With thoughts of the devastation in Valencia, Spain, and the uncertainty over running the season finale there, uppermost in everyone’s mind, there was still a MotoGP race to be run, a championship to be decided.

There was a lot of talk about Valencia and there was really no doubt in anyone’s mind that to race there would be completely inappropriate, the circuit infrastructure needing much work, diverting essential resources from a city that had suffered such loss. That there would be a huge blow to the local economy should the race not take place was acknowledged but, rightly, it was never a consideration in the face of the scale of human tragedy.

With ten Spanish riders on the grid, not to mention MotoGP rights holders Dorna being a Spanish-based company, there was a lot of sympathy for Valencia in the paddock and many riders felt strongly about the issue, not least of whom was Pecco Bagnaia, who stated bluntly that he would not race there, should the event go ahead, even if it meant handing the championship title on a plate to Jorge Martin.

Spain has, of course, been massively influential in Grand Prix motorcycle racing for so many years; the country’s rider development programme has dominated grids across the board for years; the previously dominant rider was Spanish – and the two before that, for that matter (Lorenzo and Pedrosa.) The longest-serving sponsor – Repsol – is Spanish and, even though the country has maybe more than its fair share of Grand Prix races each season, it is fitting that the finale is held on Spanish soil; even more so if the title is to be decided there, as it has been on many occasions.

The championship really does deserve a season finale after such a nail-biting season and, if it can’t be at Valencia, then other tracks have been rumoured to be able to step in at the eleventh hour, including Qatar, Portimao, Barcelona, Jerez or even holding back-to-back races in Sepang. As we were about to publish this story, Barcelona has been confirmed as the venue for the season finale, over the same weekend as the Valencia race was supposed to happen – 15th to 17th November—although there have been severe weather warnings in that region of Spain.

Back to Malaysia, qualifying was electrifying. Binder and, remarkably, Johan Zarco’s Honda, made it through to Q2, joining the equally impressive Yamaha pair of Quartararo and Alex Rins, the other KTM of Jack Miller and a lone Aprilia against the massed hordes of Ducatis. Not only did Martin and Bagnaia head the timesheets, but they also decimated the rest of the field. Martin struck first with a lap 0.9 seconds inside the existing lap record which made everyone sit up and blink hard. Then, incredibly, Bagnaia wiped a further 0.25 seconds off that to take pole position, 1.15 seconds faster than last year! Alex Marquez in third, was almost a second behind Martin! If there was any doubt that this year’s title race was a two-horse affair, then surely that dispelled it?

Martin made the better start and led through the first lap. Predictably, behind Bagnaia, who was harrying Martin, sat Marc Marquez, like an annoying fly that just won’t give up buzzing around your head. What will he be able to do on an up-to-date Ducati in 2025?

Martin is, of course, the Sprint race specialist, having won 16 of them since the format began last year, while Bagnaia didn’t win a Sprint race between Austria 2023 and Mugello in June 2024. He has amassed six Sprint wins to Martin’s seven in 2024, but Martin’s consistency has been better – he has taken 164 points from Sprint races to Bagnaia’s 116 points. Bagnaia has been more of a Sunday specialist – ten Main race wins to Martin’s three in 2024 but, each time, Martin has been there or thereabouts to limit the damage.

If Bagnaia couldn’t get past Martin in the Malaysia Sprint, then he had to finish right behind him to have any chance of retaining his title. As has happened far too often for him in 2024, however, that hope was thrown to the wind when he slid ignominiously out on lap three, luckily at a slow-speed corner, with no damage to the rider. Martin sailed serenely on to win, opening up his lead to 29 points, with just 62 on offer in the remaining three starts. It isn’t unthinkable that Martin could fail to finish all of those and Bagnaia take enough points to overhaul that lead, but you’d have to say it’s unlikely.

As if to confirm that point, Bagnaia duly won on Sunday and Martin settled for an easy second place, to lead the championship by 24 points with only a maximum of 37 on the table. However, to distil Sunday’s race to that bare statistic would be to ignore the manner in which Bagnaia and Martin fought for it tooth and nail in the opening laps.

Before that happened, however, there was the horrific crash involving Miller, Binder and Quartararo. The race was stopped to allow doctors to attend to a motionless Miller, and slow-mo footage showed Miller’s head making contact with someone’s rear wheel before Mir ran over his legs. The feeling of complete relief when Miller was later shown walking back to the KTM garage seemingly unaffected was palpable. Binder made the restart but pulled into the pits after the warm-up lap, with too much pain in his shoulder. It was a lucky escape for everyone involved.

