Michael Scott | November 9, 2022
Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
The Top 10 Tangle
A cliffhanger. A title going to the wire. Not that unusual—in fact, in more than 70 years of GP racing there have been 19 occasions when the premier-class championship was decided at the last race, although only one occasion when two rivals ended the season equal on points.
That was in 1967. MV versus Honda, Giacomo Agostini versus Mike Hailwood. Ago got the nod, because, though they were equal on five wins apiece, the Italian had three second places to Hailwood’s two. (Coincidentally, the same year Hailwood and Phil Read were equal on points in the 250 class, but Hailwood was crowned by virtue of better subsidiary results.)
But does the best rider always win? Is the championship much more than a sometimes-cynical game of percentages, rewarding reliability and a knack of playing percentages as much as speed? And the lucky luxury of having the fastest bike?
For the past three decades and more, I’ve had the (not self-appointed) task of picking the 10 best riders of the year, to be enshrined in the bookshelves of dedicated fans in the pages of the august annual Motocourse. It’s sort of a privilege, but there are pitfalls. And it shouldn’t be taken as much more than bar-stool expertise. But it looks important.
Sometimes it’s easy. Sometimes agonizing, knowing that my flippant seat-of-pants views will upset riders who might (or might not) fall short in some areas compared with their rivals, often through no fault of their own, but are still a million times better, more courageous, and more insanely competitive and dedicated than I in my journalistic languor might ever have hoped to be.
This is a hard year. The title has been decided more by mistakes than doggedly racking up solid points—the technique that reliably wins championships.
At the time of this writing, it looks like Pecco Bagnaia is going to be champion. Unless he falls off, for a sixth time this year, and Quartararo wins, for a fourth. Stranger things have happened, but it’s hardly likely. At the time of this writing, however, it’s still a guessing game.
Bagnaia on the marvelous Ducati Desmosedici GP22 has the clearly superior motorcycle, and his greater challenge than beating the Yamaha has been to do better than several other excellent riders on the same Ducati. Or last year’s Desmo, which is pretty much equally good. Has Bastianini helped him? The satellite-team GP21 rider has now twice hung back from a winning challenge (Misano, Malaysia)? We will never know whether he really couldn’t pass him or was being quietly cautious on the senior rider’s behalf. Something he couldn’t be bothered to do at Le Mans or Aragon.
Quartararo by contrast couldn’t dream of help from fellow Yamaha troops. All year, he’s far exceeded the disappointing 2022 YZR-M1’s potential. For race after race, he’s been miles ahead of the other Yamaha riders, even when one was the redoubtable Dovizioso and the other Morbidelli, who beat him in the championship in 2020. Dovi was so disillusioned by the bike’s lack of potential that he didn’t even finish the season.
And then there’s the remarkable Aleix Espargaro and the Aprilia, whose early challenge was undermined by the rider’s mistake (celebrating second too early at Catalunya); Fabio’s mistake—pushing him off at Assen; and the team’s mistake, an electronic blunder and zero points at Motegi, where he felt capable of taking a second win of the season. More than 40 points sacrificed, and he arrived in Valencia just 46 behind.
So, which has been the best rider?
I’m inclined to think maybe none of them.
Certainly, achieving results beyond the bike’s ability is more admirable if you tend to support the underdog (and who doesn’t?). But then there is another rider who over fewer races has done even better than Fabio on a bike that is equally uncompetitive for any of its other riders.
It is, of course, Marc Marquez, whose sublime skills since his return—all patched up with his arm lined up straight at last—have yielded results far, far in excess of anything achieved by the other Honda riders. Two of whom, Alex Marquez and Pol Espargaro, have three World titles between them.
In the four flyaway races, Marquez broke Honda’s podium duck, inches short of victory in Australia, and scored 63 points. Pecco was close on 57; Espargaro had 18, Fabio had just a hapless 16 after a disastrous run. I await the Valencia finale for the final totals in this subsidiary three-way contest.
I don’t have to decide just yet who to put on top of my list. It will be hard for it not to be Marquez, however. And Bagnaia above Quartararo? Hmmm.
I wonder what the readers think? Answers on a postcard, please. I don’t do Twitter. CN
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