In the last race in Portimao, Ducati wins the constructors’ world title

With the victory of Miguel Oliveira,Portuguese rider of the KTM, the 2020 season ends.
The home driver, already winner of the Styria Grand Prix this year, promises and maintains: he starts from Pole Position, is first at the first turn and flies unbeatable for everyone.
He does it as a consumed champion, a sign that these guys who came up from Moto2 are ready and are the levers through which the usual MotoGP hierarchies have been questioned this year.

The race, agonizingly killed by Oliveira’s lonely ride, had cues in the fight for second place, with Miller prevailing on the last lap on Morbidelli,and enliven by the riders in struggles to grab positions close to the podium, with Paul Espargaro, Nakagami, Dovizioso and — before being sucked back — with Johann Zarco and Cal Cruthclow. Joan Mir is gone,right from the evidence.

The new World Champion,

more than unable to honor the title, on the ups and downs of the Algarve Circuit was non-existent. The World Cup is over and crystallizes its truths.
Yamaha in crisis with its spearheads, Quartararo and Viñales,who once again do not know how to realize in the race how good they can build in tests, it is comforted thanks to the good form of Franco Morbidelli, third and vice world champion,but it remains the great defeat. Valentino Rossi can’t get back to the comforting levels of the start of the season.

Honda can’t smile, although growing in the final races especially with Nakagami, but that ends the dry season of victories: it hasn’t happened since 1981! KTM has gone to splash, putting on the board three successes, and it undoubtedly represents the surprise of 2020.
Ducati… difficult to assess whether the glass should be seen half full or halfempty. It puts on the board the second title Builders of its history,a statement certainly prestigious, but far from being illuminated by the domination that made possible the victory achieved in 2013.

The victory of the constructors’ championship does not save the House of Borgo Panigale from having to rethink its season, in order to treasure and learn from the difficulties encountered this year. We said that, the championship,in its atypicality, he blew up so many patterns, immediately losing Marc Marquez – the absolute reference – deprived everyone of the yardstick, but it was missing the House that was able to react immediately, the one that could put its drivers on the right track as soon as possible: Yamaha and Ducati were the most accredited suitors and failed.

The constructors’ title eventually falls to Ducati in the same way as mir’s riders title fell. The 2020 World Cup was a gripping baraonda, a thriller, a series of fun races, but the level was low and placed those who made a little less mistakes at the top of the final rankings. Those who have to make up their mind must be able to come to terms with it and have the humility to be able to discuss themselves again, at the technical level and also at the level of sports management. We would have liked to write different things, like Ducati enthusiasts, but it was not possible.

The constructors’ title eventually fell to Ducati in the same way as mir dropped the riders’ title.

We would have liked to seea defeat that had been consumed by fighting , such as the One in Bayliss Superbike to the advantage of Edwards in 2002 and, equally fighting, we would have liked to have exalted the victory in the Championship reserved for manufacturers. But that’s how it went and it’s already 2021 from today. Good is the consistency of Jack Miller, the somewhat casino-like grit of Johann Zarco,the entry into Team Esponsorama of the Moto2 World Champion, Enea Bastianini and his deputy, Luca Marini.

Francesco Bagnaia seems to havedisappeared, and represents an unknown for the Ducati Team in 2021. Meanwhile Andrea Dovizioso raced yesterday a race on the attack, the last with Ducati,as well as the last was for Danilo Petrucci,who at least can smile thinking about the goodness of the KTM that awaits him in the ventura season. For Andrea the satisfaction of freeing himself from a situation that saw him harnessed in a paradoxical bubble, forced and suffocating, from which – as he said himself – he felt relieved yesterday, despite being aware of a far from clear future in being able to continue his career as a pilot.

Andrea also felt the wind of the generational change in MotoGP, as Valentino Rossi must have felt. The Moto2 guys are strong and – we say it once again – it seems nice to think that even Marc Marquez, if there had been, would have had to work hard or, otherwise – in this 2020 – he would have won all the races.

The Championship entertained us,kept us awake, reserved incredible twists and presented new names, both for men and machines. It was not obvious that it was ultimately possible to compete, the difficulties were several and – in the end – counts as the previous ones, with Joan Mir champion drivers and ducati victorious among the constructors.