The restart was similar to the first, Bagnaia holding the lead into the first turn but, if we thought that Martin would settle for second place, we were to be happily misguided; for the next three laps, we were witness to a fight, the intensity of which we rarely see at the beginning of a season, let alone at the penultimate race, between the two championship contenders. I counted 14 changes of lead in those three laps, some of them fleeting, but all genuine position changes. It was mesmerising and, importantly, clean, with a huge amount of trust and respect between the two protagonists.

Bagnaia prevailed and, from that point, had the upper hand over Martin, with Marquez playing a lone hand in third. Such is the nature of MotoGP riders, however, that Martin never relaxed for one second, even as Bagnaia pulled away to open a gap of two seconds, a tactic that was sensible as Bagnaia was running the soft front tyre which might drop off a cliff in terms of grip at the end of the race, while Martin was running the longer-lasting medium front.

At one point, it looked as if that might be happening as Martin suddenly closed the gap by half a second, but a couple of close calls forced him to choose discretion over valour, a decision that was made easier by Marquez crashing out of third, leaving Enea Bastannini too far behind in third to pose any real threat to Martin.

And that’s how it finished, Bagnaia closed the points gap to 24 and all the pressure on him heading into the final round. All Martin needs to do is follow him around – not even directly behind – to take the number one plate to Aprilia in 2025. Of course, that isn’t how Martin will play it – who doesn’t want to win the title from the top step of the podium? – but you have to think that he might temper his customary speed and aggression when the ultimate goal is within his grasp, the cup of joy so easily dashed from lips at the last moment. Having said that, Martin revealed after the race that when he relaxes too much in races, he makes mistakes; much better to keep it at full chat to maintain concentration.

It’s not easy for us watching but the final race will be nothing if not exciting, a fitting end to a spectacular season.

Boy, that was nerve-racking! Wet races are often a case of “last-man-standing”, which is fine when there’s not a championship on the line, but when the two main protagonists are battling it out at the front end, every point counts. Then you’re watching proceedings through slitted eyes, just waiting for one or the other to throw it all away.

As it was, it was Marc Marquez who blinked first and actually did Jorge Martin a favour by gifting him valuable points; Martin was unlikely to catch Marquez for second place but Marquez falling off meant that Bagnaia out front only gained five points on Martin, the gap now being 17 points heading into the last two races. Marquez did the same for Martin at the last race by beating both Martin and Bagnaia into second and third place respectively. If Martin can’t win, then he wants Marquez to take places away from Bagnaia as much as possible.

The Thai Main race was largely uneventful, but the nerves were highly strung all the same. Martin made a blinding getaway to lead into the first corner and even pulled out almost a second on Bagnaia. But then it all went horribly wrong as Martin ran wide and let both Bagnaia and Marquez through.

For a while, Marquez really pushed Bagnaia and Martin wasn’t able to match their pace, his confidence obviously knocked. Marquez tried for the lead but couldn’t make it stick and then he lost the front and, despite his efforts to save it using his knee, the kerb put paid to that effort and he was down. It was slow speed and he remounted to finish in the points but that was his championship challenge over; after Bagnaia’s victory and Martin’s second place, only those two riders remained in contention for the title.

The KTMs made a good showing, both Miller and Binder going well, Miller actually occupying a podium position for a while, the conditions negating some of the advantages the Ducatis have. Binder was close behind in fourth but they reckoned without Pedro Acosta who got by Binder and then, on the penultimate lap, toughed it out with Miller for a few corners before prevailing to take the final podium place. Miller’s woes weren’t over as he lost fourth place to DiGiannantonio on the last lap.

If KTM can give him the bike he wants, then Acosta has to be reckoned a championship challenger in 2025; for all his crashes in 2024 – including one in the Thailand Sprint race – he has consistently been the rider to get the best out of the KTM and take the fight to Ducati. If he’s crashed a lot, then it’s because he has been overriding the KTM in order to stay in touch.

Is a move to a factory team a guarantee of success? There have been many examples over the years of a rider getting onto factory equipment after showing promise on a satellite bike, only to fail miserably when promoted. Somehow, I can’t see Acosta being one of those. And let’s not forget that Binder might well benefit from Acosta’s input. Jack Miller is no slouch at testing and development; he has borne the brunt of race weekend development of the RC16 this year, which has compromised his results on more than one occasion. Acosta, however, might just be that one-in-a-million chance of the right rider on the right bike at the right time. If the development direction suits Binder, then he can challenge as well.

