This season is a ride packed with excitement. We have no idea who will win after the last lap in Valencia, but the list of names came down to only two: Francesco Bagnaia and Jorge Martin. As of the Australian Grand Prix the gap between them is only 20 points.
The last couple of days I took a deeper dive regarding a question, a lot of you in my opinion don’t know the answer to. Which year’s championship was to closest if we look at the numbers. The top three closest cliff hanger championships all ended within 5 points so without further ado let me rank in my order:
2013 Marc Márquez vs Jorge Lorenzo
2013 still stands as the statistically closest championship standing after the last race. Leading up to Valencia, Marc Márquez had 318 points while Jorge Lorenzo was sitting on 305 points. Lorenzo not only needed to win the race, but Marc had to sink to at least 5th position for Jorge to win the trophy.
The race started with a 13 points difference between them, but ended in much less. Despite Marc having the pole position Lorenzo took over right from the second starting position. After the first couple of turns, the leading four was Lorenzo, Pedrosa, Márquez and Rossi. Pedrosa tried multiple times to help his teammate by overtaking Lorenzo on the straight, but the tricky lean angle in the first corner of the Ricardo Tormo helped #99. Lorenzo played risky, he tried to slow the pace down, so more riders can catch up to the 3rd placed Márquez, but doing so inviting Pedrosa to overtake him (resulting in an epic duel). Rossi lost his 4th position and couldn’t catch up, to help Lorenzo. Álvaro Bautista was the only one, who could have brightened the mood for Lorenzo, but he didn’t have the speed to do it (plus he was also on a Gresini painted RCV211).
Later in the race, after Jorge had a sketchy tackle on Dani he decided to push the pace after all, widening the gap. The positions settled: Lorenzo 1st, Márquez 2nd, Pedrosa 3rd, Rossi 4th. With 5 laps to go Marc let Dani pass, trying to catch Jorge, but it wasn’t needed. Márquez secured a 3rd place, stomping Jorge’s heroic efforts. Marc Márquez became the 2013 World Champion (youngest ever) with just 4 points ahead of Jorge Lorenzo.
Bare in mind Marc Márquez WAS A ROOKIE, joining a prestigious club, containing Lesley Graham, Umberto Masetti and Kenny Roberts. Plus raising the stakes, Marc had a black flag incident in Phillip Island. Bridgestone announced that thier tyres woundn’t handle the freshly relayed asphalt, so the riders had to plan a pitstop during the completely dry race. Marc did more laps than the recommended 10, so he was given a harsh black flag, failing to seal the championship than and there.
I will follow up with part_2 and part_3 later on in separate posts.
BME Veloce Corse 