The 10 best MotoGP riders of 2020

The signal event was the absence of the leading figure, Marc Marquez. The defence of his title ended abruptly during the delayed opening round. Always on the edge, this time he didn’t get away with it, and Repsol Honda’s main man was out for the whole year with a slow-to-heal fractured right humerus.

Less than a fortnight after the final race, Marquez underwent further surgery, throwing into doubt his return to full strength in time for the start of the 2021 season. It left the way open to a tide of youth and a raft of new winners. Nine of them, equalling a 2012 record set over a longer season. Five were first-timers, one a class rookie, and all but two of them 25 or under.

Close qualifying, close finishes and constant variety kept interest at fever pitch. The only things missing were the fans.

1. Joan Mir – Ecstar Suzuki

Championship Position – First

Aged 23, in his second year in MotoGP, Majorcan Joan Mir came close to a remarkable achievement – the first rider in premier-class history to become champion without winning a single race. He put that right at the third-from-last round, at the intense little Ricardo Tormo circuit outside Valencia. It was a fine win, showing consistency, tactics, persistence, opportunism and (of course) the necessary speed.

It reflected his full season. Others won more races (although nobody more than three), others took pole positions and fastest laps. But nobody scored more top-three podiums. Mir kept his head best in the mayhem.

His motorcycle likewise. Suzuki returned to MotoGP in 2015, and steady and unspectacular development has wrought a relatively straightforward and well-balanced in-line four. It is fast enough, handles smoothly, and (crucially) is easy on tyres. As a result, its riders could overcome average grid positions by making much ground in the later laps.

Self-contained and articulate, Mir’s career progress has been rapid – from the typical Spanish pre-teen action in highly competitive youth championships to the summit slopes. In his second Moto3 season he won a dominant championship after 35 starts. By comparison Marquez took 46 races and another half-season. Mir won the premier title at his 85^th race in all classes. Marquez’s took 96.

Should Marquez return at full strength next year, the comparison will be made directly on track. It will be interesting, to say the least.

2. Franco Morbidelli – Petronas-SRT Yamaha

Championship Position – Second

Yamahas won more races and scored more top-three finishes than any other bike. Yet the latest version of the M1 was flawed and inconsistent, and most of its riders saw their championship hopes collapse in a series of backward steps.

Of the four, Franco Morbidelli overcame this the best. Funnily enough, the former Moto2 champion (25) was the most junior, and was riding a hand-me-down 2019 machine rather than the latest factory hot-rod.

This was the Brazilian-Italian’s second year with the new Malaysian-backed satellite team, where hitherto he had played second fiddle to fizzing French talent Fabio Quartararo. This year started the same. But as it wore on and Frankie added three wins to other strong finishes, the roles were unexpectedly reversed.

Morbidelli carries a sort of serenity with echoes of his semi-compatriot, F1 genius Ayrton Senna, whose inspiration he channelled after his first dominant win at Misano. It had been, he said, “like a trip”.

Lucky to escape injury as innocent victim of a horror crash in Austria, robbed of a podium by engine failure at Jerez, Morbidelli ended up only 13 points shy of champion Mir. It might have been different.

Surprisingly, however, Yamaha’s top man will spend next year again as the most junior, riding the same 2019 bike. His new senior team-mate, demoted from the factory squad, will be his friend and mentor Valentino Rossi. Will he be overshadowed again?

3. Fabio Quartararo – Petronas-SRT Yamaha

Championship Position – Eighth

What a fall for Fabulous Fabio. Too often literally. Yet such was his speed and youthful potential that he must still be placed in the top echelon. The French rider was in 2019 most often the closest to Marquez, usually the only one able to go away with him up front. For 2020, just turned 21, he was expected to come of age in racing as well.

He started with a pair of dominant race wins at Jerez; and would claim another clear victory six races later in Catalunya, along with a four poles among a total of eight front-row starts. It was what happened in between that dismantled a campaign that had been thought a shoo-in.

It started to go wrong at round five, the Styrian GP at the Red Bull Ring, where he dropped to 13^th with brake trouble. Next time out, he fell off.

Still it seemed he might pull it back – but instead more crashes and bad finishes marked him out as a victim of the 2020 Yamaha’s extremely erratic performance.

Where grip was high and riders could exploit the M1’s smooth high corner speeds, it could be unbeatable. But on less grippy surfaces, the opposite – with an alarming tendency to overheat its front tyre when stuck behind other bikes rather than cleaving its own path through fresh cool air.

