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In 2002, the four-stroke MotoGP replaced the two-stroke 500, and Valentino Rossi won the first title in the new queen class. Twenty years later, one of his students succeeded in doing the same. Pecco Bagnaia broke the fast Ducati and Italian riders in the top series of motorcycling had experienced. For the first time in the last four years, the MotoGP has had a different champion, and this is the sign of a generational change, with Marc Marquez representing the old school and Mir, Quartararo, and Bagnaia the new.
Will the next serial winner be among them? That is, the champion who has his favorite victims in the victories? We tried to figure it out by trying to get help from the numbers.
The table below summarizes the best seasons of the MotoGP World Champions: victories, podiums, and points in the title year, logically taking into account the number of races during the various years.
Valentino Rossi vs Marc Marquez: Clash between titans
In twenty-one MotoGP seasons, seven riders to have reached the top: Valentino Rossi and Marc Marquez did it six times, Jorge Lorenzo three times, Casey Stoner twice, and once for Nicky Hayden, Joan Mir, Fabio Quartararo, and Pecco Bagnaia.
These first data would be enough to understand who the two “real” MotoGP serial winners are: Rossi and Marquez, who share records. Marc is the winner, both in absolute numbers (thirteen) and percentage (more than 72%, meaning that he won practically three out of four races in 2014). But Valentino responds with a 2003 where he managed to get on the podium in 16 of 16 races, which has never been achieved by anyone else (although Marquez got 18 out of 19 in 2019). The Spanish then has the record of the highest number of points scored in a season (420), but the Doctor has the best points average per race: 22.3 in 2003.
It’s a clash between titans, in which another phenomenon was put in the shade: Casey Stoner. In 2011, the year of the title with Honda, gave the best of himself. That meant winning almost 60% of the races and getting on the podium 94% (like Marquez, he also missed it in only one GP). Then there’s Jorge Lorenzo, whose best season was 2010, when he won half the races and climbed onto the podium almost 90% of the time.
In this generation, Nicky Hayden is a special case, because his title was more the result of perserverance than of a domain on the track. Two victories and ten podiums, he was champion with just 252 points. No great numbers, but we’ll see that there are some who did "worse", or so to say.
Bagnaia, Quartararo, and Mir: the new generation still doesn’t have the “numbers”
Because, let’s be clear, every title is deserved, and whoever wins it was the best. So let’s take a look at Joan Mir, champion in one of the strangest seasons of the World Championship. 2020 was marked by the Covid pandemic, as well as Marquez's absence. There were only fourteen races (on nine tracks), and Suzuki’s Spanish rider won just one. His consistency on the podium was better, with 50%, but it’s still the lowest average ever for a MotoGP champion, although we see he’s in good company. As for the points scored, the negative record was repeated: no one had ever won the title with 12.2 points in the GP.
In 2021, the MotoGP had gradually returned to normal, and Quartararo won. Even in this case, however, the numbers weren’t impressive: five wins (less than 28% of the GPs) and ten podiums, with an average of 15.4 points per race. Far from the results of his predecessors, who often flew over twenty.
Then there’s Bagnaia, whose seven wins are excellent, even if they wane on the twenty total races (the highest number ever), while the ten podiums are worth 50%, which is the lowest average, along with Mir. Pecco does better than Joan on average points, even if it’s low. The results were the outcome of a beginning of the season that should be forgotten, and of five zeros in its ranking. In fact, if we only examine the last ten GPs, he would have won 50% and climbed the podium 80% of the time, but in the total count, errors are paid dearly.
Instead, Bagnaia will be the only rider next year to have the opportunity to emulate Rossi and Marquez, reconfirming himself champion, because Valentino and Marc were the only ones who were able to defend the title in MotoGP, maybe even fixing his stats, because this is only the start towards becoming a serial winner.
