He's back!!!
MotoGP's 28-year-old, love-him-and-hate-him, 82-time Grand Prix winning, six-time world champion Marc Marquez is back to match himself against MotoGP's other 21 riders. What we know for certain is that Qatar was the last we'll see of Stefan Bradl, at least for a while. What we don't know for certain is how well Marc will do, or far that matter, how the other 21 will do against him. In 2019 Marquez won 12 Grands Prix from 19, in 2020 he won 0 from 1. Time, events and Sunday will tell us.
The MotoGP folks, and their wee friends in Moto2 and Moto3, are racing this weekend at the lovely Portimao circuit near Faro in the Algarve. If you know as little about Portuguese geography as me, you may be interested to know that the Algarve is on the southern tip of Portugal, adjacent to Andalusia, whereas Estoril is further north near Lisbon and the Atlantic coast. The circuit was built at great expense in 2008, apparently with the express aim of taking Estoril's place as Portugal's main racing circuit. They even had their own World Supersport racing team to promote(?) the circuit, which gave a number of riders including current Moto2 championship leader Sam Lowes a breakthrough in international competition. 2008 was probably the wrong time to build something really expensive, and the track had to be bailed out by the Portuguese state investmnet fund, but their efforts eventually paid off because when MotoGP was forced to return to Portugal last year in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, did they turn to lovely, homely, historic Estoril? No they did not.
The track itself? Not universally loved but it has a nice blend of ups, downs, fasts and slows. I dislike the track because it's the place where Noriyuki Haga's last and best world championship challenge crashed and burned in 2009. It hosted last year's MotoGP season finale, which will mostly be remembered for a dominant victory not in front of the home fans by KTM's Miguel Oliveira, and a first Grand Prix win for the second-generation Remy Gardner (how many second-generation wins have there been?) Four MotoGP manufacturers filled out the top 5 places, with championship-drunk Suzuki and Aprilia missing out. Last round at Qatar was pretty much a straight Yamaha vs Ducati contest so for the rest, Portugal ought to be a welcome reset.
When's it all going down? Here's the schedule. Because Portimao is in Portugal, the race is on exactly the same time zone as the UK, which for some reason, probably due to mornings being cold, means that the MotoGP race comes before the Moto2 one.
Friday, 16 April
9am-9.40: Moto3 FP1
9.55-10.40: MotoGP FP1
10.55-11.35: Moto2 FP1
1.15pm-1.55: Moto3 FP2
2.10-2.55: MotoGP FP2
3.10-3.50: Moto2 FP2
Saturday, 17 April
9am-9.40: Moto3 FP3
9.55-10.40: MotoGP FP3
10.55-11.35: Moto2 FP3
12.35pm-1.15: Moto3 qualifying
1.30-2: MotoGP FP4
2.10-2.50: MotoGP qualifying
3.10-3.50: Moto2 qualifying
Sunday, 18 April
9am-9.20: Moto3 warm-up
9.30-9.50: MotoGP warm-up
10-10.20: Moto2 warm-up
11.20: Moto3 race
1pm: MotoGP race
2.30: Moto2 race
So there we have it. Activity begins tomorrow. It's much too early to talk about championship standings, but for the record, Marquez starts 40 points in the hole. Doable.
