This weekend sees the start of the second half of the 2024 MotoGP World Championship season and it’s fair to say it’s delicately poised with Ducati rivals Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin continuing to exchange the lead position. And with Enea Bastianini waiting to pounce, we could have a three-horse race for supremacy.
Fortunes ebb and flow
Just like last year, this year’s championship has been disputed between reigning champion Francesco Bagnaia on the official Ducati Racing entry and Jorge Martin on the similar GP24-spec Pramac machine.
Martin had opened a 39-point lead at one point but when he crashed out of the lead in Germany it saw him relinquish his advantage as Bagnaia took over. But it was all change at Silverstone when it was Bagnaia’s turn to taste the tarmac.
Both riders have been prone to crashing at inopportune moments and, indeed, both of Bagnaia’s championship-winning seasons have been littered with unforced errors. Silverstone was his fifth race crash of the season, but he can go on a winning spree at any time and just as he strung together five successive wins across the Catalunya, Dutch and German GP’s, he can do so again.
Fortunes are continuing to ebb and flow and, as a result, the duo are separated by just three points at the top of the title standings. It’s looking unlikely that we’re going to have a runaway leader and both riders have their own clear objectives, Bagnaia to retain his number one plate and take a third successive crown and Martin to take his maiden success and let Ducati know they’ve signed the wrong man for 2025.
Can Bastianini challenge?
A good run of form has seen 2020 Moto2 World Champion Bastianini creep up on his rivals and whilst a gap of 49 points to team-mate to Bagnaia isn’t small, it isn’t surmountable either, far from it.
The 26 year old’s pace is without question, particular in the second half of the race when the fuel load has come down but his Achilles heel this season has been his qualifying. At the last seven rounds, he’s only qualified on the front two rows twice, and such is the competitiveness of MotoGP at present, you can ill-afford to give your rivals that kind of advantage.
Coming through from ninth and 11th on the grid is near impossible and although his race pace in the second half of the race has been as quick as anyone’s, sometimes quicker, it’s been of little use when the leaders are already a fair way down the road. However, at Silverstone, he sorted his qualifying out and he took full advantage with devastating effect.
Third on the grid was his first front row since round two back in April and that put him on the front foot for both the Sprint and feature races winning both for the first time in his career.
Like Martin, he’s been spurned by Ducati, moving to Tech 3 KTM for 2025, and he has the same motivation to prove them wrong. He knows qualifying will be the key to his weekend and if he can continue to do what he did at Silverstone, this year’s title could well be a three-horse race.
Marquez continues to battle
With Martin leading the way and with Bastianini in the ascendancy, there’s a distinct possibility they could win the title but take the number one plate to a different manufacturer with both riders having signed new deals for 2025, Martin at Aprilia and Bastianini at KTM.
They’ve both been overlooked in favour of eight-time MotoGP World Champion Marc Marquez who currently sits in fourth place on the year-old Ducati GP23.
The factory will have compared his results and data with the other Ducati riders, along with his track record, which would have given them the clear and full picture of how he’s performing.
Marquez has regrouped and reinvented himself at Gresini Ducati and is perhaps over achieving with the tools he has at his disposal. He’s having to push the limit more often than he would like which is why he’s getting results (nine podiums so far) but also crashing occasionally.
That will most probably be the pattern for the remainder of the season as the bike is clearly inferior to that of his rivals, but Marquez will never give up and he remains box office.
KTM fall off pace
Austrian manufacturer KTM started the season with a bang with both Brad Binder and rookie Pedro Acosta starring in the early rounds, particularly the latter who was a revelation as he showed reputations meant nothing as he dished it out and took no mercy with the established guard.
Binder finished on the podium in both races at the opening round at Qatar but hasn’t done so since, slipping to seventh in the standings as a result, and although Acosta has appeared on the rostrum on four occasions, the last time was at the beginning of June. He sits one place and eight points ahead of Binder.
It was that early season form that led Bastianini and Maverick Vinales to jump ship from Ducati and Aprilia respectively to the KTM brand. Acosta’s slight dip in form, is to be expected of a 20-year old but KTM would have expected more from Binder and team-mate Jack Miller, the Australian a shadow of his former self in 2024 and fighting for his MotoGP career.
