Grand Prix of Indonesia Championship Shake-up

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Francesco Bagnaia took the win in Mandalika at the Grand Prix of Indonesia to regain the point lead after briefly losing it to Jorge Martín. (Ducati/)

With the heat, the aggressive new track surface, and the narrowness of the clean line, only two-thirds of the MotoGP field finished. Several riders strongly refuted claims that “MotoGP has no overtaking” by advancing rapidly from poor start positions. Most extreme of these was current champion Francesco Bagnaia (factory Duc), who started 13th, was third by lap three, and was in position to take the win when race leader and closest rival Jorge Martín (Pramac Ducati) crashed out on lap 13.

Martín had won the Saturday sprint race with relative ease from surprise pole-sitter Luca Marini (Mooney VR46 Duc), leaving Bagnaia over five seconds back. That momentarily put Martín in the point lead.

Refuting those who moan and squeak that “MotoGP has too many Ducatis,” the top three on Sunday were Bagnaia’s factory Ducati, Maverick Viñales’ Aprilia, and biggest surprise of all, Fabio Quartararo, third on the “no-acceleration” factory Yamaha. The latter two finished within 0.433 second of the winner in a mad last-two-corners crush.

Martín won the start, darting from sixth on the grid to first before the first turn, then pulled a 2.7-second lead on second-place Viñales after just 10 laps. Lapping in the low 1:31s to Bagnaia’s solid mid-31s Martín had pulled away at 0.2 to 0.25 second per lap

“It was perfect,” Martín said. ‘A great start and then I was trying to make the gap…bigger. When I saw ‘2.8s’ [on his pit board] I was really surprised. So I said, ‘OK, it’s time to maybe keep calm now.’

“My mistake was to run one meter wide on the dirt[y off-line pavement], and then the corner after [11] I crashed.”

Martín led the Grand Prix of Indonesia until he crashed on lap 13, not only losing the race but also his short-lived point lead. (MotoGP/)

Because of Martín’s error, Bagnaia again leads in points: 346 to Martín’s 328. A degree of explanation for Aprilia and Yamaha penetrating the Ducati phalanx was Aleix Espargaró's description of Mandalika: “Not a lot of stop-and-go corners here, a lot of flowing sections, low grip…a good chance for us.”

Stop-and-go corners favor the acceleration and braking of the Ducatis (just as they used to favor Márquez’s Honda), while flowing sections favor Aprilia and Yamaha.

Bagnaia’s backfield starting position began Friday with a slide that relegated him to Q1 where a contact with Enea Bastianini prevented his advance into Q2 and a possibly better start position. His comment on the narrow clean racing line: “Only if you are very aggressive, pushing other riders out of the line, can you overtake.”

Marco Bezzecchi saved a fourth place finish. (MotoGP/)

His troubles conflicted with his confidence on the bike: “I returned to having great confidence when braking and on entry, a crazy speed when cornering, and also a good grip…

“There were all the conditions to do well.

“Unfortunately I failed to find the right solution with the electronics.”

Qualifying was a surprise with Viñales, Aleix Espargaró, and Quartararo headed by the new lap record of 1 minute, 29.978 seconds by Marini.

Bagnaia did get some pressure from Maverick Viñales and Fabio Quartararo near the end of the race. (MotoGP/)

Marini, looking so strong earlier, was out of the GP after a contact with Brad Binder’s KTM. Binder’s front wheel vibrated after hitting a curb, sufficient to knock his brake pads back, delaying his braking.

Back in the bad old days of small-diameter solid front axles (such as 17mm), pad knock-back could occur after as minor an event as cornering on rough pavement. At the next braking point, the lever would come to the bar, forcing the rider to take a breathtaking second pull. Even today, the axle is the only structural member opposing wheel tilting, but its present greater diameter and stiffness make knock-back less frequent. A traditional fork brace can’t be applied to modern male-slider forks.

Four riders decided to go against Michelin’s advice not to use the soft rear and discovered that what worked in the 13-lap sprint might not work in the 27-lap GP. Notable among them was otherwise fast Espargaró (10th), who qualified third behind Marini and Aprilia teammate Viñales.

“I was expecting the drop,” Espargaro said, “but maybe further into the race.”

Quartararo had said, “It was hard on the soft. They got many blisters.”

When tire temperature rises sufficiently above the designed level, volatile material in the tread compound can vaporize, literally “blowing bubbles” in the rubber. They appear as blisters and on-track make themselves known to the rider as unusual vibration. Although blistering and chunking are certainly to be avoided, they are a familiar phenomenon in racing.

How did Quartararo finish so high, despite the much-discussed shortcomings of the present Yamaha? One bit of candor was this remark:

“The key point in my race was the warmup lap, where I really tried to make the rear spin a lot.”

Quartararo finished third after putting pressure on Viñales. (Monster Energy Yamaha/)

This should surprise no American motor sports enthusiast, for we know that drag racers routinely heat their tires with a dramatic but normal smoky burnout.

It’s clear from many rider comments that tires do not just come out of the tire warmers at operating temperature and stay there. Instead, there can be two or three tricky laps after the start as tires, uniformly heated by the warmers to 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees Fahrenheit), change to the actual racetrack temperature distribution. Not only that, but tire temperature varies around a circuit. Tires cool down a straight—perhaps enough to require care and progressive application of braking to avoid initial locking and then to take account that tire side grip will increase through each corner as that part of the tire warms to its task.

Many a rider has tipped over on “cold” tires in early laps, while all have admired those such as Casey Stoner, who are somehow able either to get their tires hot early or are magically skillful at managing marginal grip.

Viñales led the Grand Prix of Indonesia but finished second. (Aprilia/)

Marc Márquez, much in the news over his imminent departure from Honda for a Gresini Ducati in 2024, crashed at turn 11 on the first sprint lap, then lost the front at turn 13 in the GP. He has surprised us so often in the past (such as by his technique of “uncrashing” a bike that is already on the ground) that no one dares speculate on what next season may bring. One difference with his earlier career is clear: Whereas in his years of dominance he crashed fairly often in practice, even seemingly as a limit-finding exercise, he rarely crashed in races. What’s new is that now he crashes often in the races themselves.

How will the final five races go? Bagnaia and Martín are fast—both have suffered from mistakes. Which man can maintain speed with consistency?

Next weekend is the Australian MotoGP at Phillip Island.

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