Keith Huewen: Phillip Island to be defining moment in MotoGP title battle
After a wet weather nightmare in Buriram, Yamaha’s reigning champion Quartararo takes a flimsy two-point lead over Ducati’s Bagnaia into the much-anticipated first Australian round since 2019.
Aprilia’s Espargaro is also back within 20-points of the top but outscoring them all over the last three rounds have been Bastianini and Miller. Bastianini has claimed 42 out of a possible 75 points with newly married home Phillip Island star Miller the man of the moment with 56.
The pair remain fourth (-39 points, Bastianini) and fifth (-40, Miller) in the standings with three rounds remaining. But Miller has outscored Quartararo by more than his current deficit (48 points) in the last three roller-coaster events at Aragon, Motegi and Buriram.
“Phillip Island has got a lot of things that are going to be chucked at these guys,” said former Grand Prix rider and British champion Keith Huewen.
“I think Phillip Island is the turning point. The defining moment for the world championship where there's going to be big points to grab and big mistakes that can be made.”
Crash.net MotoGP editor Peter McLaren believes Phillip Island could be crucial to Quartararo’s chances in particular:
“If you look at these last three tracks, really Phillip Island is Quartararo’s best chance on paper to take points off Bagnaia. Yamaha and Honda have won every race since 2010 and the only Ducati wins before then were by Casey Stoner.
“For Sepang the top three are probably roughly equal, you might say, since they've all tested there and their bikes looked competitive. We could see all three title-contending bikes fighting at the front.
“But then Valencia last year was an all-Ducati front row and all-Ducati podium! You wouldn’t want to be Quartararo going into that final race with a points gap to try and close.
“So really Quartararo’s got to get some points over Bagnaia this weekend to try and build some breathing room, with Aleix as the dark horse at a track where the RS-GP led a race for the first time with Andrea Iannone the last time MotoGP was there in 2019.
“Potentially it’s another massive weekend for the title and weather wise it's looking like showers on Friday, then okay on Saturday and Sunday, but quite cool. So tricky conditions as ever at Phillip Island!
“On the technical side, might we also see no use of ride-height devices and less aero at Phillip Island?
"There’s not really enough hard braking at the end of the straights to deactivate the ride-height devices and after the wind problems in 2019, which caused qualifying to be cancelled, an exemption was put into the technical rules to allow teams to remove sidepods from the fairings.
“It’s the only track where that is allowed and sums up the unique nature of the circuit.”
Huewen said: “The problem is that aerodynamics are so fundamental to the design of the bikes now that suddenly removing them because of the wind might cause more issues than it solves.
“But Phillip Island was the first place that I remember people complaining about the aero. Bradley Smith was quite vocal about how much it upset you going into places like Doohan’s.
“It’s just the corner of the year for me and you need kahunas the size of footballs!. You're coming onto the main straight very fast, building up speed, then into a really quick right-hander.
“It all looks easy watching on TV but even in my day, when we had solid tyres and wooden wheels, whenever you got near another rider you were being pulled around all the time.
“You would be 20 yards back and all of a sudden your helmet was being pulled around in all directions. As you got closer it settled down and then there's the big suction because the rider ahead has cleared all the air in front.
“But now that you've got all this aero, I'd like to see what it looks like in a wind tunnel, how the turbulence is spread out and the difference that makes to a following motorcycle.
“The riders now have to cope with the ‘inaccuracy’ caused by the bikes being moved around due to the turbulence at 200 miles an hour. They're already on a mission without getting into someone else's messy air.
“It's going to be an issue I believe and, if it's cold and windy, they don’t call it Siberia corner for nothing!
“We know that difficult weather conditions can throw out some unusual results at Phillip Island. There have been wins that weren’t expected and crashes you weren't expecting.
“When you’re running into some of the braking zones and you’ve got asymmetric tyres, meaning a different compound on one part of the tyre than the other, if the weather cools in the last half-hour of a race we’ve seen riders suddenly start losing the front on the harder compound side.
“They've got a lot to contend with in Australia - and then there are the seagulls! Let's have a 4kg meatball slung in your face at 200 miles an hour!”
Podcast host Harry Benjamin also raises Johann Zarco’s missed victory chance at Buriram, Miller’s future move to KTM, which won its second race of the season with Miguel Oliveira in Thailand, listener questions and more, before the trio pick their Phillip Island top three.
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