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Two races into the fresh MotoGP season, and there's already an air of inevitability floating around the paddock. There’s also just one man’s name on everyone's lips – Maverick Viñales...
After winning both opening races, seemingly comfortably, he’s already being tipped as this year’s champion. With good reason though, mostly due to the huge points gap he holds over all the main players bar his team-mate Valentino Rossi. So is it over already? Of course not, too many things can (and probably will) happen over the course of the year, which could scupper his first meaningful attempt at clinching the big crown.
The biggest threat will be when the others get their respective shit together, because thus far, Maverick has been aided somewhat by mistakes elsewhere. In Qatar, Honda made the wrong tyre choice, leaving Marc Marquez and Dani Pedrosa flailing, and then in Argentina they were unable to get the chassis to work properly with the Michelin front, and we saw both riders have near identical crashes on the same corner. True, Marquez was vanishing into the distance up until his crash, but a solitary fourth-place finish from two-races now leaves him with a mountain to climb, because we doubt Viñales will be finishing off the podium much, if at all, for the rest of the year.
It doesn’t make Marc’s task impossible though, mostly because he’s spent the last few years of his career making the seemingly impossible, well, possible! And despite the Honda’s continuing and baffling weak points, such as acceleration and top-speed, Marquez has the skills to overcome them and Honda the knowledge to fix them. This isn’t over yet, by a long shot, oh no.
But focussing on the Honda’s woes is a strange phenomenon, not since the early 1990s has it been so recalcitrant and difficult for riders to race. But at least back then it was the quickest bike on the grid, earning on many tracks the then oft referred to ‘Honda Lanes’, where the NSRs would destroy anything else in a straight line. In 2017, their single advantage is in corner entry, but only when they can get the chassis to work right with the Michelin rubber and, hence, why they almost always choose the hardest of the front tyre options available to them. To see Honda struggling as they have the last season or two is remarkable, but probably gratifying to many areas of the paddock.
Back to Viñales, and who else can match him? Ducati, despite Andrea Dovizioso’s Qatar podium, appear to have made a backwards step, especially given their older (now) privateer bikes are kicking their factory arses. And the less said about poor Jorge Lorenzo’s luck thus far, the better. Cal Crutchlow? We love the guy, but past form displays too much inconsistency. Suzuki? Nope, not a chance, Andrea Iannone may turn up at a race or two, but that will be it. So right at this time this leaves just one man – that Rossi fellow.
He’s admitted that he’s got lucky so far hitting the podium twice, having been lost at sea during pre-season and not quite on the boil during the races. But his experience and racecraft came to the fore on Sundays, saving his pancetta and keeping him in the hunt. Beating Viñales will be tricky, although he’ll have a great chance at certain circuits no doubt. If he can sort out his practice problems, and thereby his qualifying performances, it’s possible he could run with him. As we said, don’t rule out Marquez, but for now it’s fitting that the old man of the grid is the only fellow keeping the young Yamaha upstart honest, wouldn’t you say?