MotoGP's 2024 season finale will mark the third successive time that the premier-class title battle is decided in the last round of the campaign.
But like in 2022 and 2023, the championship leader has a significant advantage over their sole adversary - though in this case Pecco Bagnaia is now in the role of the hunter rather than the hunted.
Bagnaia's win in the Malaysian Grand Prix didn't offset his fall in the sprint, and means he trails Jorge Martin by 24 points.
Only 37 points are available in the season finale - moved to Barcelona due to the extreme flooding in Valencia - in two weeks' time.
Bagnaia would win the championship if he finishes level on points with Martin, as grand prix results are the first tiebreaker and Bagnaia has 10 grand prix wins this year to Martin's three.
But it still means Martin only needs 14 points to clinch his first-ever MotoGP title - and he may not even need that many.
HOW MARTIN CAN BE CHAMPION IN BARCELONA SPRINT
A win in the Saturday sprint race at Barcelona will guarantee Martin the 2024 crown by virtue of giving him 12 points and taking at least three away from Bagnaia.
Placing second with Bagnaia third would also be enough for Martin.
But if Martin is anywhere between third and eighth, he would need Bagnaia to finish two places behind him or worse to avoid taking the title fight into the final day.
Martin finishing ninth or lower in the sprint would guarantee it goes on to the Sunday race.
HOW MARTIN CAN BE CHAMPION IN BARCELONA GP RACE
Regardless of what happens in the sprint, a podium finish on Sunday for Martin would guarantee him ending the weekend as champion.
But his target finish for Sunday, assuming he doesn't wrap it up on Saturday, will likely be considerably lower unless his sprint goes really wrong.
In a season dominated by Ducati GP24s, Martin has been on the podium in all but two grands prix he's finished this season. He was fourth at Austin and 15th at Misano after wrongly pitting for wet tyres.
THE PICTURE FOR BARCELONA
MotoGP already visited Barcelona for a 2024 round back in May, and Bagnaia should've taken all 37 points then - but crashed out from the lead while under no real pressure on the final lap of the sprint.
He will likely head into Barcelona as a strong favourite to win - but by such a margin that it is actually likely to his detriment.
Of the non-Ducati bikes that could get involved and perhaps take points off Martin, Aprilia has been traditionally a potent force at Barcelona but is in the middle of a serious late-season slump. KTM, though, did get a strong round in May from Pedro Acosta.
But the two riders that Bagnaia would most expect help from - team-mate Enea Bastianini and future team-mate Marc Marquez - are both hardly Barcelona specialists. Marquez personally considers it among his two worst tracks in MotoGP (with Sepang), while for Bastianini it may well be his worst.
Martin finished this year's Catalan GP 1.7s off winner Bagnaia - and nearly nine seconds ahead of third place.