The opposite is also true – that the bike won’t suit Acosta and he’ll spend a year mired in the midfield, at best. But can you really see that happening? I can’t. Is it realistic to think that he might have already had a hand in the configuration of the 2025 machine? KTM has staked a lot on Acosta so it would make sense to maximise his potential.

In Australia, we had the top six Main race positions filled by Ducati, the first time for a single manufacturer since 1997. The Sprint race doesn’t count towards official statistics but the Thailand Sprint race finishing order had Ducatis in the top eight positions. Whichever way you view that, positively or negatively, you have to admit that it’s a bloody impressive achievement that’s never been seen in either 500cc or MotoGP racing. A changing of the guard is always expected but the way that Ducati has swept aside both Honda and Yamaha in such a dominant manner and largely dismissed Aprilia and KTM is incredible. Ducati will be beaten at some point in the future, perhaps in 2027 when the new rules come in, but it’s hard to see Honda, Yamaha, Aprilia or KTM getting their acts together in time to beat Ducati consistently as long as the current rules are in force.

The dominance this year has been total. Seventeen out of eighteen Main race victories so far; Bagnaia has nine, Marquez four, Martin three, Bastiannini two and Viñales one. Of 54 Main race podiums, Ducati has taken 47, Acosta has five, Binder and Viñales one apiece. Martin has scored 28 podiums, and it is that consistency that has put him where he is – not ahead enough to relax, but ahead all the same.

To win the title, if Bagnaia wins all four remaining races (two Sprint and two Main races) Martin has to simply finish second each time. Bagnaia would net 74 points and Martin 58, giving Martin the title by one point when taking his 17-point advantage at the time of writing. If it’s a points tie, Bagnaia would take the title thanks to his Main race win tally. Whichever way you slice it, it’s going down to the wire, unless Bagnaia crashes out of both races in Malaysia and Martin can inflict damage by finishing on the podium in both races. Not likely, you’d have to say, but then both protagonists have had their fair share of crashes at inopportune moments this year.

A glimpse into the mind of a MotoGP rider was given by Martin after the Sprint race, in which he finished second, ahead of Bagnaia but behind Bastiannini. He kept flirting with track limits, clearly going too wide on two occasions; a third would mean a long-lap penalty. Martin knew exactly what he could get away with and used that to his advantage. What appeared to be a third infringement was deemed not to be so by race direction as the sensors had not been triggered but that was surely more by luck than judgement. In any case, Martin had used the rules to his advantage, flirting with danger while wrestling a 300bhp monster as fast as it could possibly go – and faster than it wanted to go on occasions.

Another race weekend this weekend, the penultimate round. Then it’s two weeks to the season finale at Valencia. Can your nerves stand it? Not sure mine can!

Were any confirmation of Ducati’s dominance in 2024 needed, then how about filling the top six places in the Main race at Philip Island (not forgetting the top five places in the Sprint race)? The last time a single manufacturer achieved a top-six lockout was at the 1997 French Grand Prix when races were run to 500cc rules, Mick Doohan taking top honours, followed by Checa, Okada, Crivillé, Aoki and Barros, all riding Hondas.

Such dominance by a rider or manufacturer might suggest boring racing, and that might be true at any track other than Philip Island, which invariably delivers excitement in spades. If the 2024 race wasn’t an instant classic, then it was far from boring, with winner Marc Marquez and runner-up Jorge Martin making sure of that.

The teams arrived at Philip Island facing the relatively unknown factor of track surface condition. The circuit has been resurfaced since last year, and no one, not least Michelin, knew what to expect in terms of tyre life. As a result, Michelin brought three rear tyre options instead of the usual two, with the medium and hard featuring a heat-resistant reinforced construction.

So, the riders had to navigate the intricacies of assessing each tyre to find the most suitable – and durable – and brave high winds and rain-spoiling practice sessions. Oh, and there was also wildlife to consider, Jack Miller hitting a rabbit in qualifying and a seagull in the Sprint race. All this on one of the fastest, most challenging race tracks on the calendar! Still think these guys don’t earn their money?

In reality, both Sprint and Main races were all about Martin and Marquez, with Bagnaia and Bastiannini playing supporting roles. Martin led every lap of the Sprint race, while Marquez dropped to eighth before charging back up to second. Bagnaia dropped to fourth after running second and Bastiannini took third.

