Analysis: How would MotoGP’s 2024 title battle look without sprints after Motegi?

There are just four rounds left in MotoGP’s second season of its sprint era and the debate about their worthiness has largely quietened.

Come the end of a chaotic 2023 season when sprints were introduced, they ultimately proved to help keep the title battle alive to the final round, as grand prix results alone would have crowned Francesco Bagnaia the runaway champion.

When Crash.net last looked at adjusted points in 2024 to remove sprint results, the championship was firmly looking like Bagnaia’s.

After the Austrian Grand Prix, the actual gap between Bagnaia and Jorge Martin was just five points. With sprint results removed, that gap swelled to 43 points.

Five rounds have now passed since the Austrian GP, with just four remaining as the 2024 campaign nears its climax.

Ahead of next weekend’s Australian Grand Prix, the standings have Martin leading Bagnaia by 10 after the factory Ducati rider completed his fourth sprint/GP double of the year in Japan and took an eighth grand prix victory.

If we take the adjusted points to account for just the grands prix results, we see that since Austria the title battle has actually closed up between the leading two.

Championship standings after 16 rounds minus sprint points

1 Bagnaia - 279 (Current - 382)
2 Martin - 261 (Current - 392)
3 Bastianini - 226 (Current - 313)
4 M.Marquez - 216 (Current - 311)
5 Binder - 144 (Current - 183)
6 Bezzecchi - 123 (Current - 134)
7 Acosta - 118 (Current - 181)
8 Di Giannantonio - 113 (Current - 134)
9 Vinales - 108 (Current - 163)
10 A.Marquez - 103 (Current -124)

The gap between Martin and Bagnaia shrinks from 43 to just 18 at this stage of the season from Austria to Japan with sprint points excluded, though obviously in this scenario it’s the latter who leads the way.

While Bagnaia sees a swing of 28 points from his real-world standing, the difference in points is just eight on grand prix results alone.

Bagnaia remains the strongest runner on Sundays in 2024, with Japan marking his eighth grand prix victory of the season. He is the first rider to do that since Marc Marquez in 2019, while he joins a list of elite names alongside Jorge Lorenzo, Valentino Rossi and Casey Stoner to have also achieved this feat in a single season.

Martin has only had three wins in 2024, with his latest coming in Indonesia. But that was his first since the French GP in May.

What has seen Bagnaia’s sprint-excluded championship gap shrink since we last did this piece after Austria is a pair of DNFs at Aragon and Emilia Romagna. From Aragon until now, Bagnaia’s Sunday points haul has been 61, while Martin’s has been 86. A strategic error in the San Marino GP during a brief rain spell proved costly, but he has been inside the top two at every other grand prix since Austria - and top two in all bar San Marino since the summer break. 

DNFs aside, Bagnaia’s results in the last five races have amounted to a second at San Marino, third in Indonesia and a win in Japan.

With 100 points up for grabs across the final four grands prix, Martin has a slightly tougher job facing him to get ahead of Bagnaia in the standings if sprints didn’t factor into results than Bagnaia does of closing down his current 10-point deficit with 148 points available.

A major factor in Bagnaia losing ground to Martin in this scenario is their non-scores. Bagnaia has seven for the season currently, with three of those - Portugal, Aragon and Misano 2 - on Sundays. Martin has four non-scores for the season, but only two on Sundays (Spain and Germany).

Behind the top two, Enea Bastianini is slightly closer at 53 points adrift in third instead of 79. But, again, with 100 points left, Bastianini is staring at elimination from mathematical challenger status as early as Australia if Bagnaia outscores him by 22 points.

Marc Marquez’s chances are even slimmer at staying afloat, with a 63-point deficit meaning Bagnaia only needs to outscore him by 12 in Australia to eliminate him from contention.

So, in both this fictional scenario and the real-world title battle, the top two are the main protagonists. What’s impressive, too, is the fact that in both scenarios Ducati is guaranteed the riders’ championship, with Brad Binder out of mathematical contention with or without sprint points taken into consideration.

In this sprint-less example, Marco Bezzecchi’s season looks far better than it actually is. Though still nowhere near the title-fighting performances of 2023, he sneaks into sixth in the points without sprints, having scored just 11 on Saturdays in 2024 on the tricky GP23.

What would the 2024 MotoGP standings look like without grand prix results?

The sprint only points table once again works hugely in favour of Martin, whose Saturday work remains incredible in this era.

Championship standings after 16 rounds with grand prix results excluded

1 Martin - 131
2 Bagnaia - 103
3 Marquez - 95
4 Bastianini - 87
5 Acosta - 63

After 16 rounds, his sprint points haul stands at 131. That’s grown from 95 since Austria when we last looked into this statistic. Bagnaia has bucked up his act since then in the sprints, with his tally rising to 103.

After Austria, his sprint points haul was 57, which was a direct result of four non-scores in sprint races in the first half of the season. Since then, he scored just one point in Aragon, but was second at Misano 1, then victorious at Misano 2, Indonesia and Japan. Martin, meanwhile, was second in Aragon, first at Misano 1, second at Misano two, 10th in Indonesia after crashing out of the lead, and fourth in Japan.

That has given him a 28-point lead over Bagnaia in the standings, with Marquez a further eight adrift in third. With 48 points left in the final four sprints, Martin would have his first title match point in Thailand.

Once again, sprints prove useful in creating a much tighter championship picture. But the strength of both Bagnaia and Martin at various points in 2024 means we’d still be staring at an enthralling charge to the finish in the championship battle under pre-2023 rules.