P94
CN
III IN THE PADDOCK
BY MICHAEL SCOTT
W
ell, we made it. No
thanks to Covid-19. A
kind of full GP season,
that overcame threats of further
cancellations all the way to the
hastily replanned November
conclusion.
And—maybe thanks to Co-
vid-19—it was a season of rare
fascination.
The year the big beasts bit the
dust, literally, for Marc Marquez,
who took Honda down with him
after his horrible Jerez crash.
No one would wish it on him, but
boy, wasn't it compelling without
him?
The unexpected came in
battalions, and the pre-season
preconceptions did a big face-
plant. As did many of those that
arose in the first couple of races,
when it finally got going in Jerez
in July.
Yamaha didn't need a big
crash or bad luck to overturn
expectations. They managed it
all by themselves.
Their latest factory bike more
often hampered than helped Ros-
si and Vinales, and while it looked
for a while as though Quartararo
was going to become a Big Beast
in spite of being hampered by a
2020 M1, that didn't last, as he
too was ambushed by the bike's
inconstancy.
Funnily enough, in a year of
failure this is likely to see heads
roll, Yamaha actually managed
more wins and podiums than any
other factory. Just too seldom
for the same rider twice. And
almost never for the biggest star,
Rossi.
It was left to Morbidelli, the
lowliest rider condemned by his
junior status to a year-old bike,
to finish top Yamaha. Indeed,
he was actually title runner up,
a mere 13 points shy. But by the
same tortured, morale-sapping
logic that kept Rossi on the top
tier of entitlement when obvi-
ously knocking on towards the
outer limits of his sell-by date,
the sorcerer's apprentice is
condemned to spend next year
on the same old bike again. Now
it will be two years old.
Maybe the same unintended
consequences will prevail, once
again, for him, for without an
engine failure and an entirely in-
nocent crash (with Zarco) in Aus-
tria, he might even have been
champion. Hope his pay grade
matches his achievements.
Ducati was content with shoot-
ing their top rider Dovi where it
hurt, in the braking zone. Luckily
they had the ever-improving Jack
Miller to take up the burden.
Unluckily, when he wasn't get-
ting knocked off, his bike kept
THE YEAR
THE BIG BEASTS
BIT THE DUST
