Phillip Island MotoGP Report

The 2022 MotoGP championship chase has yet again been scrambled as former series leader Fabio Quartararo (Yamaha) made a braking error on lap four at Phillip Island, initiating a sequence of events that put him out of the points. New point leader Francesco Bagnaia (Ducati) finished the race in third, 0.224 second down from surprise winner Álex Rins (Suzuki), with the still-recovering Marc Márquez (Honda) between the two of them in second.

The new standings are:

Riders described this as a “slow” race, and multiple explanations were proposed. Carlo Pernat, a sort of MotoGP archdeacon, made a cryptic comment concerning Honda’s premier rider, predicting that next season, “He will be a Márquez with something less because the others have improved.” We’ve heard this point of view before, that in particular, with Ducati’s switch to relying upon a fleet of quite good riders on well-prepared machines, the general level has been so elevated that there are now a dozen men near the front, any of whom could win.

Giacomo Agostini, an éminence grise of the sport since his 15 GP world championships in the 1960s and ‘70s, decries the concept of many equal contenders. To hold the public imagination, he says, will take more than the flutterings of a flock of equals, no single one of whom can yet be hailed as a soaring hero.

For the riders themselves, the “slow race” was a routine necessity. Since the tires Michelin brought for this difficult circuit were new to the riders, and since no one was able to run a race simulation giving solid results, the rational response was for each to make his own prediction of the lap time required to win. From that, plus experience in practice, they set their “tire protection” electronics to support that lap.

Another opinion, one expressed by veteran commentators, is that Marc Márquez’s almost casual podium here reestablishes him as the fox-among-pigeons he was before his accident. They expect him to show the present crowd of talented enlistees that there is much, much more to MotoGP than just being young and hungry. Kenny Roberts once said something similar in reply to a question about a much younger rival who had just won his first national: “Well, of the three things it takes to win races, he’s got one. He’s fast.”

Rins’ average lap was 1:30.765, but the lap record, set by Jorge Martín (Ducati) earning him the pole for this event, is three seconds faster at 1:27.767. This clustered fast riders at the front and also allowed those delayed by poor starts a greater-than-usual opportunity to move up. (Rins, for example, started ninth, in accordance with his Suzuki’s reputation for doing poorly in the one-lap derby that is qualifying.)

Luca Marini (Ducati), who finished sixth, explained it best:

“Trying to manage the race is fine because, having never used these tires on this track, no one knew the duration.

“…they were all very worried about the rear tire. Like Aleix [Espargaró, Aprilia] said, there was too much traction and we don’t have enough maps to decrease it and use the tires more, like Rins did. We were all very cautious with the electronics…

“…the riders who risked a little more in the end were ahead.”

In other words, Rins, being aware of the extra traction, decided in his settings to gamble on being safely able to use more of it.

Rins also said, “Before the race…we were marking the critical points for the rear tire on the track. In that corner [approaching turn 3] we said to ourselves that the wear on the rear would not have made much difference and that I could have given everything and so I did. I had a very good entry speed, getting the bike to slide enough to be able to make clean passes.”

Now think of Márquez, who decided on the start grid to switch to a soft rear tire, the only rider to do so. He said, “In the beginning it was a slow pace but for me it was welcome. It was my dream! Of course [to make the soft tire manageable] was a good thing.”

Remember that the Honda of today is far from the Hondas on which Márquez won his multiple MotoGP championships. This is the “more accessible” version, intended to be capable of being ridden well by a variety of riders. To finish second today, Márquez had to make some kind of rapid adaptation to its differences, one of which was described as “shaking.”

Further, braking is described as a weakness with the current Honda build. (In the past it was a particular strength.) Márquez said, “One of the problems of our bike is stopping in a straight line, and at turn 4 [where his brother collided with Jack Miller, taking both out of the event] if you are not super clear…we have some shaking.

“…when you have some shaking you cannot stop.”

My question: what does “shaking” mean? Early in this century riders spoke easily and often of cornering chatter, until it was decided that a new name might banish the problem—henceforth, “chatter” became “vibration.” In similar fashion the technical term “weave”—the lateral oscillation of the rear of a bike at two-to-three cycles per second—was replaced by the more colloquial term “pumping.” I’d like to know whether “shaking” is newspeak for old-time brake hop? Brake hop turns the front of your bike into a jackhammer as the fore-and-aft flexing of the steering head or fork tubes during hard braking performs a dance routine with the up-and-down hammering of the front tire. Something this distracting would certainly explain the Álex Márquez/Jack Miller collision.

Because so much good work has been done to stiffen motorcycle forks, this would imply that the Honda’s steering head has been made too flexible in the interest of “accessibility.” Making chassis less stiff laterally has been the usual approach to increasing a bike’s ability to turn on less-than-smooth pavement.

What happened to Jorge Martín’s lead? “I was managing the tires in the first part of the race [the 13 laps he led] and then as soon as I was starting to push a little bit, I was overtaken by Rins, who was coming super strong.

“If you don’t overtake in these races, you get overtaken.

“…I had the speed but I was missing a bit the braking point. The entry into the corners. I didn’t have the confidence to brake harder.

“I had a good rear tire but with the front I was struggling.”

Bagnaia, so close to the front at the end. Why was he third?

“In the first laps I tried to manage the tire consumption well, but toward the end I didn’t have the same pace anymore and I was struggling with the front [tire]. When I saw that Quartararo was out I changed my approach.”

He had led the race from lap 15 to the next-to-last lap (L26), with the exception of Rins having led L20.

“…on the last lap when Rins and Márquez both overtook me at turn 2 I said, OK, if I will see a possibility, I will take it, but I don’t want to take any risks because it was very easy to commit a mistake today.

“I decided to use the medium tire on the front because I couldn’t warm up the hard one, but in the last six laps it was destroyed [on the left side]. I was losing a lot of cornering speed and I knew the others would attack me.”

Where was Aleix Espargaró in all this? Sent to the rear by electronics errors or malfunction.

“I couldn’t accelerate in the final laps. The launch control would activate, cutting off power…”

He finished ninth, 4.5 seconds out of first.

Understand what all the above means. It means that most laps of a MotoGP race consist of riders comparing their tire-management plans. They are not racing, or at least they are trying to avoid racing, which eats tires. They are waiting for the last cluster of laps in which “tire inventory” will be taken. Who still has left what it takes to make the quickest dash to the flag?

Yet remember how spoiled we are today, when seven top riders can finish in the first second and there have been bold overtakings. Back when Agostini was monotonously winning 500 titles on MV, it was not uncommon for minutes to elapse between Ago’s MV crossing the line and the arrival of second place on a private single-cylinder Manx Norton or Matchless G50. There were resounding exceptions, such as the epic battles between Ago and Hailwood, MV versus Honda, in 1967. When you go to the races you are buying a chance that you may witness something tremendous and lifetime-memorable. No one can guarantee it will happen, not even with the most adroitly written technical rules. Whatever the persuasions of video games or the promises of Meta, real life is made memorable by contrast—not by an unending series of peak experiences.

Malaysia is next, and then Valencia.