But the real drama was happening further back. Viñales used the slipstream to slingshot past Bezzecchi, only for the latter to get caught out by Viñales’ slipstream under braking, slamming into the Aprilia and taking them both out at very high speed, happily without serious injury to either. It was reminiscent of the Zarco/Marquez incident at the same corner a few years ago and no less scary.

At the start of the Main race, Marquez caused a fright when his rear tyre lit up at the start, thanks to a visor tear-off lodging under his rear tyre on the grid, robbing him of any acceleration and causing him to snake around helplessly before he got going, exiting the first corner in 13th, but passing seven riders in the short run to turn two! Again, Martin looked imperious at the front and we could have been forgiven for assuming that this was going to be a repeat of the Sprint. It looked as if someone had forgotten to tell Marc Marquez, however, who crept inexorably towards the front over the next few laps, after letting his rear tyre’s temperature settle down.

Binder was going well in fourth but fell victim to Marquez, whereafter he would be relegated to playing best-of-the-rest and finally finishing seventh, first non-Ducati home.

But it was up front that all the interest lay. Despite riding a year-old Ducati GP23, Marc Marquez was setting the timing sheets alight and closing on Bagnaia who, in turn, was closing on Martin and actually got past, prompting fears that Martin was suffering tyre degradation problems as he did so disastrously last year at the same track.

But Bagnaia’s move was quickly rebuffed and would be the last in a forward direction he would make for the rest of the afternoon, quickly losing the lead to Martin and second place to Marquez in short order. He’d keep third to the flag but still lose points for the second race in a row to Martin.

For now, all eyes were on Martin and Marquez. Marquez was close but it felt as if Martin had the measure of him; after all, he was on a current Ducati GP24 so what business did Marquez have beating him? Also consider that taking Martin out in a do-or-die attempt to overtake would not make Marquez the most popular rider in anyone’s eyes, apart maybe from Bagnaia – his teammate next year, don’t forget.

Finally, with a couple of laps to go, Marquez made a move stick and started to pull away – or was Martin playing the percentage game and settling for second, knowing that Bagnaia was behind him and no threat? It doesn’t matter, but it was a sensational win for Marquez, on a track that rewards performance, in which the GP23 is lacking over the GP24.

Incredibly, this year’s total race time was nearly 52 seconds faster than last year’s; that’s 1.9 seconds per lap faster! All that is down to the rear tyre which is giving so much grip, it’s punishing the front tyre. Martin found this out to his cost as he used up his front tyre very quickly, which is why Bagnaia and Marquez were able to catch him around half distance.

Bagnaia has an incredible feel for the front end of his Ducati but the windy conditions were playing havoc with the aero of his bike and he too was using up his front tyre at an alarming rate as he tried to get the GP24 turned into the oh-so-fast corners that make up this track. When he tried to compensate by using the rear tyre to turn the bike, he destroyed that as well, which is why he was never really in contention for the victory and would finish ten seconds behind Marquez at the flag.

Marquez’ victory was largely due to his mastery of changing conditions – which includes a wearing front tyre – as much to outright pace. Even though his front tyre was likely as shot as Martin’s, he just relishes a lack of grip and is seemingly fearless when riding on the ragged edge. His third victory this season, on a bike that no one else seems to be able to do anything with, must have Bagnaia wondering what he’s going to be up against when Marquez is his teammate in 2025.

We know that Bagnaia isn’t afraid to get his elbows out when the occasion calls for it, but will he be prepared to do it every single race of the year? Marquez is no respecter of reputation when there is the chance of a victory, and, on equal machinery, his teammate is going to feel the heat the most.

Mathematically, Marquez could win the championship in 2024, being 79 points behind Martin, with six races remaining (three sprints and three main races) and 111 points up for grabs but let’s be honest, the title fight is between Martin and Bagnaia and, given both their finishing/winning/crashing records this year, there’s no way I’m sticking my neck out and calling it. And neither should you; three race weekends to go so let’s just enjoy them for what they are and let the championship take care of itself.

Now I really think I’m living in some kind of fantasy land. I can do no better than quote from a story in crash.net, regarding how close Marc Marquez was to losing third place in Sunday’s Main race to Enea Bastiannini on the last lap; Marc Marquez finished third in the Main race but, post-race, it was revealed that he was just 0.036 seconds away from losing that podium to Enea Bastianini.

