Francesco Bagnaia leads the 2024 MotoGP world championship arriving in Portugal for the second round of the season, but his expected title rivals are poised to punch back.
Brad Binder and Jorge Martin gave good chase in Qatar. Martin, true to form, won in the sprint to briefly take the title lead on Saturday night, while Binder finished a strong second on both days to take the same position on the points table.
But Bagnaia did what Bagnaia does: kept calm and controlled the grand prix. The points are still biggest on Sunday, and that’s where the greatest challenge lies for his would-be rivals.
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The challenge will be greater at the Portimão roller-coaster, however. It’s a wildly different circuit to the flat and floodlit Losail, and riders won’t have the benefit of having had two days of preseason testing to lean on.
Will the form guide remain the same, or is a change in store in Portugal?
WILL QUARTARARO LOSE PATIENCE WITH YAMAHA?
Fabio Quartararo isn’t a happy rider.
The story of the last two seasons has been his intensifying disappointment with Yamaha’s haphazard and inconsistent progress.
After qualifying 16th and finishing 12th and 11th in Qatar, the Frenchman was moved to describe the 2024 M1 as the worst he’s ever ridden.
“We are further than last year,” he said, per Autosport. “We have improved a little bit, but they are even better and faster than last year.
“The gap between all the European manufacturers and us is even bigger. Even to Honda it felt that [in Qatar] we were missing something, and they are also struggling a lot. I felt we were even worse.”
Now he’s upped the ante considerably in his contract year.
“It will be soon,” he told the MotoGP website. “I don’t know the exact date, but I will not spend months to take a decision. It will be quite quick. We will see.”
The proclamation comes less than a week after Motosprint reported that Aprilia is interested in buying the 2021 champion, with Aleix Espargaró set to turn 35 next year and Maverick Viñales yet to reach his potential on the RS-GP.
The Japanese manufacturers are beneficiaries of new concession rules, with both already taking advantage of private testing allowances.
Yamaha will stick around in Portimão on Monday to conduct effectively back-to-back experiments following the grand prix.
It gives the brand a few precious extra chances to convince its champion that it’s on the right path — if in fact he hasn’t already made the decision.
It could mean Monday, not necessarily Sunday, will be Yamaha’s most important day of the round.
WHAT’S NEXT IN THE FEBRILE RIDER MARKET?
Ducati has been on the front foot in the rider market this season, first by locking down reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia on a long term deal and now by pre-emptively promoting Fermin Aldeguer to the premier class for 2025.
Aldeguer was briefly a major player late in last year’s silly season, when he closed the year with six straight podiums, including the final four victories of the campaign.
He’s widely regarded as being destined for Pramac, where Franco Morbidelli is attempting to acclimatise after his heavily disrupted preseason and where 2023 championship runner-up Jorge Martin is desperate to earn himself a factory seat.
The implications of his early promotion are clear: there’s one less place on the 2025 grid for the current crop of riders.
With 18 riders still without a contract and the market tipped to largely resolve itself in the next few months — long before the midseason break — there’ll be plenty of riders suddenly feeling the heat just one race into the campaign.
WHAT WILL COME OF MÁRQUEZ’S REALITY CHECK?
Marc Márquez’s Ducati switch was overshadowed in Qatar by the first superb performance of Pedro Acosta in the premier class but cannot be discounted.
Márquez, despite his glittering career, has won only once in Losail on a MotoGP bike. He’s finished on the podium just five times in total.
It reframes his fourth place two weeks ago and makes it look like a sleeper result.
But there are caveats on the caveat.
His Qatar weekend — fifth in qualifying, fifth in the sprint, fourth in the grand prix — came off the back of a two-days test at the same circuit and a three-day test in Malaysia one week earlier.
It was the culmination of long, deep preparation.
In Portugal he’ll start fresh.
“Portimão will be an important weekend,” he said, per The Race. “Normally in the test — in Malaysia and [Qatar] — I took time to arrive at a good lap time.
“The fact that we had a test [in Qatar] two weeks ago helped me a lot this weekend.
“In Portimão we will start from zero. There is where we need to understand where we are.”
The season is long and Márquez is clearly making strong progress adapting to the bike. He’ll surely be in victory contention at some of his favourite circuits — Circuit of the Americas and the Sachsenring spring to mind.
But on a year-old Ducati he’ll need to be operating at a very high level to contend for the championship. This weekend will give us a clearer picture of whether he’s getting close to that threshold.
CAN JACK MILLER BOUNCE BACK?
KTM has already established itself as one of the stories of the season, with another big off-season step — at least in the hands of Brad Binder, who exhibited victory-contending pace in Qatar.
Pedro Acosta was similarly impressive, briefly looking set for what would have been a sensational maiden podium before overly aggressive use of the tyres go the better of him.
Jack Miller, in a crucial contract year, had an opening weekend to forget.
Starting 11th — an unusual seven places behind Binder — he finished a forgettable and pointless 10th in the sprint and then took himself out of the race with a solo crash in the grand prix.
At the start of a season during which rumours abound that either Acosta or Márquez could vie for his factory KTM seat, it was hardly a convincing argument.
There’s never been a better time for him to begin a resurgence. In fact there may never be a better time.
Autosport has reported that Acosta’s contract contains a clause requiring him to ride for the factory team in 2025 if the Austrian brand wants to keep hold of him.
Notwithstanding KTM still wants to expand its stable to a third team, which could alter the calculus here, the pressure is clearly on Miller.
Portimão is a good place to start. He’s twice been on the podium here and has never qualified lower than fifth. He was quick last season too.
Maybe it’s too late to save his factory seat, but the time is now to fight for his place in the KTM stable and MotoGP.
Source Agencies
