Australian MotoGP: how Rins won another Phillip Island epic

MotoGP

What a race! Alex Rins made Suzuki’s day on Sunday, while Marc Márquez looked back to his best and Pecco Bagnaia put one hand on the 2022 MotoGP crown, after all his title rivals had disasters

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Bagnaia, Márquez, Rins and Bezzecchi all together at Turn Ten with a few laps to go

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Mat Oxley

Once again, Phillip Island served up an awesome, ticking timebomb of a race, with the leaders swapping places throughout but really only waiting for the final few laps – time to pull the pin and unleash hell.

The first Australian Grand Prix since 2019 was the first real tyre-management race since the start of the following year, when Michelin introduced its longer-lasting rear slick. So it was no coincidence that Suzuki’s GSX-RR, which is so good at saving its tyres, came out on top on Sunday. This was perfect timing too – just three weeks before Suzuki parks its GSX-RRs for the last time and closes the doors on its MotoGP project.

Álex Rins knew this was his time, his first chance in two years to make the most of the GSX-RR’s strong points to take his fourth MotoGP victory. The 26-year-old Spaniard used his bike’s tyre-saving character and corner-speed advantage through Phillip Island’s fabulous fast and flowing curves to beat comeback hero Marc Márquez by less than two-tenths of a second. It was the victory which many believe Andrea Iannone should’ve achieved on the GSX-RR in the 2018 Australian GP.

Meanwhile Pecco Bagnaia took the chequered flag four-hundredths of a second behind Márquez to take the championship lead for the first time after his title opponents all had disasters, most importantly long-time points leader Fabio Quartararo, who crashed out, and Aleix Espargaró, whose Aprilia had another ‘computer-says-no’ moment.

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A trio of shoeys on the podium – Márquez, Rins and Bagnaia had all enjoyed the race that much

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Rins made move after audacious move into the Turn 2 left-hander, each set up by abusing his rear tyre out of the Turn 1 right, because wear on the right side of the tyres isn’t a concern at anti-clockwise PI.

Bagnaia led into the final lap, Rins gassing it up the outside of the Ducati exiting Turn 1 to attack on the inside into Turn 2, which pushed his Italian rival slightly wide, allowing Márquez to nip through on the inside to take second.

“I said, ‘OK, a win is perfect, but it doesn’t matter, just finish the race'” Pecco Bagnaia

Of course Bagnaia wanted to win the race but he hadn’t been too bothered since slightly before half-distance when his crew signalled to him that Quartararo was out. He knew then that he had one hand on the title and that this wasn’t a time to take risks, like he’d done so often this season, crashing out of five of the first 16 races.

“When I saw on my pitboard that Fabio was out, I just said, OK, a win is perfect, but it doesn’t matter, just finish the race,” said Bagnaia who takes a 14-point lead into this weekend’s penultimate race in Malaysia, where he could secure the title. “I didn’t want to take any risks, I didn’t want to crash. I’ve committed too many mistakes this year, so it was important to finish. I think I’ve learned the lesson.”

Bagnaia struggled with front grip, partly because he had overused his front tyre, both to save the rear and to get the Ducati to turn.

“By the last six laps I had destroyed the front tyre” he added. “It’s true that our bike is fast on the straight, but it’s also true that it’s very difficult to make it turn like the other bikes.”

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If he was hesitant of attacking his rivals in the last laps he certainly hadn’t been during the first, when he got a bad start because he hadn’t been able to engage his GP22’s front holeshot device. That dropped him to sixth on the way into Turn 1, but he was super-aggressive through the first few corners and was third by Turn 4.

If Bagnaia does win the title his will be the greatest premier-class points comeback in history, from 91 points down following his crash at June’s German GP. He will also be the first to win the title after crashing out of so many races.

A few years ago, before his career-changing crash at Jerez in 2020, Márquez would’ve been bitterly disappointed to get beaten by a few metres. This time he was overjoyed to finish second, his first podium since he underwent a fourth operation on his troublesome right-arm injury and the 100th of his MotoGP career.

Márquez was as canny as always. He was the only rider on the grid to choose the soft rear slick, a wild choice according to all his rivals. But he had done his homework. One of the Honda’s RC213V’s biggest problems at the moment is rear grip, especially while attacking corners, so the six-time MotoGP king knew a soft rear would help him.

But how could he make the soft last for 27 laps of abuse around Phillip Island, which murders the left side of the tyres? Because he had predicted the race pace would be [relatively] slow, with riders looking after their tyres, so he believed he could get away with the soft, so long as he nursed it and never forced the pace. Which is why he never led a lap.

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Martin led until half distance, while Rins worked his way up from ninth. He had more pace and better traction than anyone

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“I’m happy because it’s been one year without any great news in our box,” he said. “Álex and I were very equal but he did the perfect last lap, defending. If I had tried overtaking him at Turn 10 on the last lap, I’m sure Pecco would’ve won the race.”

Arguably the most significant moment of Márquez’s weekend wasn’t his first podium since surgery but his save at Turn 10 in qualifying, when he rescued a ridiculous front slide with his right elbow, something he couldn’t do before he underwent a humeral osteotomy in June.

Rins’ victory – which he added to his Moto2 and Moto3 wins on the island – was the perfect leaving present to his Suzuki team, many of whom will be out of a job in a few weeks.