The story in crash.net says this “The Gresini rider Marc Marquez fended off Ducati’s Bastianini in the second half of the race and kept him just out of striking distance to the chequered flag. The gap between the pair at the finish was 0.536s, but Marquez was actually just 0.036s away from having to give the position to Bastianini.

“Marquez just exceeded track limits at Turn 4 on the final lap while heading Bastianini in their battle for third. On final laps, if a rider exceeds track limits by running onto green-painted areas they are ordered to drop a position if they have not been able to show a clear disadvantage for going off track. This applies when a place is being closely contested. But the guidelines for this also stipulate that the drop of a position will only happen if the rider who has exceeded track limits is 0.5s or under ahead of the competitor behind them.”

This is an excerpt and you can read the whole article here: www.crash.net

But my point is this; what the actual ****? It’s almost like, ‘It’s a rule until it’s not a rule.’ But what are the rules and how is even the most ardent and knowledgeable student of MotoGP ever going to understand all the labyrinthine rules, if they only appear when an incident dictates? As far as we knew, Marquez ran wide which means a penalty, right? Apparently not.

It feels as if they’re making the rules up as they go along. Of course, they’re not; they’ve all been written before the event, and every eventuality is taken into account when drafting them, but the way they handle these situations gives lie to that assumption. In any case, who can conceivably foresee every possible permutation? But it’s this lack of clarity that’s making a mockery of MotoGP at the moment.

Then there’s the lack of consistency. When Jack Miller skittled out three other riders when he crashed a week ago in Indonesia, it was deemed a racing incident. When Alex Marquez did the same to Joan Mir this weekend, he was given a long-lap penalty for Australia. What was the difference between the two incidents, yet one has no consequence and the other gains a penalty?

Neither the Sprint nor the Main races were vintage MotoGP, with even Marc Marquez calling Sunday’s race “boring”, albeit a tactical race, as he fought hard to keep Bastiannini behind him and retain the final podium position, just as Bagnaia and Martin were clearly playing a tyre-preservation game at the front. If we were hoping for a proper, tooth-and-nail fight for the lead, we were to be disappointed, Martin only getting to within a few tenths of a second – and frequently a lot more – of Bagnaia. Exciting it was not.

The main talking point of the weekend was, of course, Pedro Acosta’s pole position and then his crashes in both races, which took him out of first and second places in the Sprint and Main races respectively. Detractors will like to point to his rookie status for the mistakes but that’s nonsense. He’s a double world champion, in Moto3 and Moto2, used to leading and winning races (and championships), and he’s shown this year that he can handle a MotoGP bike with the best of them. And, let’s face it, he’s not the only one to crash out of the lead of a race in 2024. No, it was simply miscalculation and mistakes on his part that caused the crashes, not lack of experience.

It’s easy to forget that Acosta is a rookie, such was his brilliant introduction to the MotoGP class at the beginning of this season; podiums in his second and third races speak for themselves. More importantly, there have also been 22 crashes, the most of any rider on the grid, and these will inevitably have dented his confidence, but this is natural as he finds the limits and the overall trend has been up, in terms of speed. While his two crashes while running at the sharp end of the Motegi race will have been devastating, at least he knows why he crashed and that is half the battle. At least he escaped injury-free and lives to fight another day.

Let’s not forget that there was another shooting-star rider in the 2000s who crashed a lot in his rookie season, overriding his satellite Honda trying to keep up with the dominant Yamahas and factory Hondas, before going on to win the championship on the Ducati. His name? Casey Stoner.

Acosta’s crashes took the pressure off Bagnaia, who was able to win both races, although Martin was able to limit the damage by at least finishing both races, in fourth and second. That means he keeps his lead in the championship, with four races to go.

You have to feel for Brad Binder, who really seems to be getting the thin end of KTM reliability at the moment. In Indonesia, it was a problem with the rear brake that prevented him from setting a good qualifying time, effectively ruining his race before it started.

In Japan, it was electronic gremlins that caused him to retire from the Sprint race after a few laps, which must have been galling after qualifying fifth and running third. In the Main race, he also ran third for a while, before eventually finishing sixth, a good 18 seconds behind the final podium position. That the current GP16 can run at the front was shown by Acosta and, indeed, Binder’s practice performance in Japan, but neither Binder nor Miller seem to be able to run consistently at the front of races and I don’t think it’s simply because the Ducatis are too strong although, of course, they are just that.