By year’s end the early runaway title leader was flummoxed and crash-prone, and lost championship positions in a gang of seven riders covered by just 14 points. Next year he takes over Rossi’s factory Yamaha, and has another chance to capitalise on his speed.

4. Jack Miller – Pramac Ducati

Championship Position – Seventh

The 25-year-old Australian radiates an old-school knockabout motorbike-racer vibe – all natural talent and gung-ho go-for-it. This should not mask a serious determination to learn the finer points of technique and keep improving, and the results back this up.

Along with enjoying himself hugely, Thriller Miller has been focused on learning how to preserve tyres and play tactics as well as turn fast lap times. Although never quite taking a win nor pole position, four podiums and five front-row starts demonstrated strong progress, and Jack might easily have challenged for the title but for a spell of bad luck that made him wonder: “Have I broken too many mirrors?”

Four no-scores left him seventh in the close chase pack, although only three points off top Ducati scorer Andrea Dovizioso, who had only one non-finish. One of Miller’s zeros was because he fell off. The other three were as innocent victim, once of another rider, twice with mechanical problems – and one of these was really unheard of. His Desmosedici had inhaled a discarded tear-off visor, and it partially blocked the airbox.

This was his third year on a Ducati, and the Bologna concern had already recognised his value, with a full factory bike for the past two seasons. Next year he replaces Dovizioso in the factory squad, hoping to emulate the achievements of his compatriot Casey Stoner, so far Ducati’s only World Champion.

5. Alex Rins – Ecstar Suzuki

Championship Position – Third

Suzuki’s more experienced rider narrowly failed to give the marque a first one-two in the championship in more than 40 years – and misfortune in the opening round played a big role in that.

In qualifying at Jerez, Rins fell and suffered a shoulder dislocation-fracture – an injury just as painful and debilitating as it sounds. Conspicuously courageous, he missed only that one race, but it was clear that while he did slowly regain strength, his shoulder continued to trouble him for the full year, and he was straight back to the surgery after the last round.

One of only a handful of riders to have beaten Marquez in a straight fight, at Silverstone in 2019, Rins took another strong win at Aragon, and was in line for more when instead he fell in Austria and in the rain in France. These slips reflected how hard he had to work to get to the front – the bike’s sole weakness (and it is only marginal) comes in turning single fast laps in qualifying, condemning its riders to unrealistically poor starting positions.

He did his best to overcome these, moving from 13^th to third at Catalunya, and 14^th to fourth in Valencia.

This was his fourth year with Suzuki, and he deserves credit for his role in guiding the Suzuki towards its present enviable maturity. Sadly for him it went to the benefit of his junior team-mate.

6. Pol Espargaro – Red Bull KTM

Championship Position – Fifth

Recruited to join Marc Marquez in the hot seat at the factory Repsol Honda team next year, 29-year-old Spaniard Espargaro was anxious to end his four years with KTM strongly. He had been with the new factory entrant since they arrived in 2016, and in 2020 it was immediately obvious that the bike had now become fully competitive. This was to a large extent thanks to the efforts of the younger of two MotoGP-racing brothers.

Five trips to the podium had to serve as consolation that he not only failed to bring the Austrian marque its first win, but also neither the second nor third. It was not for want of trying. Two pole positions proved the point, while two chances of victory were wrest from his grasp – one by a not entirely innocent collision at Brno, the other when a red-flag race-stoppage in Austria came when he had a clear lead.

Pol ended up equal on points with fourth-placed Dovizioso in the championship, but the Italian rider’s single win meant he was placed fifth.

Some were surprised by the Honda pick, for Espargaro has often undermined his chances with a tendency to be headstrong, and to try too hard, a habit possibly encouraged aboard earlier less competitive versions of the newby KTM. In turn, Espargaro might be regretting his decision to accept Hondas offer, given that KTM won three races in 2020, and Honda none.

7. Miguel Oliveira – Red Bull KTM Tech3

Championship Position – Ninth

Portugal’s first successful grand prix rider rewarded national pride with a runaway win at Portimao, the first Portuguese GP since 2012. It was the satellite-team rider’s second of the season, and his career – the first being a last-corner smash-and-grab in Austria.

Oliveira, a cultivated and multi-lingual racer, has been working steadily towards the status that sees him take over Espargaro’s factory KTM ride next year. He put his dentistry studies on hold as serial success in the smaller classes pointed to a successful professional future on two wheels.

Aged 25, he is another of the unspectacular breed, though to call him “reliable” might accord with his strong finishing record, but does not acknowledge his race-winning potential. He finished outside the top six only three times in 2020, and two out of his three non-finishes were the result of other riders knocking him down, in both cases also riding KTMs.

