Could crashes be the decisive factor in tense MotoGP title fight?

If you look at the actual crash statistics for the 2024 MotoGP season after the first 10 rounds, the top three in the standings haven’t crashed a whole lot.

But certainly in the case of Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia, who are split by three points at the top of the table, tumbles have come at critical moments in races and have helped keep the title race so close.

Bagnaia has crashed a total of five times this season, while Martin has fallen seven times. Third-placed Enea Bastianini is also on five, while fourth-placed Marc Marquez has suffered 15 tumbles for the year so far - which is somewhat understandable given his ongoing adaptation to the Ducati.

At last weekend’s British GP, Bagnaia suffered his fifth race crash of the season after sliding out of fourth in the sprint. That adds to a crash out of the lead in the Barcelona sprint, a spill in qualifying at Le Mans, a collision in the Jerez sprint and a tangle with Marquez in the Portuguese GP.

Taking into account where was when he crashed, Bagnaia has seen at least 34 points go begging from his tally. Martin has only fallen three times in races, but they have been much more costly as two of them were while leading grands prix. His points loss is 57.

Add those to their current championship tally and Martin would be sat on 298 points right now versus 272 - pushing the gap between them from three to 26.

This shows just how much of an impact these crashes have had on the title battle. At its biggest, the gap splitting Martin and Bagnaia was 44 points after the latter crashed out of the Barcelona sprint. 

But his run of four GP victories following that, including two sprint/GP doubles, coinciding with two crashes for Martin saw that overturned to a 10-point advantage for the reigning double world champion going into the summer break.

But his fall in the Silverstone sprint, followed by a lack of pace compared to Martin in the grand prix, pretty much undid all of his hard work.

While this is very much down to the competitive nature of MotoGP’s top riders now, Michelin’s 2024 rear tyres have had a big part to play too.

Nobody wants to reckon with the idea that tyres could decide the outcome of a championship. 

The run-in to last year’s decider was overshadowed by the very real danger a tyre pressure penalty could deny either Martin or Bagnaia, while the former’s chances were majorly harmed by a problem rear in the Qatar GP.

But this is the reality of a single-supplier championship. This isn’t to say Michelin’s part in the crashes we’ve seen impacting the title battle is anything to do with its new, grippier rear tyres being bad. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the constant demolition of lap records from track to track proves.

As Bagnaia explained at Silverstone, though, the added grip from the rear tyre is pushing the front more under braking, which is in turn increasing the risk of crashing.

“First of all, the new rear tyres are fantastic but are making us crash more because the rear is pushing the front a lot,” Bagnaia said. 

“Today [in the sprint] the first three guys finished the race with eight seconds to fourth, so the speed some guys are having is incredible. 

"I think we’ve never seen something like that and it’s super impressive, I love it. But the risk of a crash is always there.”

He added that this does change the approach to riding in theory, “but every time we forget” in a race situation when battles are so close.

And based on what we’ve already seen in the first half of the 2024 season, that’s unlikely to change as each subsequent round proves even more pivotal in deciding the destiny of this year’s world championship.