all the things that could have been.

Intellectually, we all understand that championships are won over an entire season. But nobody watches MotoGP, or any form of sports intellectually. The passion for sports is a deep-seated emotion that goes back to the dawn of human history. So when we get to the end of a championship, fans tend to look back and try to pinpoint a single event that decided the championship. Usually, that's the most recent and shocking or surprising event that fans can remember.

Take 2006. Ask a long-time MotoGP fan what cost Valentino Rossi the title and they will tell you it was the 5 points Rossi lost to Toni Elias when Elias beat him at Estoril at the penultimate round. But this glosses over the fact that Elias had knocked Rossi into the gravel at the opening round in Jerez, that Rossi had suffered massive tire problems in China, had mechanicals at Le Mans and Laguna Seca, and struggled with chatter in the first half of the season after being distracted by the possibility of a switch to F1. And there was the crash at Valencia. Nicky Hayden won the 2006 MotoGP title simply by being more consistent than Rossi over the full 17 rounds.

Will Phillip Island prove to be the decisive round in the 2024 MotoGP title? That's probably a bit premature, but the momentum definitely swung back again in the Sprint race on Saturday. Helped in no small part by the weather, a wet FP2 making it impossible for the riders to test the soft and medium tires or work on setup. They headed into qualifying and the sprint race pretty much blind.

Phillip Island dries quickly, though. Especially when the wind is as brisk as it was on Saturday, and despite the cold. By the end of FP2, a dry line was starting to appear and some riders switched from soft to medium wet tires. Ten minutes later, at the start of Q1, the majority went out on medium wets for their first run, before joining the four who started out on slicks.

Q1 was fascinating. The lap that took Raul Fernandez to the top of the timesheets was 5 seconds faster than Johann Zarco's best lap at the start of the session. Timing was everything. Being out at the end on a set of slicks you had gotten up to temperature was a ticket to Q2. Raul Fernandez and Enea Bastianini got it right, while Luca Marini just missed, finishing just too early.

Friday was almost the most quintessential Phillip Island MotoGP day. It started off cold and wet, then the rain eased off during free practice for Moto2, then it started hammering down again. The rain got so heavy during the the last 10 minutes of Moto2 FP that MotoGP FP1, which was supposed to start directly after Moto2, was delayed. Then delayed again. And again. And eventually, after two hours, canceled.

By the time MotoGP took to the track for timed practice, however, the track had dried out. "Already this morning when I went out from the hotel, I understood that it was difficult to ride in the morning," Pecco Bagnaia told reporters on Friday afternoon. "But then this afternoon it was maybe the best conditions I ever tried in Phillip Island. It was sunny, no wind, the grip was very high."

The fact there was no wind was the only thing missing from the stereotypical Phillip Island day. Never fear, that is scheduled for Saturday, when it will at least be dry. And FP2 on Saturday morning will be 10 minutes longer than normal, to compensate for the loss of Friday morning.

Phillip Island can be counted on to deliver two things: great racing, and big surprises. This weekend is no different, with the wildcards being the complex interplay between the weather, the new asphalt, and the tires. The new surface is going to be both fast and very hard on rear tires. Michelin have three rear tires to choose from: a soft rear with the normal construction, and a medium and a hard using the heat-resistant construction used at Mandalika.

At any other circuit, the soft would only be used for qualifying with the riders choosing between the medium and hard for the race. But this is Phillip Island, and the forecast is for low temperatures - highs of 15°C on Saturday and Sunday - allied with strong winds. "The harder one I don’t think we will even test," Aleix Espargaro said on Thursday.

So the task for the riders is to decide whether they think they can make the soft last race distance, or are better off using the medium. Normally, they would spend Friday working on this, especially the Friday afternoon practice session. The trouble is, it is raining in Phillip Island, and it looks set to be wet all day. Testing tires is going to be nigh on impossible.

Damp squib

At the height of his domination of the 500 grand prix era, when the only question in everyone's minds was who would finish second behind him, Mick Doohan was asked by a journalist if he was worried his stranglehold on the sport was making motorcycle racing boring. "What do you want me to do, slow down?" Doohan retorted.

Sunday's Japanese Grand Prix at Motegi would have been immeasurably improved if Pecco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin had slowed down. Apart from the first seven or eight minutes, as the grid assumed its natural order, the race was utterly processional. Watching Bagnaia, Martin, Marc Márquez behind them, was like watching Doohan at his peak.

These are riders controlling a MotoGP machine at the highest level imaginable, putting a 300+ horsepower motorcycle in almost exactly the same place for lap after lap. Of the 24 laps of Motegi which Pecco Bagnaia completed, 10 were within one tenth of a second of the lap before, and another 7 were between one and two tenths difference to the previous lap. That is astonishing, metronomic consistency, and a sign of a truly great rider operating almost as close to perfection as is humanly possible.