MotoGP: Quartararo makes it two wins for Yamaha in 2021

The second round of the 2021 MotoGP World Championship took place at the Losail International Circuit, which hosted its second motorcycle grand prix in the space of a week. Jorge Martin started from his first MotoGP pole position, alongside Johann Zarco and Maverick Vinales on the front row.

Jorge Martin’s 14th-to-first start of last week’s Grand Prix of Qatar made him the favourite for the holeshot, and the Spaniard delivered, leading into turn one ahead of his teammate, Zarco, and Aleix Espargaro who had come from the head of row three.

The race looked like a Moto3 Grand Prix, with the top 10 covered by little more than two seconds for the majority of the race. This was because Martin out front knew precisely the Ducati game plan: ride as slowly as possible in order to conserve the tyres to be able to fight the Suzukis and Yamahas at the end. Additionally, Martin had Zarco as his rear gunner, in effect, and every time a Suzuki or Yamaha – primarily the #42 GSX-RR of Alex Rins – came past for the first 15 laps the #5 Pramac Ducati rider fired straight back in the straight.

While the start of the race had gone perfectly for Pramac Ducati, it had been a disaster for Yamaha, as the two factory riders dropped to 10th and 11th, with Fabio Quartararo ahead of Maverick Vinales, and Franco Morbidelli went from 10th to 13th. 

By half-distance, though, it was clear that the chances for Yamaha were not done, and the two factory Monster Energy YZR-M1s of Quartararo and Vinales began to make their way to the front. Both clearly had more edge grip than their rivals, but their issue was that the headwind that slowed the Ducatis in a straight line last week was absent this week, and so their top speed deficit was more significant. 

Even so, Quartararo was able to move his way up into the top four and start attacking the Ducatis, finally getting to the front on lap 19 with a move starting at turn three and ending at turn four on Martin that demonstrated perfectly the #20’s edge grip advantage compared to the rookie – who had led all the way to that point – as well as the Yamaha’s strong point in comparison to Ducati’s weak point: mid-corner turning. 

From there, Quartararo was untouchable, and he recorded his first win of the season, a strong rebound after a fifth tainted by rear grip issues last weekend. 

Behind, Johann Zarco left it until the last lap to pass Jorge Martin for second. The move came at turn 15, and Zarco had enough tyre left to out-traction Martin on the exit of the final corner, resigning the Spaniard to third. 

That third place was by no means a disappointment for Martin, though, who was hoping for a top six in the Grand Prix of Doha. After Pedro Acosta’s victory in Moto3 and Raul Fernandez’ podium in Moto2, Martin proved it was certainly the day of the Spanish rookies. What was perhaps most impressive about Martin’s ride was that he made no mistakes throughout the race, even when under significant pressure from the likes of Rins, Zarco and Quartararo. There was no running wide, no out-of-the-seat moments, crucially nothing to stress the tyres too much, and that allowed him to remain competitive from the beginning of the race until the end. 

Behind, Alex Rins was able to hold on to fourth place from Maverick Vinales, who began to override in the closing stages as he felt victory slipping away, and that caused mistakes which cost him a podium. 

Instead, Vinales completed the top five, ahead of Francesco Bagnaia. Bagnaia had a strong pace, enough to fight for the podium, but a mistake at turn one in the second half of the race forced him into the lower half of the top 10, and that meant he was stuck behind his teammate, Jack Miller, when the #43 ran into tyre troubles similar to those he suffered last weekend. 

Joan Mir also had a race dictated, somewhat, by Miller. The Spaniard spent much of the first half of the race looking at Miller’s butt patch, and forced a tough move on the factory Ducati rider that cost both of them time, as well as those behind, including Maverick Vinales. The response from Miller was to ride into the side of Mir on the exit of turn 16. The replays showed Miller exiting turn 16 tightly, much tighter than everyone else, and looking over at Mir before making significant contact that cost the pair even more time, and from which neither would really recover. Mir went on to finish seventh, while Miller took home his second ninth place of the year, while Brad Binder split the pair in eighth. 

Aleix Espargaro completed the top 10, which ordinarily would be a disaster, but his gap to the winner was only 5.382 seconds, making this the tightest top 10 in MotoGP history. The riders behind Espargaro, back to 15th, were Enea Bastianini in 11th, then Franco Morbidelli, Pol Espargaro, Stefan Bradl and Miguel Oliveira, and they were covered by 3.378 seconds. That meant the top 15 as a whole were covered by just 8.828 seconds, making the Grand Prix of Doha’s the closest top 15 in MotoGP history, as well. 

This is very impressive, and it is symptomatic of the unrivalled parity in the MotoGP World Championship in 2021. Every bike is competitive, and so is every rider – with the possible exception of Lorenzo Savadori. However, it is also symptomatic of riding around the same circuit for almost a total two weeks. Everyone had a setting, everyone knew the tyre they wanted to run (which was the same for everyone, soft-soft, bar the KTMs who went with the medium front), and everyone knew the strong and weak points of, not just their own bikes in Losail, but also those of the other machines as well. So, while these numbers are impressive, don’t expect them to be the norm – not this year, at least. 

Valentino Rossi was the first rider to not score points, and he was five seconds away from them after a truly miserable opening couple of races for the Italian in 2021. Behind him were Takaaki Nakagami, Luca Marini, Danilo Petrucci and Lorenzo Savadori, who was 20th and last. 

Alex Marquez crashed out of the second race in succession on lap 12, and on the same lap, Iker Lecuona crashed out as well.