It’s a similar trend to previous seasons for KTM; flashes of brilliance and runs of podium finishes but recurring flaws preventing them from stringing a complete season together. Like BMW in World Superbikes, they’ve thrown millions at their MotoGP project but unlike their German counterpart who are now dominating WSB with Toprak Razgatlioglu, the MotoGP title still looks a long way off.
It’s definitely out of the question this year but maybe a four-strong rider line-up for 2025 of Binder, Acosta, Bastianini and Vinales – the strongest squad they’ve ever had – will be the final piece of the jigsaw.
One lap pace strong, race pace a challenge
Slightly better off than KTM are Aprilia who whilst still lacking consistency, have featured up front more often, most recently with Aleix Esparagaro who’s been rejuvenated since announcing he’ll retire from racing at the end of the season.
Silverstone has always been one of his favourite tracks and one where he’s performed the best – it was the scene of his second MotoGP win in 2023 – and this year was no exception. Whilst other riders were looking for a tow to set their fastest lap in qualifying, Espargaro did it all on his own, a blistering lap giving him pole position.
But that’s been Aprilia’s downfall of late, with their qualifying pace not translating into wins or podiums. Espargaro took third in the Silverstone Sprint race but slipped back to sixth in the feature race, a fair way back from race winner Bastianini as a lack of grip cost him in the second half of the race.
That’s been a regular trend recently even more so for Espargaro’s team-mate Vinales who hasn’t graced the podium in the feature race since winning at Austin in April. The Italian manufacturer continue to make steps forward, but they need to halt the drop off in pace on Sunday if they’re to get back to winning ways.
Retro Silverstone a huge hit
The very first MotoGP World Championship race (or 500cc as it was known back then) took place on the Isle of Man on 17th June 1949 and Silverstone marked the official 75th anniversary of the series with several forms of celebration.
The main one was the teams running retro livery and whilst a couple made tame efforts, some were absolutely stunning.
Teams such as KTM and Trackhouse Aprilia could be forgiven as they don’t have many years history in the championship, but the official Ducati bikes didn’t look much different to normal and LCR Honda’s was simply a new colour scheme – how Johann Zarco’s Castrol-liveried bike was a tribute to Mike Hailwood was beyond me.
But others were superb, namely Yamaha, Honda, Aprilia and Gresini Ducati. Yamaha went the whole hog and not only ran the red and white livery made famous by Jarno Saarinen and Giacomo Agostini in the 1970s but had all their mechanics kitted out in plain white overalls.
Honda too made a great effort as they opted for the red, white and blue HRC livery run by Freddie Spencer and Randy Mamola from 1982-84, current rider Joan Mir even wearing a replica Mamola helmet.
But my personal favourite was Aprilia who went with the black, red and yellow livery which took Max Biaggi to three 250cc world titles from 1994-1996. The detail in the ‘Black Pearl’ colour scheme was superb and with Espargaro wearing a Biaggi helmet too, you could quite easily be forgiven for thinking it was Max himself out on track.
Low attendance
At little over 42,000, the British GP race day crowd was dismal to say, the least and the lowest of the season so far, a damning and embarrassing statistic for a nation which once ruled the motorcycling world.
The main stumbling block is clearly cost with overseas GP’s, and other sporting events, offering far better value for money. Foreign GP’s can be as much as half the price of Silverstone and that’s a big reason why crowds are twice as big, it’s not rocket-science is it?
The three-day ticket on its own for Silverstone isn’t too bad but having to then pay for parking as well as a grandstand seat and on-site entertainment is where things start to spiral downwards. Throw in the lack of a British MotoGP rider and the long-distance viewing at Silverstone and it’s clearly a unhealthy combination.
Next year’s date has already been brought forward to May in a move, probably, to avoid the UK summer holidays in the hope the audience will swell.
But with May’s calendar next year set to feature two British Superbike rounds, the North West 200 and the start of the Isle of Man TT (a day after Silverstone), it’s highly unlikely that the audience will grow.
Having started watching motorcycle races all over the world form childhood, Phil Wain has been a freelance motorcycle journalist for almost 20 years and is features writer for a number of publications including BikeSport News, Classic Racer and Road Racing Ireland, as well as being a regular contributor to MCN and MCN Sport.
He is PR officer for a number of teams and riders at both the British Superbike Championship and International road races, including PBM Ducati, John McGuinness, KTS Racing and Jackson Racing. He is also heavily involved with the Isle of Man TT Races working with the race organisation, writing official press releases and race reports as well as providing the TV and radio broadcasting teams with statistical information.