Keshav

Quatteraro might have something to say about that.

Hollywood

if Dovi end up on the podium again then I think he will be in good position for the championship. there are a couple tracks coming up that will favor the Ducati... that said Miller could have a shot at it too.

p4p1

I'm still not sure about Miller. Not because I don't think he is fast enough but he does seem to burn through tyres quicker than Dovi. Other than that I totally agree. It would be interesting to see if Ducati rush to sign Dovi when/if he gets himself into a good championship position. If Dovi is on the podium again this week and Vinales wins and Fabio finishes p2 all of a sudden Dovi is heading into 3 rounds where he will likely be a strong favourite and realistically should win, only 13 points down. I think he can at least put Jack between himself and the Yamahas at Brno.

Of the 8 tracks on the calendar this year Dovi has won at 4 of them in the last 3 years. Vinales has only won at France previously, that could be a decent indicator of what could be coming. I'd be surprised if Marquez was able to win a race before the head to Misano but after 6-8 weeks since the break I would imagine he would be pretty close to 100%. He probably becomes the wildcard and the championship is strongly influenced by anyone being able to put Marquez between themselves and the rest of the pack. I'd say the same thing about Alex but I just don't know much about how a broken should heals and impacts strength and movement.

If it's a tight race I would strongly favour Dovi's race craft over Vinales or Fabio at this stage. Dovi's race craft is good enough to beat Marquez (and by extension the rest of the grid), Vinales' is piss poor compared to his competition and Fabio is still pretty green.

edit to add: I wouldn't be surprised to see team orders implemented by Ducati as early as Brno either.

Blackie Black

"if not for" is all over motor sport. It means nothing! You either accept the package as a whole, warts an all or it is all just fantasy.

p4p1

'If not for' can be used when evaluating riders ie. X rider has shown to be better than Y rider because despite having the same number of titles Y only won his because Z was out. Once Z came back they completely dominated Y. But a world title is still a world title and doesn't become meaningless because the favourite or the best injured themselves.

Whoever wins this year has still done an excellent job the field is deeper than ever and the bikes are closer than ever. Their title despite Marquez being out will still have more merit than Rossi's '02 title for example. I would argue that being second now in this field is harder than being first was previously when certain riders had huge bike and tyre advantages in the past.

michaelm

I agree about Dovi's race-craft, but the trouble with Dovi is he has the occasional race/track where he just can't/doesn't contend, in one of the late season races in 2017 I think it was when he was actually pressing MM strongly for the title he just came out and finished 7th in a late season race with no mechanical or crash. He might have more leeway if MM is out of the picture for the title of course, FQ and Miller are likely to be more inconsistent than him and he has MV beaten hollow for race craft as you said.

Keshav

Not expecting him to contend, but very curious to see if Zarco can quickly come to terms with the Ducati. I'd like to see him back in the mix.

misfit

I agree. He's my vote for champion this year. He's still quick as he was last year. The Petronas team seem to have gotten on top of putting together consistently competitive race weekends leading to Fabio snapping at the heals of Marq on many occasions last year. It's no longer about a great qualifying and then being nowhere in the races.

Dovi is just Dovi and I expect that his will be like Dani was, another almost for the championship.

Miller, I definitely don't think he's there yet. Exciting, no doubt, but not there yet in terms of race management, IMO.

Vinales is a distinct possibility but he tends to have bad weekends. Hopefully, things will be better this year.

mjpartyboy

MM riding at Jerez a possibility:

https://www.motogp.com/en/in+the+med...ibility/334609

If there's a hint of a chance, I wouldn't be surprised if he at least gave it a go on Day 1 to see how it feels. Crazy!

misfit

I think it crazy but after watching what Jorge did, I have to just watch and see.

I wince at the thought of him under heavy braking.