2021 Tissot Grand Prix of Doha Wrap-up

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Fabio Quartararo took the win at the Tissot Grand Prix of Doha. (MotoGP/)

A week ago Sunday it appeared that Maverick Viñales had once more fought free of the bad luck that interrupted his brilliant beginning on Yamaha in 2017. His victory in Qatar 1 looked well judged, leading some to suppose that now, finally, he had decoded the mysterious “tire cypher,” transforming the appearance of randomness into a workable system. This weekend he started third, had one of his not-so-hot starts, and came around 12th on lap one. So much for the system (he fought his way forward to finish fifth).

This time it was Fabio Quartararo, also on Yamaha, who had the system. With discipline, he held station in eighth place for the entire first half of the race. Then he began an advance to the front, passing on average one rider per lap to lead on lap 19 (of 22). Those he passed were unable to reply, because their tires were done and his were not. If you look at Quartararo’s lap chart, it looks just like a stairway.

It recalled Marco Lucchinelli’s 500 championship in 1981, when he intentionally cruised behind the lead group, keeping his tires cool while they vigorously “post-cured” theirs into grease. Then, at half-distance, he advanced. He was able to ride around his rivals, now busy not crashing while he alone was still racing.

The stars of the start were Pramac Ducati’s Jorge Martin and KTM’s Miguel Oliveira, Martin shooting into the lead and Oliveira reaching fourth from 12th on the grid.

“It was a normal start, the kind we have been practicing in these times,” Oliveira said.

Martin accelerated all the way into the lead and he led the race for 18 laps, being overcome by Quartararo and Johann Zarco only at the end.

Rookie Jorge Martin led for 18 laps and finished on the podium in third. (MotoGP/)

“I thought I didn’t have the pace enough to stay with the front guys, but then every lap was a bit closer to the end, and I say OK, another one, another one, and was keeping a good pace,” Martin said.

The new holeshot starting devices work fabulously, when all is well. Others either forget to engage them or somehow fail to get full effect:

Francesco Bagnaia said, “Unfortunately the holeshot device didn’t work well. I couldn’t insert it. It’s not easy to hook it up, especially when you have to stop at a precise point, like on the grid.”

He started and finished sixth.

Some are still calling Losail a “Ducati track” because Andrea Dovizioso won here in 2018 and ’19, and there is a longish straight where power can be decisive. Yet now Viñales and Quartararo, both on Yamaha, have won here this week and last.

Johann Zarco put his Ducati into second by saving his tires and energy. (MotoGP/)

Bagnaia explained: “They (Yamaha) worked a lot in winter and on this track they are very competitive—at the level of Ducati. We have a lot of power but they have more traction so it was difficult for me to pass them on the straight. I would say it was a balanced situation.”

More traction enabled the Yams to launch faster off the last turn onto the straight, partially negating the Red River of Power.

If experience and understanding have value, Valentino Rossi should lead the way forward. But his weekend was a mysterious near-zero, ending in 16th place with no points.

“I lost too much time in the first laps. I wasn’t fast enough with new tires while there were a lot of riders that were,” Rossi said. “We still have to find more grip at the rear with the soft tire.”

Some will say Rossi’s career is over, but last weekend he qualified fourth—not a has-been achievement. Something about his riding clashes unpredictably with the present tire, and he hasn’t yet worked it out. The careers of many riders end when motorcycles or tires evolve in directions the rider is unable to follow.

It’s possible to imagine the rider’s experience as a slate, overwritten so many times that it is unintelligible. What does this new feeling from the tire mean? Try to look it up. Kenny Roberts once said, “I think of my mind as a big Velcro board, and hanging from it are all these packets, one for every situation, rider, or corner. My reflexes aren’t all that fast, so I try to get a lot of my thinking done ahead of time. That way, when something comes up, I just grab its packet and do it.”

Could there be such a thing as too much experience? Consider the remarkable performance of Jorge Martin, surging into the lead, maturely controlling the race for 18 laps, and only at the end being zapped to third by Quartararo and Zarco. Not bad for Martin’s second MotoGP start, and even better as refutation of the idea that younger riders are one-lap practice wonders who go backward in the race.

Where were the Suzukis, so lately lauded for their consistency and late-race grip? Álex Rins, fourth; Joan Mir, seventh.

And Jack Miller, so strong in practice and now Ducati team lead rider? He and Mir touched, entering the straight on lap 13.

“After that contact,” Miller said, “I lost three seconds but then I managed to do four really fast laps.”

