And just like that, Fabio Quartararo is back in control of the championship.
You can cut the defending champion’s ascension to the top of the standings two ways. Firstly, it’s absolutely indicative of how wide open this series is that after a lacklustre opening four rounds he’s able to lead the thing after a single win.
Second, it was a reminder of his undimmed speed when his bike pairs well with the track and the conditions — a warning to the field ahead of a pair of crucial races for Yamaha.
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Further back, the less said about Jack Miller’s race the better, with another opportunity for a strong result squandered in the gravel — but his up-and-down results weren’t the only reason his name made headlines this week as the silly season evolves.
And on a wild weekend of mixed weather we got a major shaking up the competitive order and yet somehow no clearer a picture of where this title is heading. There’s another round of racing on the cards this weekend; it’s fair to say most riders will relish the back-to-back chances to either continue building momentum or wipe Portugal from their memories.
EL DIABLO FIRES UP HIS TITLE DEFENCE AT KEY TRACK
The emotion was palpable as Fabio Quartararo mounted the top step of the podium. It was the first time he’d won a race in eight months, a dry spell running back to last year’s British Grand Prix, and it was clearly a substantial weight lifted from his shoulders.
Quartararo has been one of the season’s dominant storylines. Almost weekly he’s been unafraid to remind the world of his disappointment with Yamaha’s lack of progress with its 2022 bike, complaining that the lack of straight-line speed was leaving him literally powerless to prevent prospective title rivals from piecing together early campaign leads.
But there was never any doubt about the defending champion’s commitment on the bike; it was a matter of when the circumstances would allow him to put together a winning weekend.
The stars aligned for the first time this season on an unsettled weekend in Portugal, with rain on Friday and Saturday meaning teams and riders struggled to build a rhythm ahead of the race.
It was an opportunity for Quartararo to take his fundamentally solid bike and ride through the chaos, and once he took the lead early in the race, that familiar metronomic consistency meant there was never going to be any catching him, and he looked every bit the champion of last year.
Almost unbelievably Quartararo is back at the top of the riders standings, his win differentiating him from Álex Rins, who’s equal with him on 69 points.
“It was quite a long time since I achieved the victory,” Quartararo said of his emotional podium appearance. “But also [it’s because of] the tough times that I had this year. It was a short time, four races, but when you win the championship you always want to fight again for the championship.
“I knew I had a great pace, but I was surprised to be so fast in the race.”
This is an important run of races coming up for the defending champion. He rated his chances in Portugal as only 50-50 but has earmarked the next two rounds, in Jerez and Le Mans, as key grands prix to maximise his machinery.
If he’s going to mount a title fight, it’ll likely hinge on the next three weekends. The stars aligned once. Can they align again?
MILLER COPS BIG BLOW ON WEEKEND OF CONTRACT SPECULATION
Jack Miller’s name is mentioned almost reflexively whenever a MotoGP circuit is struck by unsettled weather, and the Australian acquitted himself solidly for most of the weekend — right up until the final six laps in fact.
Starting fourth and racing for the podium seems to be the most that can be squeezed from the factory Ducati GP22 at this stage of the season, and he was duly battling for third when things went badly wrong, tucking his front wheel as he attempted to pass underneath Joan Mir and wiping both out of the race.
“Crashing out of a race that late and from a good position is always shitty, and then taking out a rival makes it even worse, and I feel like a real stinker,” he said after the race.
The clumsy crash came at a frustrating time for Miller, who’s arguably in a decent vein of competitiveness but keeps having his momentum interrupted. A technical failure took him out in Qatar, front-tyre grip problems counted him out in Argentina and now an error dropped him from a likely podium finish. His clean results to date are fourth in Indonesia and third in the US.
But the situation has been made messier by the contract stories following him around in the last fortnight, with rumours of a switch to Pramac two weeks ago usurped by whispers about an LCR poaching this weekend dominating the narrative around the Australian as the silly season heats up.
Miller is used to batting away speculation by now, but with his future far from certain and the field extremely competitive, burnishing his reputation is still important ahead of contract negotiations with whichever team he talks to.
TITLE HOPEFULS TAKE A TUMBLE
Some say MotoGP’s return to Europe is when the season really starts, and that felt particularly true after the unpredictable opening set of flyaway races gave us little in the way of a form guide.
It was obviously a good day for the podium-getters, all of whom were making repeat appearances on the rostrum to mark themselves out as season-long threats, but there were more title contenders having bad days on Sunday than there were those enjoying the return to the old continent.
Erstwhile championship leader Enea Bastianini had a particularly difficult weekend in the wet. He started 18th after crashing in the treacherous wet-dry Q1 and was off his bike by lap 9, dropping to fourth in the standings and eight points down.
Jorge Martin suffered his third retirement in three races in a significant blunting of his early-season title-contending hype. This was also the first weekend he couldn’t put his bike on the front row of the grid, having been knocked out in the tricky Q1 in a reminder he’s not yet the finished article.
Brad Binder, who’d been so consistent early in the season when his bike was operating smoothly, crashed clumsily after 17 laps, and Miller and Mir infamously came together one lap later.
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Together they comprised two riders among the top five and five riders among the top 10 of the title standings before Portugal; now only Bastianini is clinging onto the top five, with the rest slipping down further down the points and Martin dropping out of the 10 altogether.
Consistency alone might not be enough to win the championship this season, but with so many riders in victory contention every week, reliable results are fundamental to having a ticket to the final part of the season, and a handful of needless dry-weather crashes are exactly the kind that’ll be reflected upon as decisive come November.
TWO RIDERS BUCK THE WET-WEATHER TREND TO BUILD MOMENTUM
Of all the riders adversely affected by the unpredictable conditions on Saturday, Álex Rins and Francesco Bagnaia were perhaps the hardest hit, the machinery and pedigree enough for just 23rd and 24th on the grid.
Bagnaia’s lowly qualification was down to a massive crash on slicks as the track was drying, while Rins simply struggled to pick the right compound in the tricky conditions.
But with the track absolutely dry for the race, both riders were able to rebuild some of the momentum they’d taken into the Portuguese Grand Prix.
Rins in particular was impressive, picking up 10 places on the first lap to take the flag just 3.6 seconds off the podium. Not unlike Marc Márquez’s pace in COTA being disguised by his poor start, Rins arguably had the speed to win on Sunday had he not had to deploy his pace to minimise the damage — which he did ably considering he’s tied on points with Quartararo.
Bagnaia almost didn’t race after his heavy crash sent him to hospital, and though he didn’t have Rins-matching speed, he made decent enough progress and gained from crashes ahead to finish a commendable eighth and keep his points tally ticking over, putting him up to 10th and equal on points with teammate Miller.
After considering the bunch of riders who failed to cut through the noise of a difficult weekend and suffered in the standings as a result, consider that Rins and Bagnaia, both title contenders, have been quietly building momentum uninterrupted in the last three races as the field shuffles itself out.
In a record-length MotoGP season, theirs were key results in what is a very long game.