Fabio Quartararo: A Man for All Seasons?

MotoGP

Let’s start at the top, Fabio Quartararo, the 2021 MotoGP World Champion, and what a worthy champion he turned out to be. Riding a blatantly underpowered Yamaha M1, he put the mistakes of 2020 behind him, took a sharp intake of breath and consistently and persistently put the Yamaha on many poles and enough races to take the title. Now it is 2022, and he has been quoted as saying it’s a new championship starting with zero points, that the world championship is a good memory but just that. So, Fabio is good to go, his Achilles heel is the M1’s top speed. At the test at Mandalika the Yamaha posted 189.5mph, the fastest Ducati, 195.6mph, ridden by Zarco. Fabio has been there before, and we have no doubt he is one of the main contenders for this season.

Towards the end of 2021, Francesco Bagnaia started to shine, and then some. It was, as we all remember an exciting end to the season, with Pecco and Fabio at each other, physically on the track and mentally off it. It is easy to look at the Ducati’s power advantage and the well-developed launch control system, but Miller had the same, so it became clear it was Pecco’s riding ability, which propelled him to nearly taking the championship, and no doubt he is in the running for 2022. Pecco, like Fabio, has a brutal training programme off the bike and motivated by his end of season results, he will hit the ground running. Another factor is that Ducati occupies one-third of the grid for 2022, eight riders that the others have to contend with.

Marc Marquez has experienced a torrid time in the last two seasons but came back at the end of 2021 to show that he is still a force to be reckoned with. If the elbow injury and all its complications were not enough, then he had to contend with the training accident and the subsequent double vision, the second time in his career where this has plagued him. Yet again towards the end of 2021, he proved his mental strength and tenacity in dealing with the problems and worked hard to overcome the physical disadvantage, winning races when some had written him off. The Honda has undergone a ground-up build, and is a very different bike to the one only Marquez in the past has been able to manage, so this season is a new page for Marc and the other Honda riders.

It is said that you are only as good as your last race, and that could be said of a world championship, but it can also be said, once a champion always a champion, and so Joan Mir is in a good place. Late last season Mir and the Suzuki seemed to come on song again, his results reflecting that. The 2022 bike looks superb and the team and rider have the confidence of that world trophy in the cabinet, so they have to be contenders for this year.

The Moto GP class is the closest it has ever been in terms of front to midfield times and positions, and every season throws up a surprise or two, so although we have concentrated on what we consider to be the top four contenders, there will be others. Amongst these the most stand out for us will be Raul Fernandez, the KTM rider, a rookie in MotoGP after losing the Moto2 championship by only four points to teammate Remy Gardner in 2021. Raul is ready to prove a point, finding it irksome that Remy won the championship after many years in the class, whereas he nearly won it in his rookie season. Point taken, but it is what it is, and Remy is the world champion, so Raul is fired up, expect fireworks in the Tech 3 KTM team and beyond!