MotoGP: Morbidelli defeats Miller as Mir clinches title

The 13th round of the 2020 MotoGP World Championship, the Grand Prix of Valencia, took place in the Ricardo Tormo circuit, as Joan Mir had his first chance to win the championship.

It was Jack Miller who took the holeshot, but he ran wide on the exit having out-braked himself, allowing Franco Morbidelli, the pole sitter, into the lead, and the Italian led the first lap. 

From lap three, Morbidelli began to impose his pace as the field started to stretch out, but Miller and, for a while, Pol Espargaro were able to go with the Italian. That was until lap 12, when Morbidelli’s advantage went out to over one second, and it seemed that everything was in hand for the #21. 

By this point the pressure on Miller from Espargaro was fading, and the Spaniard was slipping back towards Takaaki Nakagami. The Japanese rider had made a mistake in the early stages at turn one and dropped to fifth, but having reclaimed fourth from Miguel Oliveira he was now chasing down Espargaro and on lap 14 he had the difference under one second. 

It took the #30 a while but he was eventually able to catch Espargaro, and at this point Nakagami was not entirely out of the question for the race win. The LCR Honda rider clearly had more grip on the shoulder of the tyre, as was evident through turn 13 on lap 20, by which point Nakagami was right on top of Espargaro, as the Honda nearly touched the rear tyre of the KTM through the penultimate turn. Nakagami seized the opportunity to attack, but he out-braked himself into turn 13 and folded the front, crashing out of his second podium opportunity in three races. 

That crash somewhat left Espargaro off the hook in third place, but he had to keep the pace up with Alex Rins only just over one second behind in fourth, and Brad Binder close behind Rins, in turn. 

Out front things were heating up at the point at which Nakagami crashed. Miller was able to find some time on Morbidelli and with 10 laps to go, a few laps before Nakagami went down, the Australian set the fastest lap of the race. 

Morbidelli was able to respond to this initial attack by Miller, but the Australian kept the intensity high and by lap 22 the gap was under half a second. It was clear that if Miller could get within 0.2 seconds going onto the straight he would have a relatively simple task to power by Morbidelli’s Yamaha on the straight with his more powerful Ducati.

Onto the final lap and that opportunity presented itself for the first time, but as on lap one, Miller ran wide and allowed Morbidelli to cut back and pass him on the brakes into turn two. 

It was inevitable that Miller would try again at turn four, and indeed he did, but what was less inevitable was the move Morbidelli put on Miller in turn five, which was very tough but fair nonetheless and left Miller with no immediate chance to retaliate. 

The next spot Miller would try would be turn 11, but the Yamaha’s superior turning capabilities allowed Morbidelli to hold a tighter, more defensive line through turn 10 and into 11. Miller had already committed to the move, however, and nearly ran into the back of the Italian. He avoided the Petronas Yamaha, but lost some crucial tenths of a second, which ultimately meant he was not close enough into the final corner to launch an attack at the last opportunity. 

The Ducati is fast, and much faster than the Yamaha, but the line in Valencia is not too far out of the final corner, and on this occasion it was not far enough down the straight for Miller, who lost out on a first dry weather MotoGP win by just under one tenth of a second. 

The victor, Morbidelli, was faultless the whole race. Despite the constant pressure from Miller, Morbidell barely missed an apex, just as in Teruel three weeks ago when he was mistake-free in defense from Alex Rins. It was Morbidelli’s third win of the season, making him the equal-most victorious rider of the year, levelling his teammate Fabio Quartararo whom he also jumped in the championship as Morbidelli climbed to second in the points. 

There is something of Joan Mir about Jack Miller in Pramac Ducati: he has been in a position to win with the satellite Ducati team on many occasions – Styria, Le Mans, now Valencia – yet somehow there is always someone or something in the way. In Styria he made the move he had to make to try to win, but he could not account for the arrival of Miguel Oliveira after the fact; in Le Mans his bike quit on him; and now in Valencia he has been out-duelled by Morbidelli and his quest for a first dry weather MotoGP win continues. 

Pol Espargaro was able to hang on to third place ahead of Alex Rins. It was the #44’s fifth podium of the season, making him the rider with the second-most podium visits this season, behind only Joan Mir with seven. In addition to that, Espargaro was the only rider to finish on the rostrum in both Valencia races, after his third place last weekend in the European Grand Prix. 

Fourth place for Alex Rins cost him second in the championship to Franco Morbidelli, to whom he now has a four-point deficit in the points. The Spaniard was under pressure for almost the whole race from Brad Binder, who was four tenths behind over the line in fifth – the #33’s best result since he was fourth in Austria. Behind the South African was his future teammate, Miguel Oliveira, whose pace suffered in the second half of the race meaning he dropped to sixth. 

Keeping Oliveira in his sights for most of the second half of the race was Joan Mir, whose seventh place was his worst dry finish of the season as he missed the podium for the third time since he was taken out by Iker Lecuona in the Czech Republic. However, it did not matter as the Spaniard swapped the #36 for a #1, crossing the line to become the 2020 MotoGP World Champion, the first new champion in the premier class since the man he dethroned, Marc Marquez, became champion in 2013, and the first Suzuki champion since Kenny Roberts Jr. in the year 2000. Mir and the GSX-RR have been by far the most complete package in 2020, and the Spaniard made one mistake all year, when he crashed out at turn 10 in the Spanish Grand Prix. Since then, Mir finished outside the top five only twice: in Le Mans and in today’s Valencian Grand Prix. When his title rivals were taking eighths and sevenths, or failing to score points, Mir was consistently in the top six and far more often than not was on the podium. Even though his first win only came last weekend, no one has looked more like a champion in 2020 than Joan Mir, whose reserved and grounded character isolated him from the rest in a year that has been challenging, hectic and fragile.

Behind Mir in the race was Andrea Dovizioso, which seems somewhat cruel considering the expectations of the #04’s season when it became clear that Marc Marquez would not be a factor in the championship this year. The qualities associated with the aforementioned Mir are those normally associated with Dovizioso, but a combination of bad luck, a disliking of this year’s Michelin rear tyre casing and an inability to find any consistency or speed with that tyre in the back of the Ducati led to what has ultimately been a disappointing campaign from the Italian who next year will take a sabbatical.

Just under seven seconds back of Dovizioso was Aleix Espargaro, who took his third top 10 of the season in ninth, 4.5 seconds ahead of Maverick Vinales. 

The factory Yamaha team had a nightmare in Valencia. Vinales had to start from pit lane last week as Rossi retired, and this weekend the Spaniard could only manage 10th and never had the pace of those ahead of him. For Rossi, a mistake while following Vinales cost him time early in the race and although he was able to recover almost all of that time before the end of the race, the Italian’s first finish since San Marino in September was only 12th place. 

Splitting the two Monster Energy Yamahas was Francesco Bagnaia who, like Rossi, made a mistake early in the race that cost him a top 10 and in the end he was 11th. 

Cal Crutchlow was behind Rossi in 13th in his penultimate race as a full time MotoGP rider, and he finished ahead of Stefan Bradl and Danilo Petrucci who took the final point in 15th. 

Alex Marquez, hurt after his huge high side in Q1 yesterday, was 16th ahead of Tito Rabat and Lorenzo Savadori who finished a MotoGP race for the first time, albeit in last.

Johann Zarco was the first retirement, crashing out as he battled with Alex Rins and Brad Binder. Fabio Quartararo completed a bad day in MotoGP for France as he ran on in turn two on the first lap before crashing out at turn six on lap eight, which ruled him out of the title on the spot. The aforementioned Nakagami was the only other retirement.