The first half of the MotoGP World Championship season 2021 continued where the previous year left off, with tight margins in the field and secured one of the most competitive starting fields in the history of the series (probably!).
However, the season was a special milestone for the three rookies advancing to MotoGP in 2021 – Jorge Martin, Luca Marini and Enea Bastianini – who have tried to impress in an environment that is both pressurized and high quality.
After the first half of the season has passed into the summer break, it is high time for the trio to evaluate their opening salvos, where they have found their niche and where there is room for improvement in the second half of the year.
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Expect a bright future?
Jorge Martin
His Moto2 season in 2020 did not go quite according to plan, but Jorge Martin went into the MotoGP season 2021 with the most lucrative seat of the newcomers at Pramac Racing.
In addition, Martin has a Ducati GP21 with the latest specification at his disposal, which is an advantage in terms of the oily parts, but directly puts him in a position with some impressive benchmarks in his trio of GP21 teammates Jack Miller, Pecco Bagnaia and Johan Zarco.
It has been difficult to gauge his season so far as the Spaniard missed a handful of races due to a serious injury in Portugal. However, it did so due to an impressive performance in the second of the two MotoGP races in Qatar with a remarkable pole position in only his second MotoGP race ever.
Perhaps more impressive was his cool and calm approach to the more difficult piece on Sunday, a great start and comfortable control of the pace at the top. While many predicted that he would eventually fall back on the field, as his experience shows, Martin almost achieved a traffic light-to-flag success instead and was usurped late by Fabio Quartararo.
His third place guaranteed as good as his renewed ride for 2022 and although the results have not been so easy since his return from injury, he now has the security to focus on development in the second half of the year.
Rating: 7/10
Luca Marini
He does not share the hallowed name, but as Valentino Rossi’s brother, Luca Marini’s promotion to the premier class – after a long six seasons in Moto2 – was still an important development for the growing number of Italians in the MotoGP field (seven in total) .
Taking the path of another famous brother, Alex Marquez, Marini hasn’t enjoyed the most seamless routes into MotoGP, which hasn’t helped by kicking the aging Avintia Ducati GP19, which is now enjoying its best days in the current context of 21-speed Machines.
For Marini, he finds the best point of reference in his teammate Bastianini on the same bike, another newcomer to find his way, but the results so far have not topped a 12th which is their first competitive season where they compete against each other on the same grid.
To his credit that he has finished at least every race so far this season and also has the “doctor” in his corner … being a top-class VR46 Racing Ducati seat for 2022.
Rating: 5.5 / 10
Enea Bastianini
The Moto2 World Champion is unusual in that he rides a two-year-old Ducati but has a Ducati-backed deal in the Avintia Racing setup. Less experienced than Marini and arguably the one who, given his age and budding skills, tended to climb greater heights.
While in a flawed Italian MotoGP at Mugello, he didn’t shed glory when he misjudged hard-braking Johann Zarco on the starting grid – resulting in a dramatic, unintentional ‘stoppie’ that threw the bike behind and over him – Bastianini showed some impressive lightning bolts at GP19.
A trio of top ten results has shown him that after nine races he maintains a solid position in the overall standings, while also having the better qualification record compared to Marini, even if he hasn’t quite cracked Q2 yet.
As the best-placed of the three rookies taking the summer break, cheaper tracks are in sight for the outdated, but still extremely speed-efficient GP19, although this is still the case for his two rivals here
Modest ingredients, but Bastianini is proposing a satisfactory first season in MotoGP