Paris (AFP)
Four riders in four points in the world championship after seven rounds, there are still eight to go: rarely has the fight in MotoGP been so intense and the Frenchman Fabio Quartararo will be keen to return to victory on Sunday in Barcelona.
At 21, the Niçois is the youngest of the title contenders, but not the least ambitious, even if he is only playing his second season at the highest level.
He hasn't won on his Yamaha since the Andalusia GP at the end of July.
His 4th place last Sunday in Emilia-Romagna came to put a little balm in his heart, but he also saw the winner, in the general classification, the winner Maverick Vinales, also on Yamaha, and his second Joan Mir (Suzuki) .
"Barcelona is a track that I like and I'm happy to go there because I think we can do a good result there", underlines the French driver, recalling nevertheless that the straight line of almost a kilometer does not advantage not his Yamaha whose top speed is not the strong point.
This did not prevent him from obtaining a nice 2nd place last year.
Leader of the World Championship with 84 points, one more than Quartararo, Andrea Dovizioso (Ducati) plays consistency and experience.
At 34, he is the only one of the current four main contenders to have scored points in every race since the start of the season, including in a victory in Austria in mid-August.
- "Dovi" disagree -
"It kind of feels like the championship is starting now," Dovi commented on Thursday, noting that few seasons have seen so many different winners, six in seven rounds.
The Italian will leave Ducati at the end of the season and does not hide his dissatisfaction: "In the last two races, we were unfortunately not competitive enough (...) and if we want to fight for the title, we are not can waste no more time.
"Dovi" often disagrees with the technical choices of its engineers and this partly explains its already announced departure, without being assured of a handlebars elsewhere.
The absence of Marc Marquez, still injured and of which he was the runner-up in the championship for the last three years, offers him a last opportunity to finally obtain a world title.
The six-time Spanish champion and defending champion visited his Honda team in the paddock on Thursday but is not expected to return until the final races of the championship in November.
For his part, Vinales finally saw the chance smile at him in Misano last Sunday.
There he won his first victory of the season, stuck in the standings.
Always very fast and with, at 25, six seasons of MotoGP to his credit, the Spaniard (83 points like Quartararo) is nevertheless very good in morale and has the annoying habit of missing his starts.
He will be at home on the Montmelo circuit but has never done better than 4th in MotoGP.
- The surprise Mir -
Joan Mir is the surprise of the season.
We rather expected his teammate Alex Rins but it is the native of Palma de Mallorca who pays himself the luxury, at 23, to join in the race for the title (4th, 80 pts).
Mir has never yet won a race in the premier class but he is doing everything he can to get there: his two 2nd places this year give him reason to hope, even though he refuses to consider himself already a candidate for the title.
The last title of a Suzuki rider dates back 20 years with Kenny Roberts Jr, when the championship was still contested with 500cc two-stroke.
The KTM outsider remains.
The Austrian machines have already won two races this season but the factory drivers, Brad Binder and Pol Espargaro, 3rd Sunday in Misano, often fall.
It is to the French satellite team Tech3 that often goes the honor of finishing in the points, even of winning, as in Styria.
In the other categories, the battle rages in Moto2 between Italians Luca Marini and Enea Bastianini, separated by only five points, Marco Bezzecchi remaining in ambush.
In Moto3, it is the Spaniard Albert Arenas and the Japanese Ai Ogura who stand in two points in the championship standings, but the Briton John McPhee is not far away.
© 2020 AFP