Level-headed Morbidelli completes rise from obscurity to title contender
MOTOGP MISANO (ITA) 13 SEPTEMBER ROUND 6/14
Motorsport isn’t exactly a famed breeding ground for cool-headed individuals – not least at world championship level. Franco Morbidelli bucks that trend, however, in that he’s able to kick back off track, but is a force on it.
Morbidelli’s career is something of a triumph-over-adversity story. Plucked from obscurity in the European Superstock 600 series – which used to support World Superbikes – at the end of 2013, he moved into Moto2 full-time in 2014. Valentino Rossi then took Morbidelli under his wing in his VR46 Academy.
Morbidelli became the first Vr46-backed rider to win a world title when he bagged the 2017 Moto2 crown. In 2018, he was also the first to make it to Motogp. A tough Honda bike in Marc VDS colours masked his talent, and a move to Petronas SRT last year led him to be overshadowed by rookie sensation Fabio Quartararo.
Having had his “butt kicked”, the fact that Morbidelli dominated the 2020 San Marino Grand Prix while Quartararo crashed twice goes some way to showing just how much the former has upped his game this season.
Denied a podium in the Andalusian GP by engine issues, he made it onto the rostrum at Brno and threatened another visit in the first of two Misano weekends. Grabbing the holeshot off the line in Misano last weekend, Morbidelli “felt pressure” from his mentor Rossi hounding him. But then the SRT Yamaha rider began to build a gap. Standing at 1.1s at the end of lap 14, it continued to grow. The following tour, Morbidelli fired in a 1m32.748s – a lap some 0.5s quicker than what Rossi had managed.
This proved the turning point. Rossi had no response, and his attentions soon turned to another VR46 Academy star behind him.
Morbidelli’s lead grew to over 3s but he backed it off in the last two of “the most important” final 10 laps of his life – during which time he could reflect on numerous things, not least the Italian championship race win at Misano seven years ago.
That underfunded rider in 2013, so far away from Motogp, and who in January of that year had lost his father, was now a premier-class race winner – doing so on home soil, and on what is largely a 2019 M1.
A result like that would render most an emotional wreck, but Morbidelli’s first thoughts off the bike were simply, “In my opinion, the race went just fine.” Cool as ice.
His team-mate Quartararo, by contrast, got “too excited” when he dropped behind a struggling Maverick Vinales at the start into fifth. Desperate to chase down then-thirdplaced Jack Miller when clear of Vinales on lap eight, he crashed at Turn 4. A second crash later on ended a miserable but character-building day.
Francesco Bagnaia’s charge through to the podium places was a remarkable feat considering he’s still hobbling about on a crutch as he continues to recover from a
broken leg sustained at Brno. A brave pass on mentor Rossi at Turn 11 on lap 21 for second showed how unfazed he was to claim a maiden Motogp podium.
With Ducati nearing a decision on promoting either Johann Zarco (who was 15th) or Bagnaia to its factory team for 2021, the latter made a pretty convincing case.
Rossi couldn’t quite complete the VR46 podium clean-sweep, a hard-charging Joan Mir on the Suzuki firmly stripping him of third at Turn 10 on the last lap. Fourth for Rossi ended a banner day for his Academy.
Alex Rins battled late arm pump issues to finish fifth on his Suzuki ahead of Yamaha’s Vinales, who went from a lap-record-setting pole time to “a cone on track” in the race as the “usual” mystifying issues of Sunday form desertion struck again. He ruled out his choice to run the hard rear tyre – the only rider to do so – for his slump.
Andrea Dovizioso dragged seventh out of the Ducati and leads the standings by six points courtesy of Quartararo’s nightmare. Choosing the soft rear tyre made Miller’s race an outing of survival in ninth – though a track limits penalty for LCR’S Takaaki Nakagami promoted him a place. Pol Espargaro completed the top 10 in the first weekend of 2020 where KTM wasn’t a threat.
Morbidelli isn’t considering himself a title threat. He’s “just a satellite guy”, he claims. But just 19 points adrift of the championship lead, he’s as much a contender as anyone else right now.