virage du raccordement

Looking at numbers and finding tendencies is all fun and games but doing so with data coming from fans of a sport? A personal favorite activity of mine. Time to see what everybody thought of the 2024 MotoGP season.

The answers to this survey were gathered between the 19th and the 30th of November 2024.

about people who answered the survey

Considering people who only started watching during the season and people who don’t necessarily catch up on race weekends where they were absent, I didn’t expect everyone to have witnessed the entirety of the season. In fact, a near perfect half of the people surveyed (51.3%) watched all the races, catching up on missed ones if necessary. Then:

• 26.1% of people missed a race here and there,
• 13% of people watched at least half of the season,
• The remaining 9.6% watched less than half of the season, of these 11 people, 9 of them had gotten into MotoGP during the season.

In general, about half the people surveyed (49.1%) watched all the sessions available (practice, qualifying, sprint, race). A quarter (27.2%) didn’t necessarily watched practice sessions and the majority of the rest were at least in front of the sprint and the race.

about the season overall

on riders

the world champion

A third of people surveyed (30.1%) weren’t surprised that Jorge Martin won the title.

In the survey, I offered two options for the « Yes » opinion and a majority of answers went with « I thought Pecco would be stronger / more consistent » (50.4% of all answers or 72.2% of the « Yes » answers) while 19 people (16.5% of all answers or 24.1% of the « Yes » answers) were surprised that Jorge was able to be so strong / consistent.

Overall, in my opinion, this is a direct manifestation of the « this was Pecco’s championship to lose rather than Jorge’s championship to win » line of thought that we’ve seen quite a lot in the last few months.

who impressed people the most

The world champion, Jorge Martin, received a vote from 46.9% of people. Is the number not higher because people were expecting his success or simply because the GP24 made all his results easy to achieve in a way? I’ll let you be a judge of that.

I personally think the bike, and how dominant the GP24 was compared to all the other bikes on the grid, has a lot to do with it. It also shows with Pecco Bagnaia‘s number, only receiving a vote from 23% of people despite his 11 wins on Sunday.

To go back on the higher side of the rankings, the following riders that impressed people the most were Pedro Acosta (38.1% of votes), Fabio Di Giannantonio and Fabio Quartararo (both with 31%).

While beaten in the general standings by two littles points by fellow KTM rider Brad Binder, Pedro Acosta still had the best season of non-Ducati bikes in terms of podiums, also getting a pole and 4 front rows in his rookie season.

As I mentioned in my overall look at the 2024 season article, Diggia had the 5th best average race finished result on Sundays.

And lastly, a rider I should mention because he got one more vote than Pecco and surclassed the rest of the Hondas this season despite riding a Ducati the year prior: Johann Zarco, with 28 votes.

« Which rider(s) impressed you the most » – Unlimited choices – 113 answers

who disappointed people the most

Obviously, some riders didn’t receive a lot of votes (or not at all) when people were asked if they were impressed by them in 2024 but when we look at some of those names, there is no surprise because it was expected of them to struggle (either because things were already difficult in 2023 or because the bike they had in 2024 didn’t have much to offer to begin with).

Riders with expectations on them that didn’t deliver, though? Well, a couple of them definitely showed with the next question.

Another Italian rider riding a Ducati takes the second place and it’s Franco Morbidelli with 34.7% of people giving him a vote. Hindered by the consequences of a huge crash in pre-season and missing on pre-season tests, just like his fellow Academy rider, it took a long time for Franco to fully experience the potential of his GP24, never able to catch up with the other GP24 riders and finishing the season with only one sprint podium (and one front row qualifying).

Then, we find 3 riders with the same number of votes (19) : Joan Mir, Maverick Viñales and Pecco Bagnaia. Enea Bastianini is close behind with 17 votes.

And this, despite him always qualifying directly to Q2 and having one of the higher average qualifying position of the grid (5th with a 7.1). The results didn’t follow once the races had started.

Pecco, well, he didn’t win the championship despite his 11 Sunday wins and was bested by Jorge in a satellite team.

