Marc Márquez, during the presentation of the Qatar GP. /
Qatar GP
The Losail circuit is the traditional setting for the start of the season, in a year that is very open in forecasts
Thursday, March 3, 2022, the day before the start of a new Motorcycle World Championship, in the year with the most races in history, twenty-one. The MotoGP riders repeat a message: “We are facing what could be the most even season in a category that is already very even”. Although this does not mean that everything is going to be played until the last round of November in Valencia. Free practice will be very tight, cardiac officials, at a key moment of each weekend, when the grid is set up. The starting position can mark much of what happens on Sunday, when the prizes and points are distributed. And when you can make a difference, especially in a long-term competition like this.
With races so close together, a bad crash can penalize more than necessary, something that everyone wants to avoid, although later it is impossible for anyone to keep anything to themselves. “I don’t feel any more pressure,” defending champion Fabio Quartararo confessed from Qatar. “Last year was incredible for me, I won the World Cup, but now we all have zero points and that’s the way I have to approach it. The important thing is to be the fastest this year, the most consistent”, added the Frenchman. A consistency that can be the key for a course in which the Frenchman starts within a group of favorites that includes three other pilots, in the absence of reality confirming, denying or nuanced it, with the inclusion of other names . That trio is made up of 2021 runner-up Pecco Bagnaia; the 2020 champion, Joan Mir, and the super champion of the category, Marc Márquez. A Yamaha, a Ducati, a Suzuki and a Honda.
“The level of the riders and the bikes is very high. I think we are at the moment in which we are all closer and that will allow us to enjoy a great year”, continued Quartararo, winner of the second race held in 2021 at the Losail circuit, after the first had been won a week before the one who at that time was his teammate, Maverick Viñales. Two wins for Yamaha in a scenario that from the start has always been considered very conducive to the power of the Ducati, but in which the Japanese bike has won ten times compared to five for the Italian. Behind, with three wins, Honda, who last climbed to the top of the Qatar podium in 2014, in the magical year of Marc Márquez.
“It is true that this is not one of the circuits that best suits my driving style. And it is true that Honda has always suffered a lot here. But you never know. I think this year’s bike is better, although I don’t feel ready yet. But if we win here it will mean that we are at a level that you cannot imagine”, pointed out the Spanish rider with a smile, who considers this Grand Prix of Qatar as a stone of the long road that begins to line up from today, when the first free workouts. This time on an unprecedented track in the preseason, compared to other years in which the winter tests on the Asian track always ended. This detail may be relevant because it will benefit those who arrive with clearer things -in the two tests in Malaysia and Indonesia good details were seen from Honda, some doubts in Ducati, an interesting improvement in Suzuki and a stagnation in the champion Yamaha- and because it will harm the competitors of the three displacements who will find themselves with a very dirty track in an environment where you always start with too much dirt on the asphalt.
favorites
And it is that Moto3 and Moto2 will get down to work before MotoGP. In the small category with ten Spanish riders who will try to make it difficult for the one who theoretically starts as the top favorite, the Italian Dennis Foggia, runner-up in 2021. There will be nine Spaniards in Moto2, led by the new sensation of the World Championship, Pedro Acosta, who He will leave with the spotlight on him and the possibility of being champion of the intermediate class at the first attempt, as he was in the smaller displacement. In fact, in Dorna’s cheer among the MotoGP favourites, champion Quartararo, runner-up Bagnaia and Márquez coincided with their forecasts: they placed themselves as winners of the premier class, Foggia in Moto3 and Acosta in Moto2.