Now KTM has brought Aki Ajo into the team manager role, replacing Francesco Guidotti which could either destabilise the team or re-energise it. Only time will tell which one it will be. Of course, Acosta will be Binder’s teammate in 2025 and, if he starts showing Binder the way, beating him consistently and perhaps winning races on the same bike that neither Binder nor Miller have been able to win on, then Binder will have questions to answer. Of course, it could be that Acosta pushes the bike’s development in the right direction and Binder might well benefit from that.

One team that has completely dropped off the radar is Aprilia. Yes, Maverick Viñales qualified an impressive third but dropped to 11th in the Sprint and 10th in the Main race at the start and never featured from the point on, while Aleix Espargaro was completely anonymous in both races. What has happened to Aprilia? The performance has dropped off a cliff and, while both current Aprilia riders won’t really care, as they will both leave the team at the end of the season, Jorge Martin must be casting nervous glances in that direction, for that is where he is headed in 2025.

Yamaha continues to shoot themselves in the foot. Fabio Quartararo had a miserable race with a rear tyre that felt like it was a used tyre right from the beginning, so little grip he had. What was even worse, however, was that for the second time in three races, he ran out of fuel at the last corner and had to coast over the line, losing positions in the process. If we didn’t know better, it would be tempting to think that the team was being run by complete rookies.

The most worrying thing for MotoGP in general, however, is that the racing is largely pretty boring and has been for a good few races this season, with riders unable to follow closely due to aerodynamic wash from the bikes in front, and ride-height devices giving all the top runners no advantage on acceleration out of corners. Braking distances have already been slashed with carbon brakes and now the aero is playing havoc with that as well.

Michelin has a new front tyre coming but it won’t be ready until 2026. The new aero and ride-height rules – and the new engine-size rules – come in for 2027. Does that mean we’re going to have to put up with sub-par racing for at least another season?

In the meantime, it’s Philip Island, Australia, next and the circuit has been re-surfaced so it’s a bit of an unknown quantity as far as tyre performance and wear is concerned. But it’s such a spectacular circuit that it really deserves to be a good race. Whether we get that is another matter.

Frankly, this is getting ridiculous, and I’m writing this after the Sprint race and before the Main race, so who knows what we’ll be saying tomorrow? For now, it’s as if neither Bagnaia nor Martin want the 2024 MotoGP title, so adept are they at making a complete hash of things and letting the other off the hook just as they are about to deliver the killer blow.

Jorge Martin took pole position by another significant margin – over half a second – and converted that to first place at the start of the race, only to throw it all away when he lost the front on lap one. He remounted quickly and fought his way back to tenth but had nothing to show for his troubles, while Bagnaia won, halving Martin’s points lead.

The only thing we know about tomorrow is that we know absolutely nothing! Bagnaia has seven DNFs already this season and it would be a fool who would bet against him making it eight in tomorrow’s Main race, especially as he will be forced to use the medium or hard rear tyre for the longer race, on both of which tyres he is slower than on the soft tyre used for the Sprint.

2024 is becoming a season where mistakes are having a huge impact on the outcome but also it is becoming a season dominated by tyres.

“Until tomorrow afternoon I don’t want to say anything because it looks like this season is a championship of mistakes,” Bagnaia said after the race. “I have an idea, which has arrived from the performance of the tyres.

“The rear tyres have taken an enormous step [forward], but we are braking so hard because the rear is also helping a lot in the braking. But the front has more issues because we are entering much faster in all of the corners.

“So, the performance that Michelin has improved this season is incredible.

“All the season, all the circuits we improved the pace a lot. But when you are at this limit it is easy to have a crash. So, it’s super important for the championship but we have to be focused.”

Of equal significance for Martin is the fact that his mistakes are not only preventing him from extending his championship lead over Bagnaia but they are also allowing Bastiannini and Marc Marquez to bring themselves into the championship picture. Marquez made a stunning start from 12th on the grid, finishing the first lap in fourth, behind Bagnaia, Acosta and Bezzecchi.

Bezzecchi then lunged up the inside of Acosta, which also allowed Marquez through. Then Bezzecchi oh-so nearly took Bagnaia out when he got his braking all wrong, which allowed Marquez into second. By this time, Bastiannini had worked his way up to sit behind Marquez who was doing an incredible job on his GP23, not only keeping up with Bagnaia’s GP24 but staying ahead of Bastiannini’s similar machine.

