Alex Rins before the start in Aragon – his season last year started absolutely suboptimally when he injured his shoulder in another fall in qualifying after he had already had trips in the gravel bed (© MotoGP).

No surprises at team presentations

There were web portals that devoted more than five articles to the presentation of this year’s Ducati factory team. Greetings from the corona pandemic. Because nothing happens after the cancellation we predicted last year, the headlines rush to the top. But what exactly is behind it? Actually, exactly what we recently predicted, which is absolutely nothing new or unexpected. Everyone wants to be the best in 2021 and like to end up at the very top. Tires and bikes are practically completely identical to the previous year because the further development was effectively frozen due to Covid-19. A good keyword, by the way, is the pandemic, because apart from the Austrian GP, ​​no tickets are currently available in advance. Note: Not a single race is currently secured! What is currently going on in Austria regarding Corona is also very worrying. The development there deviates significantly from the alleged model country, as it was praised by Red Bull Media in the 1st lockdown in 2020.

What a surprise – the Ducati-Lenovo team’s Ducatis are still red. As a works team, it’s not surprising either, they want to win as often as possible and end up at the front (© MotoGP).

Will there be a scrum at the top?
Suzuki also wants the World Cup ranks 1 and 2, after finishing 1 and 3 in the last year. So does anyone seriously believe that Yamaha would now announce that they would like to have the World Championship classifications 5 to 9 just because Ducati and Suzuki used to speak of top positions before them? Probably hardly, and that’s why we like to measure the actions of teams and drivers only when they are on the track. At Honda the only interesting question would be whether Marc Marquez will definitely be driving in Losail (Qatar). We take every bet, you won’t hear a syllable for that. If you want to see all the beautiful pictures of repainted 2020 bikes, please look on www.motogp.com

Tom Sykes photographed by us in the paddock with presenter Michael Hill in Italy. Before the 2020 season, he and his employer BMW provided a prime example of why you shouldn’t be too full before you start. The same was true for Marc Marquez, who threw his publicly stated resolutions overboard in the first race and did what he described as an absolute no-go, namely to fall and injure himself in the process.

A small example from WorldSBK – Desire and Reality

The surtitle could have been “Poetry and Truth”, but we still have it before us, as if it were yesterday. Even hasty journalists reported on it in large letters. Both BMW team boss Marc Bongers and his protégé Tom Sykes trumpeted before the start of the 2020 season in Phillip Island about podiums and victories that they would like to achieve in their second year. According to a friendly gentleman in the Phillip Island accreditation office, we were the only visitors from a German-speaking country at the WorldSBK World Championship kick-off in “Down Under”.

Troy Bayliss, the winner of the 2006 MotoGP race in Valencia and Paddock Show commentator Michael Hill 2020 in Phillip Island, photographed by us on February 29, 2020, in Australia. The races at the season opener were sensationally exciting.

When reality strikes mercilessly
The strong test and qualification times of Sykes on the BMW S-1000 RR impressed many. But we’d rather wait for the race and should be right in the end with our skepticism. On the completely new Fireblade CBR-1000RR-R, HRC Honda completely dwarfed the blue and white. This continued after the forced Corona break from August. Despite all the adversities, Alvaro Bautista made it onto the podium on his completely new bike with the 4-cylinder in-line engine that was unfamiliar to him. He and Leon Haslam ended up clearly ahead of the two BMW works drivers Eugene Laverty and Sykes in the final World Championship. As the best individual result, they each had a seventh place and Sykes also had a fifth place.

Marc Marquez (Repsol Honda) on his violent take-off, which ended with a broken upper arm. But not this injury, but his comeback, which he attempted far too early at his own risk, only 4 days after the operation, ended in his total absence in 2020. Whether he will really drive from March is probably the most important question that the viewer asks (© MotoGP ).

Calendar in 2nd provisional edition – with many question marks

All overseas races are just as uncertain as the European dates. This applies especially to a ban on spectators at the racetracks. A return of double ghost races can also be expected again.