MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

When the 2023 MotoGP season is over, the Motegi round is likely to be seen as one of the turning points. Either because this is the place where Pecco Bagnaia and his team fixed their problems with the Ducati GP23 and stopped Jorge Martin's momentum in its tracks, or because he couldn't, and Martin would go on to sweep the title.

It is still too early to say which of those two versions of events will transpire, and the sprint race at Motegi did little to clarify the picture. Jorge Martin was unstoppable, shattering the pole record, beating the race lap record by over a second (though the sprint races don't count toward setting race lap records), and leading from start to finish, after shaking off a brief challenge from Brad Binder. But Pecco Bagnaia looked a lot better than he has done in recent races, finishing third and limiting the damage to Martin.

As the most populous nation in the world, and one that is absolutely mad for motorcycles, India deserved a motorcycling grand prix. And as a successful economy, it had the capacity to organize one. On Sunday, it got a proper MotoGP spectacle. The racing for the win in all three categories wasn't particularly exciting – three races, three runaway victories – but there was spectacle and sensation up and down the field. Surprises, and championships blown wide open. What more could you want?

Initial fears of disaster proved to be overblown. The track was as safe as most European tracks, with some room for improvement. The asphalt could do with being repaved, but the same is true for half a dozen circuits on the calendar. The facilities were generally outstanding, the crowds were decent for a first race with little promotion (making it happen mattered more than packing the grandstands to the rafters) and incredibly passionate. The standard of marshalling left something to be desired, though it was not outright dangerous, just not up to world championship standard.

The proof of any pudding is in the eating. And the proof of any MotoGP event is when the rubber hits the road for real: when the racing starts. The Grand Prix of India has been through a real rollercoaster in the past few months, from doubts that the circuit would be ready a few months ago, to worries that the track wasn't safe enough a couple of weeks ago, to the circuit being embraced by the riders yesterday after they finally got a taste of the Buddh International Circuit on a MotoGP bike.

But practice is practice, and only racing is for real, and the first ever grand prix motorcycle race to be held at BIC exposed a few weaknesses in the circuit's preparation. And it once again exposed the rather worrying state of MotoGP in 2023. There was a long delay due to the rain, the sprint race starting at 5pm, 90 minutes after the originally scheduled start. And there was yet another first-corner pile up, with another rider forced to miss Sunday's race due to injuries sustained in the crash.

What was the verdict on the first day of a historic Indian GP? "So fun," Jorge Martin said, speaking for pretty much everyone on the grid. "I really enjoy riding here. It was so, so fun." That fun translated into outright speed as well. "Straight away in the morning I felt good. then in the evening I was super competitive trying to improve some problems I had. The pace is good. the lap time was great also. So I’m very happy."

The Pramac Ducati rider wasn't the only rider to be impressed. "Really good," Marc Marquez agreed. "Better than everybody expected." The fears about safety had been allayed, which allowed the riders to get on with figuring out how to go as fast as possible without worrying about the consequences. "I think they did a very good job the last two months, and it’s true that we can improve a few things for next year but as riders we can give thanks because we can be in a normal way and just think about riding."

There are days when you are reminded that racing is not quite as important as we like to think it is. Saturday was one of those days. The news that Mike Trimby, IRTA CEO, had died on Friday night affected everyone in the paddock. To say that Trimby was a giant of the sport is an understatement. The only person who has had a greater impact on the shape of MotoGP and motorcycle racing in its current guise is Carmelo Ezpeleta.

And arguably, Trimby did more to make motorcycle racing safer than Ezpeleta, because he was elected by the riders as a safety representative, and went on to form IRTA, which had the political clout to improve safety because they had the power of collective bargaining. And Trimby had the moral courage to use that power to force race promoters and circuit owners to make drastic changes to make the racing safer. There are riders alive today who probably wouldn't have been if Mike Trimby hadn't taken the stance that he had.

MotoGP championships are hard to win and incredibly easy to lose. Yesterday, Pecco Bagnaia rode a stupendous race to finish second behind an unstoppable Aleix Espargaro in the sprint race. Today, Bagnaia took off at the start, and saw his race finish after just two corners. He highsided in front of a storming pack, lucky that his teammate Enea Bastianini had messed up the first corner and wiped out five other riders, clearing out the field somewhat and putting the rest on a state of high alert.

The fates smile on Bagnaia on Sunday at Montmeló. Brad Binder was unsighted by Maverick Viñales and Miguel Oliveira, and so had no warning that Bagnaia had crashed in front of him. Yet he managed to deflect his bike just enough that he merely clipped Bagnaia's leg, rather than hit the Italian. Amazingly, though Bagnaia was removed to the medical center by ambulance and examined both there and in a local hospital, he came away with no fractures, just a lot of bruising.

Dorna and the FIM announced at the end of the summer break that from Silverstone onward, they woulds start to enforce the minimum tire pressures mandated by Michelin. That enforcement would be delayed at the first round after the summer, the British Grand Prix, as both the sprint race on Saturday and the Sunday grand prix were classed as wet races. The sprint race started on a wet track, the grand prix started as a dry race, but the rain flag was shown, making it formally wet.

The agreement with Michelin was that minimum tire pressures would not be enforced in case of rain, as the conditions changed the stress on the tires and the load put into them considerably. So tire pressures were not checked at Silverstone.

Last weekend's Austrian Grand Prix was a different kettle of fish. Spielberg was caught in the heatwave which has gripped southern Europe, and the weekend was dry bar a few Alpine storms, which thankfully left the races pretty much untouched. The Red Bull Ring is also one of the tracks which most stresses the front tire, with a lot of exceptionally heavy braking, a lot of it uphill.

Punishment coming?

Sometimes after a race, I feel like there is a lot to write about. This is not one of those days, because it was not one of those races. In previous years, the Red Bull Ring has always delivered when it came to racing. But with conditions as close to perfect as possible – the only complaint you could have is that it was perhaps a little too hot – the weather wildcard was taken from the pack, and the race turned into a measure of rider and machine. And as it's the Red Bull Ring, where the key to speed is braking and acceleration, mostly machine.

So the race we got is a pretty fair reflection of the current state of MotoGP. The strongest rider/bike/team package dominated. The second strongest rider-bike package finished second. And the best of the satellite riders headed up a gaggle of last year's Ducatis. The Aprilias, who should have done better, got bogged down at the start, the launch off the line still very much the RS-GP's kryptonite. And the Japanese bikes spent their race battling to get into the top ten.

As I wrote in my preview for the Austrian Grand Prix on Thursday, something always happens at the Red Bull Ring. It is impossible to have a race here without some kind of unexpected drama unfolding. Although, if it always happens, is it still unexpected?

This Saturday's drama revolved around Jorge Martin and the first corner. A massive pile up there at the start of the sprint race saw Marco Bezzecchi, Miguel Oliveira, and Johann Zarco crash out. Martin got the blame, and was handed a Long Lap Penalty to be served on Sunday.

Was Martin really to blame? Yes and no. A little bit perhaps, though others played a role too. Mostly, though, the causes of the Turn 1 incident run much deeper, and are more troubling than the question of whether a particular rider's approach to the first corner was overly ambitious or not. And they highlight some of the underlying problems with MotoGP.