Bastiannini had all the appearance of a man who, if he could only get past Marquez, would be able to challenge Bagnaia for the lead. At this point, with both factory Ducati riders mathematically able to win the title, team orders surely have no place as yet but imagine if Bastiannini was able to attack Bagnaia and it all went wrong, which is all the more likely this year, given the acknowledged difficulty of overtaking, as witnessed last weekend at Misano between Martin and Bastiannini. Now, wouldn’t that have been something?

Even Bastiannini taking points away from Bagnaia would be enough to give Ducati team principals kittens! Quite what Bagnaia himself would say is open to conjecture, although not difficult to imagine; until he is in a position where it is just himself and Martin fighting for the title, however, he can’t say much, however he might want to.

Main Race

If there were plenty of crashes on Sunday then, for once, it was neither Bagnaia nor Martin. Martin rode an imperious race, never once being headed or even properly threatened by an impressive Acosta. The rookie would seem to be closing the gap, only for Martin to turn up the heat a little and disappear off into the distance again. Remarkably, it was his first Sunday victory since Le Mans in May!

Behind Acosta was where all the action was happening. The factory Ducatis were taking a long time to get their tyres up to temperature and both riders were being very circumspect. Morbidelli was flying, as was Bezzecchi, and Marquez was in the mix, also, but they were all holding each other up with their little squabbles, allowing Acosta and Martin to get away in front.

Once the factory Ducatis got up to speed, it was by no means certain that they wouldn’t be able to catch Acosta and perhaps even Martin. But Bastiannini, although flying, crashed shortly after setting the fastest lap of the race. Marquez gave us the unusual sight of his Ducati’s engine expiring significantly, flames licking out from underneath the engine as Marquez pulled off the track. With both crashes, it looks as if Bastiannini’s and Marquez’ championship hopes are over. Marquez won’t be too disappointed, as his goal for this year was to get to know the Ducati and find consistency, which he has done. Bastiannini, on the other hand, is another rider who wins one week and crashes out the next while running with pace that could have seen him on the podium. He needs to find the same consistency as Marquez.

And so the race ran out, Martin, Acosta and Bagnaia making up the podium, Martin getting his points lead back up to 21 points. After his headline-grabbing early performances, the hysteria surrounding Acosta has died down a little, despite taking four out of KTM’s five podiums, and even his race in Indonesia was notable for its lack of fireworks but it was as solid a second place as we have seen all year.

More worrying was the possibility of a 16-second penalty for Acosta as his front tyre was found to be running too low a pressure. Thankfully for everyone concerned, the rim had been leaking air and he had not started the race with an under-pressure tyre, so the penalty wasn’t applied but it’s not a good thought that the championship could be decided by a penalty at the last round to either Bagnaia or Martin, after one or the other has taken the title. Michelin’s new front tyre won’t be ready until 2026 but it really needs to be ready for 2025, so we can get rid of the pressure rule once and for all.

After a disastrous qualifying, where he was hampered by technical issues, Brad Binder couldn’t do much in the Sprint race, finishing 13th, but a race-long tussle with Johann Zarco and Fabio Quartararo saw him take 8th in the Main race, while Zarco took Honda’s best result for nearly a year in ninth. Not much to write home about but, with Marini being taken out by Jack Miller at the beginning of the race, along with Aleix Espargaro and Alex Marquez, and Joan Mir crashing out a bit later, Honda will no doubt seize any straw at the moment.

There are five rounds to go – Japan, Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and Spain (Valencia) – so you’d better block out those weekends because (we hope!) this is going to go down to the wire.

The main talking point after the Misano Main race was, unsurprisingly, the incident between Enea Bastiannini and Jorge Martin, that sent both riders wide but Martin wider, and enabled Bastiannini to take the victory. How you apportion blame depends on which rider is your favourite. As for the race stewards’ decision to take no further action, well that’s also going to be a matter of personal preference and opinion.

Trying to look at it neutrally from the outside, it’s a tough call. Yes, it was aggressive but there is no rider on the grid that won’t resort to an aggressive move if the occasion demands it; these are racers, not kindergarten inmates. If such aggression is to be completely outlawed, then it will be the end of racing as we know it, for who is to say what is too aggressive? Where is the line drawn?

Personally, as much as I applaud Bastiannini’s move, I do think a penalty would have been justified, no matter how harsh; if he barged Martin off but stayed on track himself, that is one thing, but they both ran off track, meaning that Bastiannini wasn’t fully in control of his bike and wasn’t going to be anywhere near the apex of the corner, and that, for me, is the crux of the matter. For the record, Marc Marquez was of the same opinion, as were Aleix Espargaro and Luca Marini, who felt the move deserved a penalty. Jack Miller was in the Bastiannini supporter’s camp.

