Analysis

After all the talk, the riders finally to walk the walk. Or rather, ride the new surface at the Circuit of The Americas in Austin, Texas. After the bitter complaints last year about the bumps, the MotoGP riders got to experience for themselves just what a difference a new layer of asphalt made.

At the start of the first session of the day, I headed up the hill and around the first half of the track, stopping to watch the Moto2 bikes through Turn 2, and then wandering around to Turn 10 – a decent hike at a vast track, but frankly, I need the exercise. Last year, the bikes had been bottoming out through the bump on the entry to Turn 2, where this year the rear was clearly moving, but not excessively.

At Turn 10, what looked like a motocross step-down had been largely tamed. There was still a sizable bump there, enough to kick the riders out of their seats, but it was no longer the terrifying ordeal it had been. "Turn 10, if you are not on the line, it is tricky, but on the line is OK," was Fabio Quartararo assessment.

From dangerous to difficult

The start of the 2022 MotoGP season has been labeled chaotic. There have been nine different riders on the podium in the first three races, with nobody managing to get on the podium twice. There have been three different leaders in the teams championship, and two different leaders in the riders championship, with Aleix Espargaro taking over from Enea Bastianini, and Ducati and KTM have swapped the lead in the manufacturers championship. The winners of the first three races were three different riders on three different bikes. How are we expect to make sense of that?

At first, there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to the start of the season. Fans, pundits, and experts have racked their brains trying to make sense of 2022 so far. Every race seems to throw up new anomalies, every time a rider has a strong race, they seem to falter badly at the next race. Consistency appears to have gone out of style in a big way.

While it may look like chaos reigns in the premier class, that is not the full picture. The season is starting to take shape, but for most teams, the biggest issue is finding a base setting that works everywhere. At some tracks, the bikes work well. At others, a key piece of the puzzle is still missing.

Why the mess?

The Grand Prix of Argentina continues its proud tradition of weirdness, with Friday skipped and a day and a half of practice and qualifying crammed into Saturday. The missing cargo, the result of not one but two planes breaking down between Mandalika and Termas de Rio Hondo, meant that Friday was canceled and the work of preparing for practice started around 2am on Saturday morning, as bikes and equipment were delivered up and down pit lane. But MotoGP as a whole pulled it off: apart from the weird schedule, practice and qualifying happened, and history was made.

With missing bikes and parts, teams had gone back to their hotels early on Friday afternoon, to get some sleep ahead of a long night. But you wouldn't know it looking at the pit boxes on Saturday morning. The work of a couple of days was condensed to a few short hours.

With success, for some. The Mooney VR46 Ducatis had turned up in the dead of night, and the crew had worked through the night to get the bikes ready for practice and qualifying. Luca Marini rewarded their grit and hard work with a front row start in Argentina, his second after the one in Misano last year.

No rest for the wicked

"My team did an amazing job so thanks to them and thanks to Ducati because they prepared for me two perfect bikes today," Marini said on Saturday evening. "It was not so easy for them because they did the work in just eight hours. They always do it in two days normally."

Despite being back to something resembling relative normality, MotoGP is off to a strange start in 2022. The season opener at Qatar saw the favorites fall short, and a surprise winner and championship leader. The second race, at Mandalika in Indonesia, nudged uncomfortably close to farce, the rain saving the MotoGP race from disaster. But like many wet races, the result was far from representative.

For round 3, MotoGP heads to Argentina, and the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit. The track in Argentina is a lesson in contrasts. The layout is magnificent, a fast, sweeping track with challenging corners, a straight that emphasizes acceleration over outright horsepower, and plenty of spots to pass other riders. But the location – near a modest town, and some distance away from major population centers – means the track gets little use outside of the MotoGP weekend. That usually leaves the surface of the track a mess, covered in dust and dirt, making preparation difficult.

Drama central