Is the Aragon Grand Prix secretly the most important MotoGP round of 2024?

This weekend will see MotoGP head to Aragon for the first time since the 2022 season, with the championship battle finely poised.

After the Austrian Grand Prix, reigning world champion Francesco Bagnaia leads Ducati stablemate Jorge Martin by five points after doing the double at the Red Bull Ring.

Bagnaia is a previous winner at Aragon, scoring a maiden MotoGP victory for Ducati in the 2021 edition of the event after beating future team-mate Marc Marquez in a head-to-head fight.

Enea Bastianini, Bagnaia’s current team-mate, won the last instalment of the Aragon GP in 2022 for Gresini after besting the double world champion in a duel.

The Aragon circuit the field returns to has been resurfaced, which should make for an intriguing weekend as Michelin has done no testing on the new asphalt. As such, it will bring an extra rear tyre to its allocation.

Typically, the Aragon GP has been one of the more enthralling rounds of a season and since joining the calendar in 2010 it has become a firm favourite among fans and riders.

But, looking back over the last 14 years, Aragon has marked itself out as something of a pivotal moment in the championship.

In all but two of the 13 Aragon GPs (excluding 2020’s Teruel GP at the same venue), the rider leading the standings at the end of the round has gone on to win the championship.

In 2010, Jorge Lorenzo could only manage a distant fourth to race winner Casey Stoner. But it mattered little for the Yamaha rider, who led Dani Pedrosa by 56 points and would wrap up the championship two rounds later in Japan.

In 2011, Casey Stoner made it back-to-back Aragon GP wins, this time for Honda, in dominant fashion over team-mate Pedrosa. The Australia left Aragon 44 points clear of Lorenzo and would be crowned world champion for a second time two rounds later in Australia.

In 2012, Lorenzo still couldn’t get to the top step of the Aragon GP podium, with Pedrosa besting him by 6.4s. Pedrosa’s title challenge hit an unfortunate snag at the previous round at Misano, when a stuck tyre warmer forced him to start from last, which led to him being caught up in a lap one tangle.

Lorenzo left Aragon that year 33 points clear of the Spaniard and would win his second crown at the penultimate round in Australia following another crash for Pedrosa.

The 2013 edition of the Aragon GP proved controversial, as a tangle involving Honda team-mates Marc Marquez and Pedrosa saw the latter crash. In a bizarre incident, Marquez knocked Pedrosa’s traction control sensor off the side of his bike with his elbow as he tried to go around the outside of Pedrosa at Turn 12. Pedrosa was thrown into the air and out of the race, while Marquez came under fire for aggressive riding.

Marquez won that race by 1.356s over Lorenzo, which put him 39 points clear of the Yamaha rider. The pair would take their title battle to the final round in Valencia, with Marquez coming out the winner.

Lorenzo won a wet 2014 Aragon GP when Marquez and Pedrosa crashed out, though Marquez was 75 points clear in the standings and would wrap up his second world title at the next round in Japan.

The 2015 Aragon GP saw Lorenzo win the race, but it was Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi who led the points by 14 after ending up third. Lorenzo would ultimately go on to win the world championship in a controversial conclusion to the season.

Between 2016 and 2019, Marquez led the championship after winning the Aragon GP four times in a row on his way to the remainder of his MotoGP titles so far. The 2020 Aragon GP saw Alex Rins win the race, but Suzuki team-mate Joan Mir stepped into the lead of the championship for the first time that year by six points from Fabio Quartararo.

Mir won the championship that year, while it would be Quartararo’s turn in 2021 after the Frenchman left Aragon 53 points clear of Francesco Bagnaia. The reverse was true in MotoGP’s most recent Aragon visit in 2022, with Quartararo leading by 10 points at the end of the round but ultimately losing his crown to Bagnaia in Valencia.

While it’s no guarantee, with the addition of sprint races making the title race even tighter, history is on the side of the championship leader at the end of the Aragon GP. Will that prove to be the case in 2024 too?