Oliveira is a prime example of KTM’s riders’ ladder, having finished close runner up in both Moto3 and Moto2 championship riding for the Austrian firm.

Next year he will be joining one of his assailants, Brad Binder, in the factory KTM team. The South African, who took a rookie-season win in that team at Brno, was awarded that place at Oliveira’s expense on 2020. Now they will be together again, reviving an all-but dominant 2018 Moto2 partnership in the same colours. The quest to be alpha male will be compelling.

8. Takaaki Nakagami – Idemitsu LCR Honda

Championship Position – 10^th

Japan’s only rider in the top category was thrust into a leading role at Honda after the abrupt departure of Marc Marquez, and injury to his satellite-team-mate Cal Crutchlow. Until then, the 28-year-old had been considered something of a grace-and-favour Honda candidate, his status reflected because of four riders he alone had last year’s V4 RC213V.

That, however, was the bike that Marquez had taken to a dominant championship, and on it Nakagami emerged from the shadows to show himself the most improved rider of the year. Achievements included making the front row of the grid for the first time on four occasions, including one pole position. That he failed to turn any of these into a podium shows more improvement is needed, but his efforts impressed nonetheless.

Riding Marc’s old bike doubtless helped. It was well-sorted, and it was of advantage that he could refer to Marc’s settings from the year before, as well as enjoy the almost exclusive attention of HRC technical guru Takeo Yokoyama.

His learning abilities were underlined because of the way he tended to improve in the second of the five double-header races; and at one he was only denied a first podium by the red flag.

Nakagami spoiled it all by crashing out of strong positions in two later races, but now having earned full factory support next year, he has a chance to keep on improving.

9. Andrea Dovizioso – Ducati Racing Team

Championship Position – Fourth

Valedictory kudos earns Dovi the final position ahead of fellow heavy hitters, the Yamaha factory pairing of Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi.

Like Vinales, Dovi took a single win (Rossi’s best, in a dismal year, was a single third), and he certainly appeared to be daunted by younger riders. He complained all year of difficulties adapting his style to Michelin’s new and grippier rear tyre, six times failed to make it into Q2 to join the top 12 on the grid, and shone just the once at the Red Bull Ring, where a simple circuit layout favours the Ducati’s brute horsepower.

But Dovi, aged 34, is a seasoned tactician and well-contained campaigner, whose consistency paid championship dividends. His only non-finish was in Catalunya when another rider knocked him down. But for that, he’d have been the only rider to score points in every race, all but two of them fairly well up in the top ten.

It was still less than expected, after he’d been runner up to Marquez for the last three years straight. From his side he expected better support and more respect from Ducati, after serving them faithfully for eight years, playing a key role in their return to competitive performance, and fully earning the nickname “Desmo Dovi”,

Midway through the year Ducati management was prevaricating over renewing his contract, so he wrong-footed them by announcing his resignation. By year’s end he confirmed that in the absence of worthwhile factory team offers he was taking a year’s sabbatical.

It seems unlikely, however, that high-end job offers will be forthcoming for 2022, so this was probably goodbye to a thoughtful and popular rider.

10. Alex Marquez – Repsol Honda

Championship Position – 14^th

Talk about pressure. Already labouring under the shadow of his giant-killer brother, then under scrutiny as the supposed beneficiary of nepotism, Alex Marquez then found himself carrying the burden of MotoGP’s most illustrious factory team effectively alone. In a daunting rookie MotoGP season, he acquitted himself well. Eventually.

Alex, three years Marc’s junior, has matched big brother’s tally of titles so far, with one each in Motos 3 and 2. But neither showed anything like the domination that some expected, especially after early family comments that “Alex is faster than Marc was at his age”. Eight years in the smaller classes yielded 12 wins, compared with Marc’s 26 in five years. So when he was plucked from Moto2 and plonked straight into the Repsol Honda team, in place of the unexpectedly departed multi-champion Jorge Lorenzo, outsiders wondered just how many strings Marc had pulled.

In at the deep end, he was then left alone when Marc crashed. His early-season results showed steady but far from shattering progress. In fact he was doing more than just keeping afloat, and when the first opportunity came for testing rather than just qualifying and racing, he took a significant step. Second in the wet in France was followed by second in the dry at Aragon, where a week later he was again going for the podium when he slipped off.

The closing races were spoiled by a damaging qualifying crash in Valencia, but by then Alex had proved a point and earned real if sometimes grudging respect.

Images courtesy of Motorsport Images.