We were supposed to be elsewhere, but nature decided otherwise. The fearsome power of hot sea water and cold air caused an unfathomable amount of water to be dumped west of Valencia, destroying large parts of the landscape around the Circuit Ricardo Tormo near Cheste. As much as the city of Valencia and the town of Cheste love MotoGP, holding the last round of the 2024 championship at the circuit was clearly a non-starter.
And so we race not *in* Valencia, but *for* Valencia. The final round of MotoGP has been moved to Barcelona, with the aim of raising money to support the devastated region and to help them rebuild. There are auctions at the track on Friday and Saturday, and the proceeds of the ticket sales will go toward the relief fund.
So what changes racing at Barcelona rather than Valencia? For a start, it’s a completely different track, a big, wide, sweeping circuit which is much better suited to MotoGP. Secondly, we have already been here once this year, back in May, though the weather was a good deal more clement then.
Adjusting to the circumstances
Thirdly, because of the last-minute switch from Valencia to Barcelona, Michelin have been forced to make new tires for the upcoming race weekend. More importantly, they have been able to choose the compounds for the weekend with a week’s notice, instead of having to tell the teams before the start of the season which compounds they will be using for every round during the season.
Michelin selected the compounds to use in Valencia back in February. They chose the tires for this weekend last week. For the first time in many years, the tires will be better suited to the conditions at the track.
The problem, of course, is that conditions at this time of year are very difficult. We are expecting to see temperatures of around 11°C in the mornings, and 18°C in the afternoons, with perhaps a pale November sun to provide some warmth. We won’t be seeing track temperatures in the high 40s °C, as we did in May.
New rubber please
That is going to pose an even greater challenge at Barcelona. To deal with that, Michelin will have four different front compounds and three rear compounds, with a softer rear added to the tire choice, plus two asymmetric fronts, a soft and a hard. The asymmetric tires are the same construction as normally used at Valencia, Sachsenring, and Phillip Island, but with the sides reversed as Barcelona is a clockwise circuit which stresses the right side of the tire rather than the left.
The task facing Pirelli is a little easier, as the Moto2 and Moto3 supplier is in their first year in the role, and so are able to bring three front and three rear tires for Moto2 and two for Moto3. Pirelli are basically using the allocation from Misano, a circuit which can have similarly cool temperatures in the morning.
The combination of cool temperatures and a largely right-handed layout is a recipe for trouble in November. Turn 2 is a particular problem. The riders have just spent getting on for 2km on the right side of the tire, through the long rights of Turns 12, 13, and 14, then 1047 meters of the straight, and another hard right at Turn 1. Then they have to flick the bike left, and hope there is some temperature in the left side of the tire to keep them glued to the track and prevent them from washing out the front and crashing at Turn 2.
The left side of the tire is responsible for the vast majority of crashes at Barcelona. If you make it safely through Turn 2, there’s still the near hairpin of Turn 5, which comes after another sequence of rights and claimed 15 scalps at the race in May.
Then there’s Turn 10, the tight, sweeping left at the end of the short back straight and the ideal place to crash trying to outbrake someone at the best passing place before the finish line. Cold tires and hard braking are always a treacherous combination, as riders found out 15 times across all three classes in May.
Big, fast, wide
But Barcelona is a glorious circuit. A long straight entered at speed, and where the MotoGP bikes hit one of the highest top speeds of the year. In the warm up in May, Franco Morbidelli equaled Aleix Espargaro’s top speed record of 356.4 km/h set in 2023.
High speeds mean hard braking, and an ideal place to pass. Which places all the more emphasis on Turn 2. If someone passes you on the inside into Turn 1, you can try to carry a bit more speed round the outside and cut them back off through Turn 2. If the front will grip.
If it does, you are flicking the bike right and spending a long time on the right of the tire. First comes the long and wide sweep of Turn 3, then a short burst of straight before braking hard for the tighter sweep of Turn 4, where the track turns all the way back on itself. Getting the line right matters here, as you want to be ready for Turn 5, and especially the drive out of that tight left.
Make it through Turn 5, and get hard on the gas and through the left kink of Turn 6, before stopping the bike for the hard left of Turn 7, and another opportunity to poke your front wheel ahead of a rival. Out of 7 and up the hill toward the top of the track, then a slow right turn onto the back straight. This is a place you need to be ready, to prepare an attack at the end and into Turn 10.
Attack zone
Turn 10, La Caixa, is one of the two most important corners on the track. This is your last chance to make a pass before the finish line, and as the track is so wide there, you still have a chance of staying on track if you get it wrong.
If you are not past at Turn 10, then you have one last desperate hope. Try to close in on your rival through the sweeping left of Turn 11, then the right of Turn 12, and carry speed through Turn 13 as you exit the stadium section. All that remains is the run to the final corner, a downhill sweeping right onto the front straight. Line it up right and if you have enough confidence in the front end, you can dive up the inside and steal the inside line. But it is the kind of pass that only the greats are willing to countenance, with Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo both pulling it off.
Sadly, last lap passes are not that common at Barcelona. More often than not the field gets spread out quickly, the lack of grip obviously playing a role here. Despite the resurfacing, the asphalt is still very hard on tires, as teams and riders try to find the balance between slip and grip through throttle control and electronics.
Down to the wire
Obviously, most of the focus is on the championship, and the battle between Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia. Martin has a lead of 24 points, which should be enough to make his job easy, but it ain’t over until the checkered flag is finally waved. For all of the details of the arithmetic behind the championship battle, and the odds of each rider lifting the crown, read this deep dive I wrote on Monday.
