MotoGP: Who faces a make or break 2020 season?

With all riders coming to the end of their contracts (except Tito Rabat) the 2020 season will be vital in order to persuade team bosses to give riders a ride for 2021. 

Ryan Lily takes a view over which of motorcycle racing’s biggest stars will be key to the 2021 driver’s market and who needs to prove themselves.

From veteran’s potentially facing the end of their career to young riders facing a difficult 12 months, who needs to have one of the best seasons of their career?

Valentino Rossi

The biggest talking point going into the 2020 season is whether or not the nine-time World Champion Valentino Rossi will choose to extend his Yamaha contract, or join the Petronas Yamaha team in a seat swap with upcoming French star Fabio Quartararo.

Rossi, who last stood on the premier class podium in Austin, Texas at the start of the 2019 season, needs to have a more competitive season after the Italian was left languishing down in seventh in the overall standings, his joint-worst ever Championship finish in the MotoGP class after finishing Seventh overall in 2011. 

Valentino Rossi, like all of his adoring fans, will hope to continue into 2021, however, Valentino Rossi has confirmed that the first half of the season will be crucial to understand his and the Yamaha M1’s level going into the second half of the season.

Traditionally, Valentino Rossi has started the past seasons strong, three podiums in the opening three races in 2017, before finishing tenth in Jerez, a podium in Qatar in 2018 followed up by a double podium in both Argentina and America last season.

Valentino Rossi will have to wait until the likes of Jerez and his home race in Mugello, where the future is most likely to be announced, to get an understanding of just how competitive the number forty-six is. 

Danilo Petrucci

Since joining the Factory Ducati Team at the start of 2019, Danilo Petrucci has had a mixed bag of results.

The Italian joined the Factory Ducati team for 2019, after spending four years with the Satellite Pramac Ducati team. Petrucci’s form in the opening half of the year was as expected, fighting for podiums and race victories.

In the first half of the season, Petrucci picked up two podiums along with his first-ever MotoGP victory in the Tuscan hills of Mugello. 

However, Petrucci’s form at the start of the season bagged him a contract extension with the Factory Ducati team, but that’s when his form dropped off.

Since signing the contract in the Summer break, Petrucci failed to break inside the top five, picking up seven top-ten finishes in the final ten races.

The Italian’s lack of form re-ignited rumours that Jack Miller could replace the lanky Italian in the Ducati camp.

However, Petrucci was able to hang on to his ride for 2020 but faces a make or break year.

If Petrucci and Miller have another season like 2019, you would bet on Ducati swapping the pair around putting the Australian on a Factory Ducati for the first time since Casey Stoner’s dominant Ducati days in 2007-2010.

Petrucci will need to be aiming for consistent podium finishes, battling his good friend and teammate Andrea Dovizioso week in week out. 

Johann Zarco

Johann Zarco’s 2019 season was nothing short of dramatic.

The Frenchman left the Tech 3 Yamaha team at the end of the 2018 season to join the Austrian manufacturer KTM. 

It was clear from the start that Zarco was struggling with the adaptation from the sweet turning Yamaha M1 to the Steel-trellis framed KTM and failed to finish inside the top ten until Catalunya in June.

Zarco’s double non-finish that followed Montmelo left the Frenchman disheartened going into the summer break. Despite this, he came back and put the KTM on the front row in a wet qualifying session at Brno but fell to fourteenth in the race.

His poor form continued at Silverstone when fighting fellow KTM rider Miguel Oliveira. Zarco lost the front as he attempted a pass on the Portugese rider, taking the pair down and leaving Oliveira with an injury. Finishing the next race in Misano in eleventh, he subsequently walked out of the KTM team ahead of Aragon.

The MotoGP paddock was now wondering what was next for the former double Moto2 World Champion, but a life-line came after the Japanese Grand Prix when Takaaki Nakagami announced that he would undergo Shoulder surgery in Japan, missing the final three rounds of the season.

This gave Zarco the opportunity he needed to secure a ride for the remainder of 2019.

Joining Cal Crutchlow in the LCR Honda team from Phillip Island and instantly impressed. Zarco’s Honda debut ended with a thirteenth place finish on the Island circuit before being taken out of a top-ten finish in Malaysia and a crash in Valencia.

As we all know, Jorge Lorenzo announced his retirement at the end of the 2019 season. There was speculation as to who would get the vacated Factory Repsol Honda seat.

It is understood that after Zarco signed for KTM in 2018, Honda approached the Frenchman so we were expecting the fire to re-ignite and Zarco to join Honda alongside Marc Marquez. But as we now know that wasn’t the case.

Zarco was then once again left without a ride for the 2020 season, that was until a meeting held by Ducati bosses Paolo Ciabatti and Davide Tardozzi and the trio reached an agreement along with the Reale Avintia team to put Zarco on a GP19 alongside Tito Rabat for 2020.

Given Zarco’s lack of adaptation to new bikes, the Frenchman will have to find the sweet spot on the GP19, if he fails to do so and has another season like 2019 then the Frenchman could quickly lose his MotoGP career.