virage du raccordement

If you had told me, at the beginning of the 2024 MotoGP season, that we would get to have 7 race weekends with the whole grid starting every single race, I probably would have called you delusional. And yet.

This is purely because in terms of injuries, the 2024 season has had a very different dynamic so far compared to 2023, and that’s obviously for the better. Nevertheless, since I have the data and didn’t have this blog at the end of the last year, I thought now could be a good time to study who missed the most races in 2023 but also, who finished the most races (and who did not).

Attending races

riders

Out of the 22 riders on the 2023 grid, only 14 of them started every single race.

rider	sprints missed	Sunday races missed	total races missed	% of the season completed
Alex Rins	11	13	24	38.5%
Pol Espargaro	8	8	16	59.0%
Enea Bastianini	7	8	15	61.5%
Joan Mir	4	5	9	76.9%
Miguel Oliveira	4	5	9	76.9%
Marc Marquez	3	5	8	79.5%
Alex Marquez	3	3	6	84.6%
Luca Marini	1	2	3	92.3%

3 of the 4 Honda riders missed at least one race (Takaaki Nakagami the only one doing 100% of the season) along with 3 of the 8 Ducati riders, Pol Espargaro for KTM (as a constructor) and Miguel Oliveira for Aprilia. The only factory which never had to use a replacement rider was Yamaha.

Two other riders raced less than two thirds of the season: Pol Espargaro (59.0%) who had to be absent for the first 8 race weekends after severely injuring himself in FP2 in Portimao and Enea Bastianini (61.5%) who broke his collarbone in Portimao and suffered several fractures in Barcelona.

races

The 2023 season didn’t have a single race with the whole full-time grid.

Riders missing for every race in the 2023 season

Out of the 39 races, in 15 of them only one rider was missing to have a complete grid. On Sunday in Argentina, 5 riders from the full-time grid were missing: Enea Bastianini, Joan Mir, Marc Marquez, Miguel Oliveira, Pol Espargaro.

Finishing races

riders

Rider	sprints DNFs	Sunday races DNFs	total DNFs
Joan Mir	4	9	13
Aleix Espargaró	6	4	10
Miguel Oliveira	2	7	9
Álex Marquez	3	5	8
Augusto Fernández	3	4	7
Marc Marquez	1	6	7
Jack Miller	1	5	6
Johann Zarco	2	4	6
Luca Marini	3	3	6
Maverick Viñales	1	5	6
Enea Bastianini	1	4	5
Fabio Di Giannantonio	2	3	5
Marco Bezzecchi	2	3	5
Pol Espargaró	2	3	5
Raúl Fernández	0	5	5
Álex Rins	1	3	4
Brad Binder	0	4	4
Francesco Bagnaia	0	4	4
Jorge Martin	0	4	4
Fabio Quartararo	2	1	3
Takaaki Nakagami	2	1	3
Franco Morbidelli	0	0	0

Joan Mir is the rider who DNFed the most throughout the 2023 season (can’t say crashed because I don’t have the details of the mechanical retirements) with 13 races started but not completed. The only other rider hitting double digit is Aleix Espargaro with 10 DNFs.

5 riders have finished all the sprints :

• Brad Binder,
• Franco Morbidelli,
• Jorge Martin,
• Pecco Bagnaia,
• Raul Fernandez.

Franco Morbidelli is the only rider who finished 100% of the races in 2023. As I am writing this (before Assen), this feat is already non-achievable in the 2024 season (the whole grid already has at least one DNF).

Obviously, the more races you start, the higher number of races you can DNF. Below, I’ve adjusted the rankings by weighting the number of DNFs with the number of races started by each rider.

Rider	Races started	DNFs	% of races completed amongst races started
Joan Mir	30	13	56,7%
Miguel Oliveira	30	9	70,0%
Álex Rins	15	4	73,3%
Aleix Espargaró	39	10	74,4%
Álex Marquez	33	8	75,8%
Marc Marquez	31	7	77,4%
Pol Espargaró	23	5	78,3%
Enea Bastianini	24	5	79,2%
Augusto Fernández	39	7	82,1%
Luca Marini	36	6	83,3%
Jack Miller	39	6	84,6%
Maverick Viñales	39	6	84,6%
Johann Zarco	39	6	84,6%
Raúl Fernández	39	5	87,2%
Fabio Di Giannantonio	39	5	87,2%
Marco Bezzecchi	39	5	87,2%
Brad Binder	39	4	89,7%
Francesco Bagnaia	39	4	89,7%
Jorge Martin	39	4	89,7%
Fabio Quartararo	39	3	92,3%
Takaaki Nakagami	39	3	92,3%
Franco Morbidelli	39	0	100,0%

The rankings don’t change much except for a couple of riders going up: Alex Rins, Pol Espargaro and Enea Bastianini. Miguel Oliveira also becomes the Aprilia who crashed more often considering its time on track. They’re all riders who have missed on races due to injury but they still managed to DNF a high number of races (the same or more than the other riders who raced the whole season).

Factory	DNFs	average number of DNFs per rider	races started (all riders)	% of DNF for all races started
Aprilia	30	7,5	147	20,4%
Ducati	43	5,4	288	14,9%
Honda	27	6,8	115	23,5%
KTM	22	5,5	140	15,7%
Yamaha	3	1,5	78	3,8%

As suspected, the Honda was the bike finishing the least amount of races with a score of 23.5% (Joan Mir and Alex Rins were literally 1st and 3rd on that previous table, Marc Marquez was 6th). That said, the Aprilia is not that far back (20.4% of started races not finished), highlighting the difficulties of Miguel Oliveira (2nd in the table) and Aleix Espargaro (4th).

races

Round	Sprint DNFs	Race DNFs
Portugal	5	6
Argentina	2	0
USA	2	9
Spain	4	6
France	4	8
Italy	2	3
Germany	2	2
Netherlands	1	8
Great Britain	0	5
Austria	6	3
Catalunya	1	5
San Marino	0	4
India	6	4
Japan	1	2
Indonesia	2	7
Australia	–	2
Thailand	1	3
Malaysia	0	5
Qatar	2	2
Valencia	1	7
average	2.2	4.6

2023 saw a total of 4 races where all riders crossed the finish line:

• Argentina race,
• Silverstone sprint,
• Misano sprint,
• Sepang sprint.

We saw several races where everyone finished in the points. The fewest amount of finishers we witnessed was 13, on Sunday both times, in Austin and Le Mans.

The races with the most amount of DNFs were all on Sundays:

• Austin (9),
• Le Mans and Assen (8),
• Mandalika and Valencia (7).