Michael Scott | July 4, 2024
Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
Is a Grid Full of Brawlers Better Than a Handful of Gods?
MotoGP is getting crowded. It’s always been tough at the top. But has it ever been quite this numerous? Back in the 1950s there was some variation in machines and people, and a few different winners. Then the Japanese turned up, and the smaller classes were manic. But the premier class hasn’t seen this sort of feverish variety for 70 years or more. If ever.
The “Aliens.” Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa, Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo. Photo Gold & Goose
Machine-wise, the grid is booming.
There are three strong factory teams—Ducati, Aprilia and KTM—jostling for position. The balance currently favors the first-named, but it is increasingly delicate, the advantage whittled away by degrees. Aprilia has racked up three Sprint and one feature-race wins so far this year; KTM is always banging on the door, with increasing persistence.
Then the two troubled Japanese teams—Honda and Yamaha. Both are looking pretty feeble right now. Honda especially dismal. But they are striving to recover; and considering their combination of stature and budget, they must be expected to succeed. Discounting either of them in the long- or even medium-term just doesn’t cut it.
The technical boom has nothing on the explosion of talent. Something to do, without doubt, with youth training programs and junior championships, most especially in Spain, where in the old days there was just a reliance on enthusiasm and natural talent to feed the grid.
Now in MotoGP, a class of brilliant practitioners is bookended by the old and new geniuses from Spain: Marc Marquez and Pedro Acosta. You might think the latter has yet to prove himself fully, considering Marquez won not just six races in his rookie season, but also the title, against some tasty opposition, including Lorenzo, Pedrosa and Rossi. Acosta hasn’t quite matched that, but he’s been pretty amazing all the same. He is running out of time to depose Marc from the “youngest-ever” crown—he must win either at Assen or in Germany. But still, that first win can’t be too far away.
The quality in between is far from shabby. Some (though not everyone) rate Bagnaia up with the all-time greats. For me, he’s just one of the all-time very goods, though I do understand the case is arguable. Jorge Martin shares that status, and likewise might yet improve on it. Of course, however, both are truly brilliant.
There’s more: the mercurial Vinales—an also-ran one week, unbeatable the next. Master-passer Brad Binder, for whom the mantra that overtaking is nowadays almost impossible has simply failed to register. The perennially underrated Enea Bastianini, whose late-race pace is often unmatchable. The simmering talent of Fabio Quartararo, hamstrung by Yamaha’s malaise.
This is not even to mention Jack Miller, Miguel Oliveira and Marco Bezzecchi, all having something of an off year now, but all three of them past race-winners. As is Di Giannantonio. And Alex Rins. And Joan Mir… Then the ex-Moto2 stars, the no-relation Fernandez not-twins Raul and Augusto.
Fascinatingly, next year sees a major shuffling of the pack: Vinales and Bastianini to KTM; Martin and Bezzecchi to Aprilia. And the dream (or it is nightmare) factory Duke pairing of Bagnaia and Marquez.
Much of this realignment unthinkable a year ago.
That’s not all. Superbike superstar Toprak Razgatlioglu (crazy name, crazy guy) needs only to win the SBK title this year on the BMW to activate an escape clause in his contract, and is strongly rumored to be anxious (finally) to come to MotoGP. Given his stated aim of only joining a factory team, this might seem to steer him towards Honda, so that a year of learning the ropes could coincide with the Big H recapturing its missing mojo. But there are places coming available also at Pramac, now definitely switching to Yamaha, and possibly Aprilia too.
The upshot? This year is pretty good so far, and looking entirely likely to get better. And next year will shove it into the shade. Probably.
And yet …
Call me old-fashioned, and you’d be right, because I go back a long way, to the time that some like to call the Golden Age, when the mad “unrideable” two-strokes held sway, and a small handful of so-called “aliens” were the only people able to ride them to the limit.
Back then you pretty much knew that it would be one of three riders to win: from a roll-call over a decade or more including Kenny Roberts, Freddie Spencer, Eddie Lawson, Randy Mamola, the Waynes Rainey and Gardner, and Kevin Schwantz. And later just the one—Mick Doohan.
I go back a long way, to the time that some like to call the Golden Age, when the mad “unrideable” two-strokes held sway, and a small handful of so-called “aliens” were the only people able to ride them to the limit.
There was the elite, and the also-rans. And nobody minded, even the mid-fielders, because it gave them something to aspire to.
So which is better? A handful of gods, or a grid full of brawlers? Answers on a postcard, please. But don’t bother to post it, because in the end, you just enjoy what you get. CN
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