Late-Braking MotoGP

© Bruce Allen      Revised 7/17/2018

My projection, the result of sophisticated modeling, insisted Marquez would win the season, and would accumulate less than 298 points in the process. And although the one is a slam dunk, the other is looking increasingly unlikely. He’s won five of nine races and finished second in two others. He’s competitive at every track on the calendar.

My thinking was:

• Marquez would have a great season, but not a sensational season.
• Dovizioso, Rossi, Vinales and Pedrosa, perhaps Rins, would take wins.
• The middle third of the grid would be stronger than last year, i.e., fewer points for the guys at the top to share. The median point total would be higher.
• This just in: The de facto trade at Tech 3 of Jonas Folger for Hafizh Syahrin. This had escaped my notice earlier, but Folger had 71 points after nine rounds last year in the middle group, while Syahrin has but 22 this year. That’s 49 points going in the wrong direction, which doesn’t explain my problem, but makes it worse.

Once again, Marquez is over-achieving, Dovi and Vinales and under-achieving, and Pedrosa is done. Just on the off chance that I may have been completely and utterly wrong at the beginning of the year, the points record for a single season belongs to Rossi with 373 in 2008. After nine rounds, Marquez is projecting straight out at 348 points, and I’m looking weak. I fear his body of work suggests, too, that Marquez’s second half (other than 2014) is typically better than his first half; his season strategy mirrors his race strategy.

We will update this sheet as the season progresses.

Tags: Andrea Dovizioso, Dani Pedrosa, Marc Marquez, motogp, valentino rossi

This entry was posted on July 16, 2018 at 5:26 am and is filed under Grand Prix Motorcycle Racing, Marc Marquez, Moto, MotoGP, MotoGP 2018, MotoGP Results, Motorcycle Racing, Racing News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.