Fabio Quartararo takes 2021 MotoGP crown

[advrider]

It’s a changing of the guard for MotoGP, in more ways than one. Fabio Quartararo earned enough points to clinch the MotoGP championship on Sunday, and it’s a sign of the future for the world’s premier roadracing series.

First: Quartararo races for the Yamaha factory MotoGP team. Yamaha’s been a serious contender for podiums the past few years, but never quite in the same league as Honda ever since Marc Marquez made the leap to the Repsol squad. Jorge Lorenzo took the title for Yamaha in 2015, but otherwise, Honda had an uninterrupted run from 2013 through 2020 … when Marc Marquez was injured.

Joan Mir too win for Suzuki last year, but he did so by racing carefully and only took a single race win en route to the championship. The talk last year wasn’t about how Mir was a breakout—the buzz was over Quartarato. The young rider did not dominate the same way Marquez did, but Quartararo was the first rider in some time who looked capable of taking the fight to him. In the off-season, he moved to Yamaha’s factory team and this year, he was a front-runner all season.

Second: Quartararo is also the first French rider to ever win the MotoGP title. That’s significant; for years, Spanish riders have dominated MotoGP, and there are often grim mutterings of favouritism, since series organizer Dorna is also Spanish, and likes to have riders that appeal to its home television crowd. Not only is Quartararo the first French rider to win, he’s also the first non-Spanish rider since 2011.

Third: Quartararo’s win comes as Valentino Rossi was taken off the Yamaha factory team at end of 2020, and now plans to retire at this season’s end. Everything comes to an end, even the GOAT’s career, and now Yamaha and MotoGP have a young star to keep the crowds excited.

There are two MotoGP races left this season: Portugal, and Valencia.

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