Enea, despite a much better 2024 season than 2023 (where he suffered multiple injuries and missed on a lot of races, 21.8% of the season to be exact), I believe people expected more from him after his thrilling 2022 season and him being with the GP24 on a Ducati factory seat.

« Which rider(s) disappointed you the most » – Unlimited choices – 113 answers

who did both

Riders who were both impressive & disappointing

3 riders managed to have at least 10 votes at both questions, showing that people had a split opinion on their 2024 performance (in regard to the expectations set on them): Enea Bastianini, Pecco Bagnaia and Pedro Acosta.

Like I’ve mentioned above, Pecco and Enea, as the two Ducati factory riders, using a bike surpassing every other one on the grid, had a lot of expectations on their shoulders coming into the season.

For Pedro’s case, there were 4 times more people impressed than people disappointed but I think he was hyped so much before the beginning of the season and with his results in the first race weekends that some people grew tired of him not exactly being able to deliver more in the second half of the season.

on races

I will say, overall, the answers to this survey are very Marc Marquez oriented. For once in my life (doing motogp surveys), I didn’t ask people for their favorite rider so I can’t tell for sure which part of the answers are Marc fans choosing their favorite because he’s their favorite and which answers are just regular people who found Marc interesting. I would like to think it’s a nice mix of both.

Close behind, we have Jerez (48%, with Marc involved once again with his first race podium with Gresini) (also, Marco Bezzecchi’s only podium of the season).

After a small gap, we continue with 3 close ones : Sachsenring (36.3%) (dare I say, another Marc involvement), Le Mans (32.4%, ditto) and COTA (30.4%, only non-Ducati win of the season).

Overall, they’re mostly races that stayed exciting until the very end (mostly thanks to Marc Marquez and his propensity to tear through the field even from lower starting positions on the grid).

« Which races have you rewatched or would want to rewatch in the future » – Unlimited choices – 102 answers

When it comes to focusing on wins that surprised people, some of the answers are similar and other not so much.

Phillip Island is once again leading (receiving a vote from a little over half the people who answered the question, 56.8% to be exact) and I can easily understand why. Who thought Marc was going to pull that off after he slipped on his tear-off at the start? And delivering beautiful battles and overtakes with both Pecco and Jorge during the race.

Misano 1 is close behind (47.4%), a race that was made unpredictable thanks to the rain, Jorge making the wrong decision in switching to his rain setting bike when he shouldn’t have, and Marc once again going through the field and reminding everyone that he’s still a rider to reckon with on a wet track.

Closing off the podium is the only non-Ducati win of the season: Maverick Viñales in COTA. The factory the winner belongs to is not the only interesting about this race. Things were genuinely insane through most of the race (maybe calming down a bit after Marc crashed), a chaotic start, Maverick having to crawl his way back to first after dropping down to P11, a lot of battles at the front and a heap of good overtakes.

4th, we have Aragon, 28.4% of people attributing a vote to Marc Marquez’s first win in over 1043 days.

All the other answers have under 10 votes.

« Any wins that surprised and/or impressed you » – Unlimited choices – 95 answers

For the « one thing you could change about the season », I received different kind of answers that I’ve gathered into a bunch of categories.

• Everything Marc Marquez related

The COTA weekend came first with 20 mentions (his brake issues and the crash on Sunday) and then it was everything about Sachsenring with 11 mentions (from the highside in PR to Stefan Bradl impeding his last Q1 lap). The Mandalika engine break closes this podium with 4 mentions and the Motegi deleted pole lap is close behind with 3 votes.

• The Pecco crashes

I had several of Pecco’s crashes mentioned in various answers. The one that people mentioned the most was the contact with Alex Marquez in Aragon (11 mentions), as much because of how bad it looked than because of the consequences of it (namely, Pecco’s words to the press).

Then, we had mentions of Sepang (3 times) and the Misano 2 sprint (2 votes). Barcelona 1 sprint and Portimao crash with Marc also got a mention.

• Fabio Di Giannantonio’s injury

Diggia is getting his own category because it makes sense in term of number of votes compared to what comes next. 4 people mentioned his injury, wishing the crash hadn’t happened and/or that he would have gotten surgery earlier.

