MotoGP Styrian GP 2020 Winners And Losers

After following practice and qualifying, it felt like it was easy to predict who would win MotoGP’s 900th premier class race, the 2020 Styrian Grand Prix. Suzuki’s Joan Mir appeared to have the race pace required to win and that is how the race was playing out. That was until lap 16 of the originally planned 28 laps. A red flag caused by Maverick Vinales smashing into the air fence led to a new 12 lap race and Portuguese rider Miguel Olivera of Tech 3 KTM winning. How on earth did that happen?! Well, let’s go over the winners and losers of the Styrian GP to find out.

Winners

KTM - The Austrian manufacturer took its first-ever premier class win in MotoGP at Brno and two races later, it scored its second and had two riders in the top three. This does, of course, mean that KTM, which joined the premier class in 2017, loses the concessions for extra testing and development given to new manufacturers. Nonetheless, it will retain its higher engine allocations as compared to established manufacturers such as Honda, Yamaha, Suzuki and Ducati. Thanks to KTM’s RC16 clearly suiting the venues in the Czech Republic and Austria, it has made the most of MotoGP’s double header in Austria. There was some luck involved for today’s win, though, but it’s part and parcel of motorsport. 

Jack Miller - Ducati is the other manufacturer that does well at the Red Bull Ring, and that was clear with Andrea Dovizioso winning last week’s Austrian GP and Pramac Ducati’s Jack Miller finishing third. Well, the Australian went one better and finished second in today’s race after a sensational late race battle with KTM’s Pol Espargaro. After the Spaniard had gotten past Miller on the last lap, Jackass -- as he has been nicknamed -- made a forceful attempt to take the win on the last corner before the chequered flag. However, he not only pushed Espargaro wide but also let the door open, so to speak, for Olivera to sneak through for victory. Nonetheless, Miller is now third in the riders’ championship. He is only 14 points behind championship leader Fabio Quartararo and 11 behind second-placed Dovizioso.

Fabio Quartararo - You may think I am daft for putting the Petronas Yamaha rider in the winner’s category after his last three race results were seventh, eighth and now 13th. However, it still hasn’t cost him the championship lead. Quartararo’s lead over Ducati’s Dovizioso is only three points but it can be said that the venues for the last three MotoGP races were not very Yamaha friendly. A bike more suited to medium-speed corners than high-speed blasts, the Yamaha M1 is likely to be a contender by the time MotoGP’s next round is held. The Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli will host a double-header (consecutive race weekends) in two weeks and after that the field heads to the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya. These three race weekends could allow Quartararo to return to the kind of form he showed in the opening two races of the season in Jerez where he was utterly dominant.

Andrea Dovizioso - It was expected that the restarted 12-lap race would play to the advantage of ‘Desmo Dovi’ and he did appear to be closing in on the leaders at first. The challenge for the win did not materialise, though, and Dovizioso slipped back into fifth place. No other track on the MotoGP may suit the Ducati GP20 better than the Red Bull Ring, but he is second in the championship, nonetheless. Just three points behind Fabio Quartararo and proving his worth to the Italian manufacturer who is relieving him of his duties from next year.

Maverick Vinales - 

You are on board a MotoGP bike doing over 300kmph and your Yamaha’s brakes fail as you approach the first corner. If you escaped this situation with your life and no bodily harm, your name is Maverick Vinales. We talk a lot about wins, podiums and points in motorsport, but it comes a very distant second to being able to live to tell about competing. Vinales escaped injury last week when Johann Zarco’s Ducati narrowly missed him and today his quick thinking to deliberately fall off his bike saved his life. With no brakes, the only way to take off speed was by coming off the throttle and relying on engine braking. As the bike slowed till around 230kmph, Vinales slipped off and fell on to the tarmac, and slid to safety into the run-off area avoiding the gravel trap. The bike’s momentum kept it on two wheels as it smashed into the air fence on the outside of the first corner. It caught fire and at that point, no one seemed to care that Vinales’ last three races netted only eight points. He walked away with his life and will be able to fight another day. 

Losers

Joan Mir - 

Based on his form in practice and qualifying, Mir had been tipped as the favourite to win the Styrian GP. He had the race pace and would be starting from third place. A comfortable lead of around two seconds thanks to the Suzuki being kind on its tyres appeared to have him well placed. But then came the red flag and Suzuki’s decision to leave him on the tyres he had used for 18 laps, left him with little to challenge for the win. On fresher tyres, the race came down to a fight between Pol Espargaro, Jack Miller and Miguel Olivera. Mir was briefly passed by Dovizio but he was able to hold on to fourth. It was well short of where he could have finished had the race run without any serious incidents. 

Johann Zarco - A long lap penalty in Brno that robbed him of a chance to win, a horrific crash last week for which he was held responsible and forced to start from the pitlane today, and a 14th place finish. Three consecutive races that could have delivered a lot more for Johann Zarco considering the pace he had. Instead of being 12th in the championship standings with 30 points, he could have conceivably been third instead of Jack Miller. That’s how close things are in the MotoGP championship at the moment with Marc Marquez not expected to return for two to three months. 

Pol Espargaro - His factory KTM teammate Brad Binder scored the Austrian manufacturer’s first premier-class win before he did. A rider from a satellite KTM team won the last race to be held in Austria this year ahead of Espargaro, and he switches to Honda next year. Miller’s forceful overtaking attempt sent the Spaniard from first to third. One gets the feeling that if Espargaro tried to drown himself in the ocean, it would run out of water. Such seems to have been his luck while trying to score a win for KTM since joining them in 2017. Not to mention, he lost the chance to win the Austrian GP last week when Zarco’s crash brought out a red flag and his lead at the time disappeared and he crashed out. That was his second straight race retirement while Binder won in the Czech Republic and finished fourth last week. Even though Espargaro was third today and Binder was eighth, it is Binder -- a premier class rookie -- who is fourth in the championship while Espargaro lies in tenth.