Of course, you could look at it from Martin’s viewpoint, although that is complicated as, with Bagnaia failing to finish, he was guaranteed to extend his championship lead, no matter where he finished. Having said that, championships have been won or lost by less than the five-point difference between first and second place, so perhaps Martin will come to rue Sunday’s events.

It’s not as if Martin has a whiter-than-white reputation; remember Qatar last year? Martin made an aggressive move on Bagnaia that resulted in contact between the two and Martin gaining the position. Bagnaia’s reaction at the time was that it redefined the rules of engagement and opened the door for his own brand of aggression later in the season; tit-for-tat, in other words.

Martin obviously feels the same after Sunday but the danger of that is the often-inconsistent rulings by the race stewards, not to mention the chance of a move such as that going wrong next time, resulting in one or both riders falling.

Of course, such incidents are good for the “show” – at the moment of impact, at least. But what about later on, after the race, what you have seen on track is overshadowed by a post-race penalty altering the finishing order? With a championship at stake, the stewards, for all their perceived failings, don’t want to alter the outcome of the championship by interfering unduly. But it’s still inconsistent.

This inconsistency is something that is going to have to be addressed and, perhaps, it will be when Simon Crafar takes over as head of the steward’s panel from Freddie Spencer next year. Not that Spencer doesn’t know a thing or two about hard racing, of course, but new blood is always a good thing. What certainly didn’t help after the race was the lack of explanation from the stewards regarding their decision; there simply has to be more transparency.

There is something more insidious that was highlighted by the Bastiannini/Martin incident, and that is how difficult the MotoGP prototypes are becoming to ride and how much effect the aero and ride-height devices are having. It is becoming increasingly difficult to follow another bike for any length of time, due to the heat generated by the bike ahead and the huge loads on the front tyre. It means that there are fewer opportunities to overtake and that overtakes have to be more aggressive; as Marc Marquez stated “it’s the only way to overtake with these bikes.”

Bastiannini agreed; ‘“Yes, it was a bit on the limit but in the end, it was the only choice because without this possibility it was impossible for me because, on the rest of the track, Martin was super nice and was the only possibility for me.” So what they are saying is, in effect, that without a do-or-die attempt, there’s no way of overtaking. Surely that is where the sport has gone wrong?

At least there are moves afoot to make it less difficult; from 2027, there will be a marked reduction in aero downforce, no ride-height devices and a reduction to 850cc. Also, Michelin is working hard on a new front tyre that will be less susceptible to temperature changes and, therefore, grip levels. They can’t come soon enough.

Aggressive moves are nothing new – Valentino Rossi on Sete Gibernau in Spain 2005, anyone? In fact, Rossi against many rivals, for that matter – but we go back to the idea of gladiators battling it out; no-holds-barred fighting is always more entertaining than an over-policed procession. Of course, it all depends on the viewpoint: the rider who loses out in an incident is always going to have a completely different opinion of what is acceptable than the rider who came out on top. Max Biaggi said it best; “This is motorcycle racing, not classical dancing.”

It’s a shame that the argument has overshadowed what was a good race. Martin vs Bastiannini was nail-biting, as Martin could never get away and there was always the chance that he would buckle under the pressure and make a mistake, as he did in the Sprint race when he was distracted by a dashboard message telling him he had a track-limits warning, running wide and allowing Bagnaia through. Galling, but he had no one to blame but himself. As it was, in the Main race, it looked as if he had Bastiannini covered which, of course, is where we came in; Bastiannini had no choice other than to make a desperate lunge and he got away with it.

Let’s just hope that the championship isn’t decided by a similar incident on the last lap of the last race, with everything on the line.

For brief moments in both races, it looked as if Brad Binder was going to have an influence on proceedings, his starts being something else but, in the Sprint race, he dropped quickly from second to sixth, where he finished and, in the Main race, he was again in the mix but dropped it early on and was destined to finish dead last, 85 seconds behind the winner.

Somehow, Honda managed to get three bikes into the points, albeit at the tail end of the points-paying positions but special mention must go to Fabio Quartararo, who had an excellent race by Yamaha’s current standards, finishing seventh in both races. Rumours are floating around that Yamaha has finally admitted that what they need is a V4 and are reportedly working on one. We’ll probably only see it when the new 850cc rules come in, in 2027, and it can’t be too soon; someone has to break the dominance of Ducati at some point – why not Yamaha?