We don’t yet know how rusty Marc Marquez will be when he makes his first MotoGP race start in nine months at Portimao this weekend, or whether the severity of his 2020 injury will lead to a more tentative approach.
There’s certainly no guarantee that he will display the same ferocious pace in the 2021 Portuguese Grand Prix as he did when tearing through the field in last year’s fateful Spanish GP.
But one thing we do know is that statistically the odds of Marquez still being 2021 despite his season starting with round three are still very, very good if he’s competitive.
This is what would happen if you remove the eventual champion from the first two races of every season since 2002:
| Year | Champion | Points margin | Alternate champion* | Alt. margin* |
| 2020 | Joan Mir | 13 | Joan Mir | 2 |
| 2019 | Marc Marquez | 151 | Marc Marquez | 102 |
| 2018 | Marc Marquez | 76 | Marc Marquez | 56 |
| 2017 | Marc Marquez | 37 | Marc Marquez | 24 |
| 2016 | Marc Marquez | 49 | Marc Marquez | 12 |
| 2015 | Jorge Lorenzo | 5 | Valentino Rossi | 21 |
| 2014 | Marc Marquez | 67 | Marc Marquez | 11 |
| 2013 | Marc Marquez | 4 | Jorge Lorenzo | 26 |
| 2012 | Jorge Lorenzo | 18 | Dani Pedrosa | 27 |
| 2011 | Casey Stoner | 90 | Casey Stoner | 60 |
| 2010 | Jorge Lorenzo | 138 | Jorge Lorenzo | 87 |
| 2009 | Valentino Rossi | 45 | Valentino Rossi | 1 |
| 2008 | Valentino Rossi | 93 | Valentino Rossi | 61 |
| 2007 | Casey Stoner | 125 | Casey Stoner | 85 |
| 2006 | Nicky Hayden | 5 | Valentino Rossi | 34 |
| 2005 | Valentino Rossi | 147 | Valentino Rossi | 95 |
| 2004 | Valentino Rossi | 47 | Valentino Rossi | 5 |
| 2003 | Valentino Rossi | 80 | Valentino Rossi | 32 |
| 2002 | Valentino Rossi | 140 | Valentino Rossi | 94 |
* excluding the real-life champion from the first two races
Of the 19 title races held since 500cc became MotoGP in 2002, the real-life champion missing the first two races – or, let’s say, being disqualified from them, as that’s effectively the same for the points table – would’ve only changed the outcome of the title race on four occasions.
Jorge Lorenzo’s late-season rally in 2015 won’t have been enough to overcome Valentino Rossi, and his retirement in the 2012 finale would’ve handed a first title to Dani Pedrosa.
On the flipside, however, Lorenzo would prevent Marquez’s debut crown a year later in our alternative history.
Marquez making his debut two races late in 2013 would drop him to third place in the standings, but that is a minor change compared to Nicky Hayden’s 2006 crown, which would’ve turned to fifth place with an initial two-race absence.
That’s how vital Hayden’s early podiums were that season. Rossi gets another MotoGP title in our reworking of history.
All of that should of course be caveated with the fact that the real-time points situation would be different in each case and thus risk assessments and strategies would change.
And it’s also worth noting that in many of these cases comfortable title triumphs would become real down-to-the-wire stuff instead if the champion was starting two races down.
But it’s still remarkable how many champions would’ve stayed champions. Even last year, with the shrunken 14-race calendar, disqualifying Mir from the Jerez double-header would not have meant a different champion, as it would only cost him 11 points and gain none for nearest rival Franco Morbidelli.
And of course, recall also Marquez’s recent title. In 2019, the Spaniard was so good that he could’ve easily taken a four- or five-race vacation mid-year and still brought the championship home.
Perhaps the most striking element becomes apparent when you could the points deficit Marquez faces as he returns to how far behind our past champions would’ve been at round three in our alternative maths.
Thanks to the frenetic events of the Qatar double-header, Pramac Ducati rider Johann Zarco holds a surprise championship lead right now on 40 points.
Of the 15 championship battles from 2002-2020 that would’ve had the same outcome with the champion missing the two openers, in 14 of them the eventual title-winner would’ve been up against a bigger deficit than 40 points at round three and still prevailed.
The only exception is 2002 – and even then Rossi would’ve been 33 points adrift of leader Carlos Checa (pictured below) when he turned up at Jerez.
In 2007, 2011, 2017 and 2020, the title winner would’ve been at a maximum 50 point deficit as the leader at round three would’ve won the first two races (and in the cases of Maverick Vinales in 2017 and Quartararo last year, they really did) – and they’d have still been toppled in the end by eventual champions Casey Stoner (2007 and ’11), Marquez (’17) and Mir (’20).
Marquez also has form for overcoming big early deficits. A middling Qatar GP and a crash in Argentina (pictured top and below) meant he was only eighth in the points, 37 behind Vinales at round three in 2017. One year later he was back in fifth, 21 points off surprise leader Cal Crutchlow, at round three thanks to his clash with Rossi in Argentina.
So while Marquez would certainly have rather been racing in Qatar and arriving in Portugal already well-placed in the points, history makes it clear his title hopes are far from crushed.
It wouldn’t be even if those two races had been at the Sachsenring or Austin, traditional Marquez strongholds, but Losail is not somewhere he and Honda have ever been spectacular. His 2014 win there is his only Qatar triumph in MotoGP.
And if he returns in the kind of form that he’d left MotoGP in, those two absences will not matter at all.
