What to Expect in 2017?

Which factory will get it right? Which rider will get it right?

WILL THERE BE NINE WINNERS THIS SEASON, OR EVEN MORE? PROBABLY NOT. Last season was weird because riders, teams and factories had to cope with a major technical shift — new tyres and electronics. Such changes usually deliver one of two results: either one factory hits the nail on the head and clears off into the distance (as did Ducati in 2007, the first year of the 800s), or no one gets it right and the racing is brilliantly topsy-turvy.

racesAs always,are over, we but won’twe can really make know some who’s reasonablegot it right guesstimates,until the first followingtwo or threethe first winter tests at Valencia, Jerez and Sepang last November.

Don’t be surprised if Jorge Lorenzo wins the first race in Qatar. The threetime MotoGP king was fast first time out on the Ducati at Valencia, plus he goes well at Losail (he’s won three of the past five Qatar GPs) and the Ducati goes well there (they were on the podium in 2015 and 2016). Lorenzo.It’s impossibleIt’s not simplyto overestimatea case of winninghow muchhis first victory race in for Qatar Ducati. will So meanfar onlyto one rider has won back-to-back premier-class GPs on different makes of bike — Valentino Rossi, with his last race for Honda and his first for Yamaha. If Lorenzo wins in Qatar, he will straightaway destroy one of Rossi’s unique achievements. Make no mistake, Lorenzo has a lot of scores to settle with VR, as does Ducati’s test rider Casey Stoner.

If Lorenzo does win the first race, it doesn’t mean he will win the championship. The Ducati gets better every year but it’s still less consistent from one track to another than the Honda or Yamaha. Lorenzo will most probably have winning pace at a few tracks and not at others. Thus the championship will probably be fought out by Honda and Yamaha, like the majority of championships since 1982. This means Marc Marquez on a Repsol RC213V and Rossi and Maverick Viñales on Movistar M1s. Rossi, who turned 38 on 16 February, could win the title if he puts the jigsaw together fastest vis-a-vis anyone else. The Michelins suit his technique because he spent the first eight years of his premier-class career on the French tyres, which retain the same basic characteristics — a lot of rear grip and less front grip, which is what caused him to crash out at COTA, Assen and Motegi. All he needs to do this year is avoid those mistakes. And beat Marquez, of course. The youngster takes aim at his fourth MotoGP title in five years and it won’t be easy to beat him because he has the measure of the Michelin front better than anyone. He can use his storming corner-entry technique and still stay in control because he is the master at controlling front-end slides and skids. And this year his RCV should be easier on corner exits because HRC have a revised engine with long-bang firing intervals, for friendlier power delivery. Rossi will also have to beat his team-mate. Viñales will be as fast as Lorenzo was on the Yamaha; maybe, faster, which will present a huge challenge to the world’s most popular rider. Fast youngsters usually inspire Rossi to ever greater things, so that’s what he will need to take from Viñales, who was the only top rider who crashed less with the Michelins last year than he had with the Bridgestones in 2015. That alone suggests he will be devastatingly fast and consistent in 2017.