For the second season in a row the MotoGP title is going down to the wire.
As was the case last year, Francesco Bagnaia leads the standings heading into the season-closing Valencia Grand Prix, this time ahead of Ducati challenger Jorge Martin rather the then reigning champion Fabio Quartararo.
Last year Bagnaia’s 23-point lead over Quartararo meant only the most extreme circumstances were ever going to trip him up.
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This year his lead is a similar 21 points, but in the context of 2023 the margin is far more precarious.
There’s an extra 12 points available this year thanks to the sprint, a boost of 48 per cent, bringing the available total left on the table up to 37 points.
But the jeopardy is doubled: twice as many race starts, twice as many first laps, twice the risk of disaster.
And whereas last year Quartararo was fighting a losing battle on a Yamaha that was decreasingly competitive relative to the Ducati, this year Bagnaia is up against a rider in almost equally good form on equal machinery.
The new reigning champion will like his odds, but there’s nowhere near as much room for error in pursuit of his second championship.
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THE PERMUTATIONS
Valencia could make MotoGP history this weekend by crowning a champion on a Saturday after a sprint race for the first time, the sprint format having been introduced only this year.
Had it not been for Fabio di Giannantonio’s resolute charge to victory on Sunday, Bagnaia’s margin would have been 26 points, enough to put a Saturday championship entirely in his hands. He’d have only had to finish ahead of Martin to seal it.
But with a slightly reduced points advantage, the odds are now against a Saturday trophy presentation.
Martin has been at his strongest on Saturdays. He’s won six of the last seven half-distance races and eight for the season. He’s finished outside the top three only five times all year.
It means Bagnaia will need to hope for an uncharacteristically underwhelming performance from his Spanish rival on Saturday to stretch his margin to the 25 points required before the main race.
Bagnaia can win the championship on Saturday if he finishes the sprint:
– first with Martin third or lower;
– second with Martin fifth or lower;
– third with Martin seventh or lower;
– fourth with Martin eighth or lower;
– fifth with Martin ninth or lower; or
– sixth with Martin 10th or lower.
Bagnaia cannot win the championship on Saturday from lower than sixth in the sprint.
If the margin is exactly 25 points on Saturday night or if the two rivals are tied on points on Sunday night, the championship will be awarded to Bagnaia, who has six grand prix wins to Martin’s four so far, giving him an unassailable countback lead.
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WHY PECCO WILL WIN IT
Bagnaia had match point in Qatar, but then his lacklustre sprint performance guaranteed the title fight would make it to the finale.
While a missed chance to seal the title counts for nothing when the points are tallied, it tells you all you need to know about who has the momentum at this stage in the season.
That might seem counterintuitive given Bagnaia held a 66-point lead over the field at the start of September. His shocking highside injury on the first lap at the Catalan Grand Prix knocked the wind from his sails, and the time it took for him to recover both his physical wellbeing and his confidence allowed Martin to briefly take the championship lead after the sprint in Indonesia.
At the time it looked like Bagnaia had lost his grip on his title defence.
But ever since then, except for the Thai Grand Prix, Bagnaia has left every round with his lead enhanced:
Japan: 3 points
Indonesia: 18 points
Australian: 27 points
Thailand: 13 points
Malaysia: 14 points
Qatar: 21 points
Momentum is with him more than it is with Martin, even if it’s close.
That’s because Bagnaia looks like the most self-assured rider.
Although he’s made more than his fair share of clumsy crashes — including two in the first three grands prix — he’s also the most consistent podium getter. Excluding his 16th-place classification in Argentina, where he was able to rejoin the race after a crash, he’s yet to finish Sunday off the podium.
His entire weekend philosophy is around peaking on Sunday, not Saturday. In past seasons no points were scored on what was traditionally just qualifying day. Perhaps that will be a weakness in this new sprint era, but so far this year it’s been enough to see his title lead grow consistently through most of the year.
He’s also now used to the pressure of contending for a title and the weight of being the defending champion.
Consider the last two months of racing. Martin has blown two big chances to inflict serious damage on his opponent: by crashing out of a massive lead in Indonesia and via his hubristic tyre selection in Australia that dumped him from first to fifth on the final lap.
Bagnaia, meanwhile, has been as smooth as ever, with the solitary exception of his performance in traffic in Thailand.
The result is that Bagnaia doesn’t have to win any races this weekend. A couple of podiums would be more than enough — in other words, stick to the status quo, and the title will come to him.
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WHY THE MARTINATOR WILL WIN IT
Martin’s pure speed and sprint strengths give him one important card to play this weekend: pressure.
It works two ways.
His 21-point deficit is large enough that his championship hopes are entirely out of his hands. He’ll be riding without pressure, which is always a bonus in an all-or-nothing title finale.
But it could also work on Bagnaia.
Let’s set up a hypothetical.
Let’s say the Valencia sprint goes the same way the last five sprint races have gone on average, with Martin winning (average finish: 1.2) and Bagnaia finishing fifth (average finish: 5.2).
The title margin is now 14 points.
Now think back to last year’s all-or-nothing title finale between leader Bagnaia and reigning champion Quartararo.
Bagnaia started the 2022 Valencia Grand Prix with a 23-point advantage, but the weight and pressure of the moment ate away at him.
He qualified an uncharacteristic eighth. A tangle with Quartararo cost him a front wing and spooked him. He reverted to super-slow, super-conservative pace and trundled home to ninth.
It wasn’t enough to cost him the championship, with Quartararo’s Yamaha unable to break onto the podium.
But if those circumstances were repeated this year after the above sprint results, victory with Bagnaia in ninth would then be enough to flip the standings, with Martin emerging a four-point winner.
These are of course extremely specific circumstances.
Bagnaia is a more confident, mature rider this season. He’s also in a strong run of form, having not finished a race off the podium without a crash.
But then again, last year he entered the title finale in similarly excellent form, having stood on the podium in eight of the previous nine grand prix and 10 of the previous 14.
The bottom line for Martin is that this championship is out of his hands. But with his strong suits of qualifying and the sprint race first on the schedule, he has just enough wriggle room to insert a little more doubt and jeopardy into the equation on Sunday — and perhaps hand Bagnaia just enough rope.