21 GUN SALUTE

All change on Planet MotoGP in 2021. The circuits were familiar, the grid line-ups likewise… the world championships were even accustomed to going racing without spectators and wearing masks. And hope remained, in spite of calendar changes right up until September, that we will soon return to our favourite faraways, Phillip Island and Argentina.

There were even 18 rounds, for a full championship. The difference was to be seen in the result sheets. Rookies were taking the bacon.

Complacency and preconceptions were swept aside from the start, when 23-year-old class rookie Jorge Martin put his satellite Ducati on pole in Qatar in only his second MotoGP race. He led for much of the distance before finishing on the podium.

Perhaps MotoGP bikes had become too easy to ride – although with power and performance continually improving in spite of frozen engine development, that didn’t seem likely.

Or it was time for a new crop of riders to inject fresh talent, fresh techniques and fresh excitement?

By the time the series was 14 races old, after the San Marino GP at Misano, there had been eight different winners, two of them first-timers, and all but one of them 26 or younger (German GP winner Marquez is 28, Fabio Quartararo just 22).

Martin was the first of them, and (after getting badly hurt in one of those treacherous cold-tyre out-lap crashes at the third round in Portugal) he came back for two more poles and a first win