The idea that Francesco Bagnaia would hold the season’s first championship point with a round to spare would have been fanciful to imagine virtually any time this season, but sometimes MotoGP is going to MotoGP.
Bagnaia was 91 points down on Fabio Quartararo just nine races ago after crashing out of the German Grand Prix.
Since then he’s outscored the Frenchman by and average of 13 points per round to find himself in a most unlikely title lead and the chance to seal the deal with a race still to go.
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It’s now up to Quartararo to find a way to arrest his Italian rival’s seemingly unassailable momentum if he wants to take the title fight down to the wire.
If he’s going to do it, he might be able to count on Aleix Espargaró for help. The Spaniard refuses to say die despite now being a very long shot to secure the crown, and his attitude for the final two rounds will be win or bust. If he can get in Bagnaia’s way this weekend, it might be just enough of an opening for Fabio to pry into something more meaningful at the final round.
And that’s of course before we consider what else is going on in the premier class at the moment, which is quite a lot.
Ducati still needs to seal the teams championship ahead of Aprilia. The in-form Pramac team can take the independent teams crown ahead of Gresini. Marc Márquez’s Honda comeback continues apace.
And at a circuit the sport tested at during the pre-season, every bike ought to turn up in competitive trim, which should give us a ferocious penultimate race.
Whether that’s to Bagnaia’s benefit or detriment remains to be seen.
WHAT’S THE ARITHMETIC SAY?
The title fight swung so dramatically at Phillip Island that the expected prospect of a close fight to the final round has rapidly transformed into desperate fight for Quartararo’s championship survival against new points leader Bagnaia.
The maths with two races to go is very simple.
Bagnaia leads Quartararo by 14 points and needs a lead of at least 25 points the end of the weekend to win his first premier-class championship.
Bagnaia will win the championship if he finishes:
– first with Quartararo fourth or lower;
– second with Quartararo seventh or lower and Espargaró second or lower;
– third with Quartararo 11th or lower and Espargaró fourth or lower;
– fourth with Quartararo 14th or lower and Espargaró fourth or lower; or
– fifth with Quartararo out of the points and Espargaró fourth or lower.
Rins claims thriller in Phillip Island | 03:39
There are two other title contenders in the mix, but both are already beyond the 25-point margin and must therefore make up ground on the leader to avoid being put out of the championship race.
Espargaró is 27 points behind. He must outscore Bagnaia by at least three points to stay alive for the final round.
To stay in it, if Espargaró finishes:
– on the podium, Bagnaia must finish behind him;
– fourth, Bagnaia must finish sixth or lower; or
– between fifth and 13th, Bagnaia must finish at least three places behind him.
If Espargaró finishes 14th or lower, he will be eliminated.
Enea Bastianini is barely clinging onto this race. He’s 42 points adrift, meaning he must outscore Bagnaia by at least 18 points to win the title.
If Bastianini finishes:
– first, Bagnaia must finish ninth or lower; or
– second, Bagnaia must finish 14th or lower.
If Bastianini finishes third or lower, he will be eliminated.
CAN BAGNAIA KEEP IT COOL?
The fate of the championship is completely in Bagnaia’s hands in the last two rounds, even if he can’t guarantee an early end to the campaign this weekend.
But the despite the sizeable title lead, there’s one crucial question he still must answer.
Can he seal the deal?
The Italian’s 105-point turnaround has been a comeback for the ages, and if he can get it done, it would be the largest recovery in MotoGP history.
But that’s a lot of pressure, and pressure is the one thing Bagnaia appears to have struggled with this season, as illustrated by the characteristic crashes that put him in such an unenviable points position in the first place.
Earlier in the year he said the secret to his comeback was essentially not to think about it, and after winning the San Marino Grand Prix he said it wouldn’t be until he closed to within 10 points of the leader that he’d consider himself a championship chance.
Sure enough he did just that via a second place in Aragon and subsequently crashed out of the Japanese Grand Prix while battling Quartararo.
His points lead means he arguably has a little less at stake this weekend than he has in past rounds, but his mental approach is unwavering.
“Miller Corner” Phillip Island honour | 10:14
“Sincerely if I start thinking about the pressure, I will put pressure on myself,” he said. “So I will not think about it.
“For the next races my strategy will be to be intelligent, to try to do the weekend like we did all these races after the summer break, working session by session and trying to be very prepared for the race, to be competitive, and to be in front in the race.”
“I’ll just be calm and do the weekend like we always do.
“I’ll just be smart and be careful about everything, because it’ll be very important to finish the race and be in front.”
“Then we will see if it’s possible to be crowned there or in Valencia.”