He finished ninth after encountering arm-pump.

Do you see the contact as ground for an exciting argument? Two bikes, each designed for a different riding style, may have intersecting lines. That’s racing.

Take a step back and consider how different today’s MotoGP is from just a few years ago. At present the front half of the grid consists of superbly trained and highly experienced riders who have graduated from the intense competition of Moto2. They are not overnight Superbike sensations from the US, Australia, or the UK, smoking sideways into the lead. They have shown in the last two to three years that almost anyone in that group can win a GP. Yet not so long ago we were happy to have Kevin Schwantz to harry and challenge Wayne Rainey. We had five consecutive years in which no challenger at all arose to push Mick Doohan.

Today we think nothing of there being lead groups of six, eight, or even ten riders, pretty much nose-to-tail, looking like any one of them could reach the center box.

The field has been closer than ever so far in 2021 with just seconds covering the first 10 riders. (MotoGP/)

The existence of these groups magnifies the importance of the start, because it’s not easy to advance in a group of riders having equal pace. Lost positions at the start translate into abused tires that just say no in the second half. As rider, equipment, and experience equality advances, it becomes ever more essential to do everything perfectly: Nail the start, understand and conserve your tire, yet keep the pace, ready for last-laps action. As Zarco noted after this Sunday’s second place, “…I was able to manage both my tires and my energy.”

A result is the variability we are seeing: No dominant champion emerges, head and shoulders above the rest. Instead, someone gets it right this week, and it’s someone else next week, and on and on. Very different from the heroic era of the two-stroke 500s, when at most three of the twenty-odd riders on the grid had workable odds to win.

Franco Morbidelli’s down weekend (he finished 12th, saying, “…My tires were finished too soon”) was kicked off by smoke from his Yamaha in FP1. The official info was that the problem was easily overcome and the affected engine still usable. What reversible condition could make that much smoke? Yamaha no longer gives out annual bike development info as it once did, but back in the day it told us it uses a crankcase evacuation pump to reduce part-throttle pumping loss. Normally such a pump is combined with low wall pressure oil scraper rings. The volume of smoke suggested a lot of oil or fuel being converted to vapor. The usual source is a holed piston (not easily reversible!), failed intake valve stem seals, or one or more injectors stuck on. Without further explanation this remains a mystery.

Franco Morbidelli’s Yamaha billowed smoke in FP1, but Yamaha said the problem was easily fixed and the engine was still usable. (MotoGP/)

Aprilia has now become competitive, save in power. Aleix Espargaró made Q2 and qualified seventh, only to finish tenth.

“The bike works very well,” Espargaró said. “It also makes the tires work well, but this year on the straight is really difficult because every lap I lost a few positions from the middle of the race onward.

“In the last few laps I tried to pass Mir and Miller, I really tried in every way, but as soon as I got onto the straight they all passed me.”

As noted by two-stroke engineer Jörg Möller in 1978, “Horsepower? In four-strokes it is only money.”

There are few secrets in four-stroke race engine tech—it’s more a matter of how far you’ve had the time and money to push it. Aprilia can get there.

Interesting to see the latest fairing and wing evolution. Aprilia has come farthest in the race to have a single wing of maximum width, blended into the narrowed fairing nose that creates more wing room. This is quite different from the classic rounded subsonic fairing noses of three years ago, with a “designer stubble” of short winglets stuck on. In wing design, the longer the better. The turbulent region at wing tips, where the contrasting upper and lower surface pressures wrap around each other to trail an energy-robbing tip vortex, is a smaller part of the whole in longer wings. Long narrow wings create lift with less drag.

Aprilia’s fairing and winglet design has a single wing at the maximum width. (MotoGP/)

Seeing this trend, some are likening the more extreme examples to the Fokker Triplane of 1918. The future of this trend is up to the rules interpretations of MotoGP’s tech man Danny Aldridge. Although decisions will sound legalistic, in fact this is such a vaguely defined area that it’s more a matter of “Yes, we endorse the trend of these changes,” or “No, we don’t.”

As I’ve noted before, one motivation to tolerate development is that most people can’t tell the difference between a production sportbike and a MotoGP bike. That can’t happen in Formula One, where no one can confuse an F1 car with a Porsche 911. Therefore, in the future I expect to see MotoGP bikes that no one can visually mistake for a production 600 with a lot of stickers on it.

Next comes Portimão and the heralded return of Marc Márquez to the grid. Mesdames et messieurs, place your bets.

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