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.