That intelligent approach was evident in Phillip Island, where the race required careful management and where Quartararo’s early crash meant there was much to be gained. In that sense his decision not to fight back too aggressively after being demoted to third on the final lap could be the most important racing decision of his season.
It’s up to him to do it justice this weekend or the next.
DOES QUARTARARO HAVE ANY HOPE?
It’s not just the points picture that’s against Quartararo, it’s also the run of form.
In the last eight races Bagnaia has outscored him by more than 13 points.
Put differently Bagnaia has an average finishing position of 1.7, while Quartararo on average comes home eighth.
If they both come home just where they’ve tended to finish, the title is done and dusted.
What that average figure doesn’t tell you is that Quartararo’s last eight races have featured three DNFs, which is an explanation not just for the points he’s shipped to his rival but also for the reason he’s struggled so badly in the second half of the year.
These aren’t Bagnaia-style crashes; these are the accidents of a rider at the very limit of the bike’s potential.
It takes nothing away from Bagnaia’s incredible comeback to say Quartararo has been severely hamstrung by a bike package that just isn’t up to the fight.
Strangely, though, Quartararo spoke after the Australian Grand Prix like a rider who’s had a bit of pressure relieved from him — a stark contrast to his abrupt disappearance after failing to score in Thailand. His championship lead is now lost, and he’s an outside to get it back again by the end of the season.
“I don’t feel mentally like I’m overthinking too much or not,” Quartararo said, comparing his situation to his self-inflicted title collapse two years ago. “Mentally I don’t feel it’s like 2020.
“I’m just trying to do my best. I’m overriding so much the risk of having a mistake is really close.”
Sepang won’t suit his bike any better than Phillip Island given the Australian track should have been prime Yamaha country, even if parts of the track should play to his bike’s relative strength carrying speed through the middle of corners.
It means he’ll need to push the envelope ever further in what’s now a desperate bid to win back some precious points.
Key will be qualifying given how badly his M1 struggles in traffic. The only way he can hope to generate any race momentum is to have a clear track early. Anything less and it’s difficult to imagine him finishing ahead of enough of Ducati’s eight-strong rider stable to keep the fight alive.
“Now we need to turn the page, and we only have one job, and it‘s trying to win,” he said. “It’s going to be the toughest job of my career, but I’m ready to fight for it.”
CAN MILLER MAKE THIS A CAREER-BEST SEASON?
Twists don’t come much crueller than the 2022 Australian Grand Prix for Jack Miller.
Entering the weekend in the form of his life, riding a wave of home support from the largest Phillip Island crowd in a decade, being honoured with the renaming of turn 4 after him and riding in a podium position early — it should have all added up to an immensely satisfying strong home result.
Instead he got punted with a bike to the spine at the corner named after him and slapped with his first DNF since April.
“Of course [it had to happen there],” he said. “That’s the irony of it all.”
It put him out of the title fight and left his sights a little lower than they otherwise might’ve been in the final two rounds of his Ducati career.
But that’s not to say there’s nothing for him to gain in the last two races of the season.
Miller has been on a non-stop trajectory of improvement since his MotoGP debut way back in 2015, and despite Ducati falling out of love with him in his first season on the factory bike, that improvement has continued unabated.
Every year bar one he’s finished higher in the championship with a higher score of points per race, a formidable record.
Miller’s MotoGP trajectory
2015: 19th, 0.94 points per race
2016: 18th, 3.17 points per race
2017: 11th, 4.56 points per race
2018: 13th, 4.79 points per race
2019: eighth, 8.68 points per race
2020: seventh, 8.8 points per race
2021: fourth, 10.06 points per race
2022: fifth, 9.94 points per race*
He’s currently on 179 points for the year. To keep his record going he needs to total at least 202 points — that is, he needs to score 23 more points across the final two rounds.
But he can set his sights higher than that still.
“Aleix and Bastianini didn’t get too many points back [in Australia], so my main goal is to try and beat those guys or try to do the best I can to try and get as close to them as possible.
“At the end of the day that’s all we can do.”
Espargaró is third on 206 points, while Bastianini is fourth with 191 points.
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His current fifth place on the table is no disappointment after what’s been a strong season for the Australian, particularly in the last month and given his Ducati bike wasn’t the all-singing, all-dancing machine it is now at the start of the year. And he’s made good on his promise to end his Ducati tenure on a high.
But there’s more to be had for the Aussie, particularly given his move to KTM next season is almost certainly going to make podiums harder to come by drop him down the championship standings.
And if he wants a crack at a top-three finish, he must make his first move this weekend.