• Crashing from the (almost) lead

Three cases of crashing from (almost) the lead were bought to my attention. Both races in Japan with Pedro Acosta not able to capitalize on his first pole (4 votes) and Raul Fernandez not able to stay on his bike after taking the lead of the sprint in Barcelona (3 votes).

• « Fabio Quartararo deserved a break »

Needless to say luck wasn’t exactly on Fabio’s side this season. His fuel issues were mentioned as well as him losing P3 in the Jerez sprint due to his tyre pressure penalty and him crashing from the top 5 in Thailand.

• General notes

And then, putting aside the individual wishes for moments, I suppose our last category are the overall complaints on the season. They don’t exactly fit the brief of the initial question but I’m still going to give them a moment on principle.

Non-exhaustive list of things to change as per people surveyed: the sprints, the way concussions protocols are handled (or well, not existing to begin with), the tyre pressure penalties and just penalties overall.

about favorites

race weekends

« Favorite race weekend » – One choice – 106 answers

Without much of a surprise, the top 3 of favorite race weekends, with only one choice available, goes to the 3 Marc Marquez wins. COTA is 4th, also expected. Honorable mentions go to: Jerez, Sachsenring, Misano 2 and Silverstone.

When asked about why, people had a variety of reasons to give me. The one that received the most mentions is specific to the top 1 of the rankings, Aragon, and it’s about the joy of seeing Marc win again and be so dominant over the whole weekend (11 mentions).

If me move to reasons that are not tied to one race weekend, we have a certain part of people who chose the race they physically attended as their favorite. Then: the race weekend being fun and interesting overall (good races but not only that, the narratives were mentioned a bunch of times).

With a majority of people surveyed starting to watch MotoGP in 2024, I had also a bunch of answers being along the lines of « the race I got into MotoGP with ».

People also picked their favorite track and / or their home track and weekends where rain made things more interesting than usual. Then, obviously, weekends with podiums people appreciated (e.g. Maverick in COTA, Dani Pedrosa in Jerez, etc).

podiums

Then, we had the two races in Aragon and Misano 1 (Marc wins) with 5 mentions each while the Jerez podium (Dani podium) and the Misano 2 race (Enea win) with 3.

moments

Obviously, the race weekends and podiums favored in the previous questions also made a lot of apparitions in the « favorite moments » section so I’m not going to spend a lot of time on that. I will take a moment to mention Marc and Pecco’s last lap battles in Le Mans because 3 different people mentioned them and I did enjoy them as well, so.

miscellaneous

on the 2025 rookies

For the first time since 2022, MotoGP will be welcoming more than one rookie on its grid with Ai Ogura, Fermin Aldeguer and Somkiat Chantra all joining in next season.

« Which of the 2025 rookies deserve their spot in MotoGP » – Unlimited choices – 95 answers

Without any surprise, our most recent Moto2 champion is the rider that people agree on the most regarding his seat in MotoGP next season. Fermin Aldeguer divides people much more, which is understandable considering the expectations put on him at the beginning of the season (after a domination of the end of 2023) and the mistakes he made in 2024. Fermin’s % is not much higher than Somkiat Chantra’s, though, who finished 2024 in P12.

Obviously finishing the Moto2 championship high is not a requirement to perform well in MotoGP (see Fabio Quartararo for example, P10 in 2018) but this is something we haven’t seen a lot and I wish for Somkiat a longer time in MotoGP than Iker Lecuona who only did two seasons in the higher class after finishing Moto2 in P12 in 2019.

« Riders you would have given a seat if you could » – 49 answers

Reading the answers and the question again, I realized that this might have been interpreted as both « rider you think deserve a seat » and « rider you like and want to see in MotoGP ». In any case, Celestino Vietti got the most amount of mentions, followed by Aron Canet (a solid Moto2 season again with finally his first wins) and Sergio Garcia (leader of the championship for a handful of weeks before he got injured and things got complicated -if a little nightmare-ish- for him).

on honda & yamaha