But in essence, it comes down to this: there will be a lot of focus on the sprint race on Saturday. Jorge Martin can clinch the title and give himself an easy Sunday by winning the sprint on Saturday, and putting the title out of reach for Pecco Bagnaia. Bagnaia, in turn, has to win the sprint race on Saturday to have any chance of retaining his crown. Anything less and he makes his life intolerably hard on Sunday.
So we could see the kind of battle which opened the Sepang GP two weeks ago. Both riders have a lot on the line, and a willingness to take risks – Bagnaia because he has to, Martin because even if he crashes, he will still have a 12 point lead. Both riders have everything to gain and relatively little to lose by going all out in the sprint race. It is hard to overstate the importance of Saturday.
That gives the advantage to Jorge Martin. Martin may have 7 sprint wins to Bagnaia’s 6, Bagnaia has 5 DNFs to Martin’s sole DNF at Mugello. Bagnaia has consistently needed the sprint race to dominate on Sunday – he has 10 GP wins to Martin’s 3 – and is not up to speed as quickly. His hope must be that the data from the Barcelona round in May will help here.
Help wanted
Bagnaia’s other hope is for outside interference. The most obvious candidate is Aleix Espargaro. The Aprilia rider has won three of the last four contests at his home track, taking the double in 2023 and winning the sprint race back in May. It is his last race as a full-time MotoGP rider – he told this week’s episode of the Paddock Pass Podcast that Honda have a bunch of wild cards lined up for him in 2025 – and he will want to make it one to remember.
Why is Aleix Espargaro so good in Barcelona? In part because he grew up within earshot of the track. But even more so because the Aprilia has historically been good on a low grip track. That was very much not the case at Aragon, but that was probably more down to track conditions than to the actual surface, with a lot of dirt and dust on the track. Barcelona is clean, but the lowest grip track on the calendar.
The other Aprilias could also feature. Maverick Viñales has struggled earlier this year, but was on the podium in both races back in 2023. And Raul Fernandez finished sixth here in May, on the Trackhouse Aprilia. But Viñales will have to find his 2023 form if he is to form an obstacle for Jorge Martin and Pecco Bagnaia.
The third man
At any other track, Marc Márquez would also be a factor. The Gresini Ducati rider has the same number of GP wins (3) as Jorge Martin, and has a 1-point lead over Enea Bastianini for third in the championship. But Barcelona is one of the tracks where Márquez suffers most, one of his least favorite circuits on the calendar. A surprise, given that it is the second closest track to his birthplace in Lleida.
But Márquez has surprised himself this year, being competitive at Sepang (despite crashing out on Sunday), the other track that is a bugbear for him. And despite qualifying down in 14th at the Catalunya round in May, he finished on the podium in both races. There is yet hope.
That will be bad news for Enea Bastianini. The Barcelona circuit has been a bogey track for the factory Ducati rider in MotoGP, despite an outstanding record in Moto3. He trails Marc Márquez by 1 point for third in the championship, and that could be a very expensive point. Rider contracts are usually structured so that third in the championship pays a handsome bonus. There is usually nothing for fourth in a factory team.
Can his talent match his ambition?
The real wildcard at Barcelona is Pedro Acosta. The young Spaniard is bursting with ambition, and the thought of a grand prix season without a victory is intolerable. He has been close a few times – he should have won at Motegi, but crashed out of both races – and this is his final chance of his rookie season. He still has a chance to enter the history books as the second youngest rider to win a grand prix behind Marc Márquez.
So Acosta is going to go all in. He was on the podium in the sprint race, and crashed out of second in the GP, while battling with Jorge Martin for the lead. He is now a much better rider, and since the introduction of the carbon fiber chassis at Misano, the KTM RC16 is a much easier bike to deal with, and Acosta is on a roll. That he will feature at the front is a racing certainty. What happens while he is there is another matter altogether.
The KTMs – the non-Acosta bikes, that is – had a reasonable outing here back in May, with Jack Miller seventh in the sprint and Brad Binder eighth in the GP. The long corners suit the KTM less well, but the hard braking zones are grist to the RC16’s mill. Jack Miller wants to say goodbye to KTM in the right way, while Brad Binder will want to make a point to his new teammate for 2025. But can they get in among the podium group? That is an open question.
Trust the process
Barcelona will be a test for the Japanese manufacturers as well. Over the season, for both Honda and Yamaha, they have fared better when the grip has been worse. That brought Fabio Quartararo some modest success here in May – ninth in the GP and tenth in the sprint race – both both Honda and Yamaha have made a big step forward since then.
Big enough to feature at the front? Not really. But good enough to be fighting for the top ten. Fabio Quartararo and Johann Zarco have all been particularly impressive down the stretch, finishing much further forward than the other Yamaha and Honda riders. This weekend will be a good measure of exactly where they are.
But the real test will come on Tuesday. In many ways, Barcelona is a much better place to be testing than Valencia, as the track is faster, wider and more varied. But more importantly, the grip is terrible, which is key in testing. When you are trying to figure out if the change you made to the bike has improved traction, that is easier when the grip can only come from the bike and not the track.
The test is for another day, however. First, the showdown, the title decider. As it stands ahead of the weekend, the odds are all strongly in Jorge Martin’s favor. But, as the late and much loved Nicky Hayden used to say, that’s why they line up on Sunday. Because you never know what is going to happen.
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