There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that this season has been the closest championship in modern MotoGP history. There have been an incredible eight winners over just eleven races, and the current points leader, Suzuki rider Joan Mir, has yet to score a win despite his six visits to the podium. Normally when we head into the final stretch of a championship we would have some clear-cut contenders, the riders still in the mix for the title, but mathematically there are still a whopping fourteen riders in contention for the 2020 championship, from Mir in 1st place all the way down to Zarco in 14th.
The goal of this blog is to look at the likelihood of different riders winning the 2020 MotoGP championship, coming up with some example scenarios and brackets of riders based on their relative chances to take the title
Group 1: Incredibly outside shot at the title (62-87pts)
This is the group of riders that, while still technically in the running for the title as it stands, would require some ridiculous results to end up being the world champion at the end of the year. For a rider in this category to win, it would require Joan Mir to score less than 25 points for the rest of the season, and would essentially require a string of first and second place results in every race from here to Portimao. For these riders to even remain in the hunt by the end of the next race would require them to outscore Mir by anywhere between 5 (Miller) and 23 (Zarco) points, and even then they would be unlikely to remain in contention for more than one more race.
The riders in this group are: Miller (82pts), Oliveira (79pts), Petrucci (71pts), Binder (67pts), Alex Marquez (67pts) and Zarco (64pts).
Group 2: Outside shot at the title (87-102pts)
This group of riders are a bit closer to the head of the pack, but are still far enough away that it would be pretty surprising if they were to end up on top. By only being 35-50 points back with three races, they are close enough that with some really strong results, it would only require one or two slip-ups from the riders at the top of the points standings for them to surge forward to the top, but once again, the inconsistencies of all riders contesting the 2020 title means that this would be an incredible shift of form. These riders have had a good run all year, but it will still take something of a miracle for one of them to be crowned.
The riders in this group are Pol Espargaro (90pts) and Nakagami (92pts).
Group 3: Reasonable title contenders (102-117pts)
Now we’re getting to the real contenders. These are the riders that are between 20 and 35 points away from Mir, and have a much more manageable road to the championship. It’s not hard to imagine a world where someone in this points bracket could be crowned; given that the points difference between a 1st place finish and a 3rd place finish in any given race is 9 points, and the gap from 2nd to 4th is 7, a rider in this group would only have to beat Mir in each of the remaining races in this season for the potential to be crowned. These riders also benefit far more from any mistakes made by Mir, and by each other, in the coming races, as if any of them win a race while Mir crashes out, they will be cutting the gap down to almost nothing, rather than just barely keeping themselves in contention like the other groups of riders mentioned.
This group of riders contains Morbidelli (112pts), Dovizioso (109pts) and Rins (105pts), although personally I would be watching Morbidelli and Rins with a keener eye than I would Dovi. The 2020 season has been a tough one on the Ducati rider, and he’s done an incredible job to remain in the chase for this long, but other riders are showing much better form than he is, and his consistent mid-pack finishes aren’t going to cut it as we get down the stretch.
Group 4: Strong title contenders (117-127pts)
These riders fall between 10 and 20 points away from the lead at present, which is an incredibly strong place to be with three races still to go. Mathematically, it would only require two results in which they better the current leader for them to take over as the championship leader, and it could even be argued that they could have one medium or bad result in the remaining three races and still be well and truly in the title hunt. As we get closer to the end of the season, this is the kind of range riders will want to be in to potentially take a strike at the championship, and a string of strong results from this close could be more than enough to secure the title.
To give some examples of results, if a rider is in this 10-20 point range and finishes on the podium in every race left in the season, Mir would have to score between 29 and 55 points to retain his lead. Given Mir’s recent form this sounds like a fairly plausible range, but if he were to crash out of even one of the three races left in the championship, it could put him at a deficit to these riders and would require him to score top 2 results in the other races (failing to finish in the top 2 would result in a maximum score of 32, which would lead to more than enough scenarios where he loses the championship lead).
The riders that fall in this range are Quartararo (123) and Vinales (118). Although both of them suffered some rather poor results in the last couple of races, they are still the best positioned riders to apply pressure to the championship lead in the remaining rounds of the championship.
Group 5: Top contenders (127-137pts)
I say ‘contenders’, but there is actually only one rider in this group. Joan Mir currently leads the championship with 137 points, and podium finishes in five of the last six races have lead to him having a healthy buffer over his closest contenders. In a normal season of MotoGP, a lead of 14 points to second place and 19 to third would be a healthy position to be in this late in the championship, but 2020 has been an extraordinary year, and Mir faces far more than just two riders that could challenge him for the title.
Fortunately for Mir, his consistency may be his greatest weapon in the coming races. Only two riders have taken more than a single win this year, and while Mir has yet to take a race win himself, his consistency in finishing in the top three means he has somewhat of an edge on all his opponents. All he really has to do is continue finishing near the top in every race, and hope that none of his opponents can bag multiple wins in the races we have left, and he has good odds of ending up on top when the dust has settled. That being said, one has to assume he is yearning for that first race win of his career, and given his pace and the results the Suzuki team have been producing lately, it can only be so long before that first win arrives for the young Spaniard.
If there is one thing we do know about the 2020 MotoGP season, it is that anything can happen. Rookies can stand on the podium, teams and manufacturers can take their inaugural wins, and riders can take to the podium one week only to fail to score the next. No matter how much we try to predict what the coming races will hold, perhaps it is best to just sit back and enjoy what will surely be a riveting conclusion to this unpredictable championship.
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