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Saturday at Assen only deepened the enigma that is Maverick Viñales. After being fastest in both sessions of practice on Friday, the Monster Energy Yamaha man added FP3 to his belt in the morning, then finished second in FP4.

That result was a little deceptive, however: he started FP4 on a used soft tire with 15 laps, nearly two thirds race distance, on it, and put nearly race distance on it, ending with a couple of 1’33.7s.

For context, the race lap record at Assen is 1’33.617, set by Marc Márquez on lap 4 of the 2015 race. Viñales’ second run was on a new medium tire, assessing tire choice for the race.

On Friday, at the meeting of the Safety Commission, where MotoGP riders meet with representatives of Dorna and the FIM to speak freely and without penalty about matters pertaining to every aspect of safety (the clue is in the name) at MotoGP events, the riders invited Rivacold Snipers Team Moto3 rider Andrea Migno to attend, to discuss ways to improve safety in the smallest capacity class of Grand Prix racing.

The invitation had been issued in response to the terrifying scenes at the Barcelona Moto3 race, where riders were sitting up and backing off in the middle of the track in the final laps of the race. It was a miracle that nobody was seriously injured.

Stern lectures were given, and serious thought given to how to improve the state of affairs, and how to avoid such extremely dangerous situations in the future. The riders and officials gathered there did their level best to find ways to improve the safety of the sport.

Fast forward 11 days, and in the final minutes of MotoGP Q2, those self same riders are sitting up on the racing line, hanging around for a tow, cutting the throttle while others try to follow them, gesticulating wildly at one another as they cross the racing line while riders on fast laps approach at high speed.

It was as if the people who were focusing their mental energy on finding ways to prevent riders from creating dangerous situations on track had lost their collective minds, and decided to illustrate the problem by doing all of the things they had been condemning less than 24 hours earlier.

Saturday at Montmelo made several things crystal clear in MotoGP. We saw one rider emerge as the clear favorite for the win on Sunday. We saw just how critical tire choice and tire management is going to be at Barcelona.

And we saw just how much pressure riders are under, whether it be seeking a tow to get through to Q2, celebrating a quick time in FP3 like a victory, or crashing out twice in an attempt to save a seat for next year.

Above all, we saw just how fast Fabio Quartararo is in Barcelona. The fact that the Frenchman was the only rider to get into the 1’39s in FP4 was not that much of a surprise; the Monster Energy Yamaha rider has been quick all weekend after all.

What was a little more surprising is that nobody else managed it, Maverick Viñales getting closest, but still over four tenths behind his teammate.

What should be more worrying is the fact the vast majority of Quartararo’s laps in FP4 were 1’39s: 8 of his 12 flying laps were 1’39s.

His 9th fastest lap was quick enough to have secured fourth place, his 1’40.278 faster than Johann Zarco’s best lap of 1’40.286. Quartararo’s 10th fastest lap was a 1’40.290, just 0.004 slower than Zarco’s best time.

For all the discussion of just how dangerous a track Mugello is, when a serious accident happens, it has nothing to do with the track.

Jason Dupasquier, Moto3 rider for the PruestelGP team, lost the rear at the end of Q2 for the Moto3 class and crashed. A fairly regular occurrence in Moto3, as riders push the limits of the bike.

Tragically, however, Dupasquier fell directly in front of Tech3 rider Ayumu Sasaki, leaving the Japanese rider nowhere to go. Sasaki’s KTM struck Dupasquier, leaving the Swiss rider gravely injured.

It took the FIM medical staff half an hour to stabilize Dupasquier sufficiently for him to be flown by medical helicopter to Careggi University Hospital, where he lies in critical condition at the time of writing.

Our thoughts are with Dupasquier, his family, friends, and team, and we fervently hope he makes a full recovery.

Dupasquier’s crash unmasks the elephant in the room of motorcycle racing. No matter what you do to circuits, no matter how far you push back walls, how much run off you add, it remains a dangerous sport.

If one rider falls in front of another, and is hit by the bike, serious injury, or much worse, is almost inevitable.

If you want to get an idea of what might happen during the race at any particular MotoGP round, the tried and tested method is to pay particular attention to what happens in FP4.

Watch the session carefully, and then pore over the analysis timesheet carefully, checking to see who was using which tires, how many laps they had on them, and the average pace they were capable of doing.

Disregard the fast laps set at the end of each the three free practice sessions which select who goes through directly to Q2, and take the qualifying results as a guide to be viewed through the lens of a rider’s projected ability to convert a strong grid position into solid race pace.

Saturday was a tough day at the office for the Grand Prix paddock. Conditions were treacherous precisely because they were so deceptive.

The sun was shining, and if you measured the asphalt temperature in the sun, it looked pretty good. But there was a cold wind blowing across the track which would cool tires and catch you unawares.

Which is precisely what it did, riders crashing in droves in all three classes on Saturday. There were 27 fallers on Saturday, more than any other Saturday at Jerez in the past five years.

The idea behind setting the grid in Grand Prix racing is simple: after two 15 minute sessions, the rider who sets the fastest lap gets to start from pole position, the other riders ranked in order of their best lap times.

Of course, the fact that qualifying is split into two sessions to prevent people using tows to artificially boost their starting positions (more on that later) is already a distortion, as the quickest riders left in Q1 have sometimes posted faster times than those who made it through to Q2.

“I’m so glad to hear that a lot of the riders are confused! Because I am too, I really am.” Franco Morbidelli, like just about everyone in the MotoGP paddock in Qatar, has spent so long trying to get his head around the Losail International Circuit and the tricks it can play, with grip, with wind, with track temperatures, and so much more, that he is utterly lost.

“I don’t know what’s going on. Something is going on, and I hope that whatever is going on, it will go away as soon as possible, because it is tricky to work like this.”

“Consistency has been difficult this weekend because the track is different every time we exit the pits,” Jack Miller agreed. “There’s only one more day left here in Qatar and I’ll try and make it a good one and get out of here in one piece.” After nearly a month in the Gulf state, on and off, and ten days riding around the same track, everyone is very, very over being in Qatar.

Saturday was a day for smashing records in Qatar. First up was the top speed record, Johann Zarco hitting 362.4 km/h at the end of the front straight during FP4.

Not just the top speed record for Qatar, but the highest speed ever record at a MotoGP track, the previous record 356.7 km/h set by Andrea Dovizioso at Mugello.

To put that in to context, it is 100.666 meters per second. Or put another way, it took Johann Zarco less than one second to cover the distance which takes Usain Bolt 9.6 seconds. It is a mind-bending, brain-warping speed.

Are we in for a fairy-tale ending to the wild ride that has been the 2020 MotoGP season? The odds are very good indeed, if only because qualifying has laid out so many different scenarios for a fitting end to the year.

We already have a fairy-tale ending to qualifying, Miguel Oliveira the first Portuguese rider to take pole, at the first MotoGP race to be held at Portimao, the first race in Portugal since 2012.

Could Oliveira convert his maiden pole into a second win? There is plenty of reason to think he might do exactly that.

It was supposed to be a steady, stable weekend with consistent weather for all three days of the Valencia MotoGP round. But it’s 2020, so of course, that didn’t happen.

After a solid day of dry weather on Friday, conditions turned on Saturday. Not by a lot, but just enough to render chasing a quick time in practice and qualifying a treacherous business, with light rain coming and going throughout.

After the track dried in FP3, it never really rained hard enough to need wet tires. But there was just enough rain at times to make grip supremely treacherous, and to force riders to take bigger risks than they might have wanted.