MotoGP 2016 Is A Go: The Season Preview And New Changes

The MotoGP season is underway with a new tyre supplier and technical regulations, but two familiar faces are doing the best job of adjusting to the changes.

The time for speculation is over as far as the MotoGP world championship is concerned. Two major changes in the form of a new tyre supplier and standard electronics had MotoGP fans expecting a seismic shift among the very top of the grid. Many of those expectations were from die-hard Valentino Rossi fans who hoped that a less predictable tyre than Bridgestone rubber would trip up the spectacularly fast Marc Marquez and the robot smooth Jorge Lorenzo.

On the evidence of the opening three rounds of the season, however, Marquez and Lorenzo are coping with the changes just fine while Rossi is struggling not only to keep up but to also keep Ducati and Suzuki at bay.

Andrea Dovizioso and Andrea Iannone have shown genuine pace on a far improved Ducati that managed to threaten the established Yamaha-Honda duopoly on merit, rather than the performance concessions they had last year. Of course, the picture could change once the MotoGP circus hits Europe and the pace and potency of development of the Japanese giants really becomes apparent.

The Italians can still legitimately hope for podium finishes or possibly a fortuitous win. The hope would be for a lot more in 2017, however. The combined forces of Casey Stoner in a development role and Jorge Lorenzo’s arrival are expected to be the final steps in allowing Ducati to return to the position of championship challengers. Something they have not managed since Stoner moved to Honda after 2010 and not even with the services of Rossi for the subsequent two seasons.

Before that, however, there is the remainder of the 2016 season and Lorenzo continuing to be a thorn in Rossi’s side to look forward to. The veteran Italian’s penchant for creating animosity with his rivals has seemingly resulted in the rejuvenation of Lorenzo and in particular Marquez as competitive threats.

It became particularly obvious in Austin that Michelin’s tyre construction is causing riders to tread on egg-shells to go faster or go beyond the limit of adhesion and pay the price. With no rider was this more apparent than Marquez, whose background in dirt riding had him making the most of uncertain grip while the likes of Rossi and Pedrosa literally fell by the wayside.

There have been some noticeably negative impacts to racing in MotoGP too, however, on account of Michelin’s tyre construction that doesn’t allow riders to go on maximum attack for lap after lap with supreme confidence. Argentina was an example of that where tyre troubles for Pramac Ducati led to the enforcement of a mid-race bike change for the entire grid in order to err on the side of caution.

It was a bit reminiscent of Michelin’s troubles when they entered Formula 1 as a tyre supplier in 2005, where tyre failures for the teams supplied by the French firms had them calling for a temporary chicane set up on the banking of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway during the United States Grand Prix.

While the situation in Argentina this year was nowhere near as drastic, the enforced bike change did have dramatic results. Marquez and Rossi led the shortened race at its halfway point and were running nose-to-tail when they dived into the pits. However, Marquez shot away from Rossi faster than a speeding bullet to open up a gap of nearly eight seconds by the end of the race. Rossi, in the meantime, fell into the cluthes of Suzuki’s Maverick Vinales – the man rumored to be the Italian’s teammate at Yamaha when Lorenzo leaves – and Ducati’s two Andreas.

Rossi should count himself lucky to come away from that race with a second place after Vinales crashed out and then Iannone took out Dovizioso in an attempt to claim second that bordered on the comical. Even more so because the incident was at the penultimate corner of the last lap of the race.

Dovizioso’s misfortunes continued in the next round at Austin when an out of control Pedrosa lost control of his Honda and took out the Italian while Iannone went on to finish third.

With the first round of ‘flyaway’ races over, a more predictable pattern could emerge as MotoGP races through its European leg that won’t end until 25 September. A lot could change by then and it would be unwise for fans to lose focus as Lorenzo tries to lock into ‘robot mode’, Marquez tries to power-slide into history and Rossi tries to beat the odds as well as the inevitable march of time.