“We did it and I’m super-happy, because the team and all the Hamamatsu staff deserve it – they work really hard,” he said after storming through from ninth at the end of the first lap. “I was feeling good, managing the rear tyre, finding good traction and lap by lap I made some overtakes until I arrived in the top three. I realised then that they were riding slow, so I got in front to see if I could open a gap but Pecco overtook me on the straight, so I decided to stay behind him to save the rear tyre. Going into the last lap I knew that if I was close to him I’d have some options to overtake him exiting the first corner.

 

“Before the race we made a plan. We put a cross on the corners where I had to take care of the tyres. Here you don’t need to take a lot of care with the right side of the tyres, so I was using good corner speed through Turn 1 and asking a bit more of the rear tyre than the others, exiting with some spin. This was the key. It gained me a lot of positions.”

The inline-four GSX-RR’s weak point has always been qualifying – putting as much torque to the ground as other bikes. Phillip Island was no different, because Rins qualified tenth, putting him on the fourth row. Luckily, overtaking at PI is easier than most tracks.

Quartararo went into the Australian GP hoping to turn his season around after scoring zero points at two of the previous three races. Instead his title defence went from bad to worse.

In the thick of the lead group, surrounded by faster V4s, Quartararo got it all wrong attacking Turn 4 on lap four, ran off the track and rejoined in 22nd. Five laps later he was 15th, then he crashed out, trying too hard to catch up.

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The perfect leaving present – Rins win Suzuki’s first race in two years, just weeks before the factory shuts down its MotoGP project

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“I was riding over the limit,” said the reigning champion, who’s been doing that brilliantly all year, but when you’re over the limit all the time you’re going to crash now and again.

Quartararo’s Yamaha YZR-M1 was a massive 10.7mph (17.3km/h) slower than Bagnaia’s 216.6mph (348.8km/h) Ducati on Sunday, which gives you some idea of what he was up against. Rins’ Suzuki was only 2.7mph (4.4km/h) slower than Bagnaia, Márquez’s Honda 4.9mph (7.9km/h) down.

If Phillip Island was where Quartararo lost the championship lead for the first time since April, Misano in September was probably the day he realised his hopes of retaining his title were looking really bleak.

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While the Ducati was getting stronger and stronger, his YZR-M1 wasn’t going anywhere. While Bagnaia won his fourth consecutive victory, Quartararo finished fifth, hampered by his bike’s lack of acceleration.

“We didn’t have any problems and that’s the thing,” said Quartararo at Misano. “I was on the limit – any more and I would’ve been on the floor. The next race at Aragon [with its super-long main straight] will be tough. Then Japan, Thailand and Australia. We haven’t been to those tracks for a long time, so hopefully we can get a great surprise there.”

Hoping for a surprise isn’t really good enough in modern MotoGP. Quartararo, despite his best efforts, has simply been outgunned.

Espargaró, who went into Sunday’s race 18 points behind Bagnaia, knew that Phillip Island would suit the Aprilia RS-GP but the weekend didn’t go well for him and got even worse on Sunday afternoon, when he had a second electronics disaster in three races. At Motegi, his bike didn’t switch off its warm-up lap fuel-saving mode, so he swapped bikes and had to start from pitlane. This time something happened to his traction-control mapping.

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Quartararo surrounded by faster V4s at Turn Four soon after start. His title defence went further awry here soon after

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“I was fast, I did the second fastest lap of the race, but in the last eight laps the bike didn’t accelerate,” he said. “I had a lot of traction control, so the bike didn’t go forward. I changed the maps, I tried everything. It was very frustrating. I had the speed to fight for the victory today, but in the last laps there was nothing I could do.”

Espargaró finished ninth, putting him 27 points behind Bagnaia and 13 behind Quartararo.

Although Bagnaia did it all on his own on Sunday, how many of those four Ducatis that finished less than half a second behind him would’ve done so if they’d unleashed hell in the final laps?

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Marco Bezzecchi, Enea Bastianini, Luca Marini and early leader Jorge Martin were queued up behind Bagnaia and none attacked him.

“I wasn’t fast enough,” said Bezzecchi, who’s not only a fellow Ducati rider, but also a fellow member of the VR46 brotherhood. “I tried to overtake, but the only point to overtake safely was Turn 1 and out of the last corner I lost too much – Pecco was very fast there and his bike was a bit faster than mine, so I couldn’t get his slipstream. To overtake at Turn 10 would’ve been stupid, not only for him but also for me.”

Sunday afternoon in Australia, must’ve been a great early morning in Italy for Valentino Rossi, who watched one of his VR46 riders take the championship lead and another take the Rookie of the Year prize. Bezzecchi has been outstanding this year and no more so than at Phillip Island, where he was fastest after 15 minutes of FP1! That’s natural talent for you. And big balls.

Bagnaia’s team-mate Jack Miller went into his home race hoping to win and continue his end-of-season charge to challenge for the title. Instead he got taken out of the race and the championship hunt by a wayward Alex Márquez.

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Bezzecchi was brilliant at PI and wrapped up the Rookie of the Year prize

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Bastianini, also in with a chance of the title, had a huge moment on the first lap which popped his airbag and dropped him to 17th. He fought back in stunning style to finish half a second behind Rins. Might he have won the race otherwise?

Finally, keep two-time Moto3 winner Jorge Navarro in your thoughts. He broke a femur in Sunday’s Moto2 race and was bleeding profusely, possibly having severed his femoral artery, which can cause death in minutes if not properly attended. He was helicoptered to a hospital in Melbourne, where he’s had the fracture pinned. This was yet another run-over-by-the-rider-behind accident, a deeply worrying trend in top-level motorcycle racing, from the MotoGP paddock to WSB and BSB.