Watching real, heart-in-your-throat, wheel-to-wheel racing action is why a lot of fans love motorsports. While I can't speak for every fan, I can offer one fairly safe presumption about a thing that we probably all dislike, and that's a parade.
Who wants to see the same group of racers go around and around like a merry-go-round, never once changing position? Not I, and probably also not you.
When you have a single rider who's leagues ahead of where everyone else is that they're currently competing against, it isn't nearly as exciting as when you have two or more racers who are on a similar level.
The competition, the duel, the duking it out on track is what makes it exciting. It's almost like an incredibly high-speed dance, with each racer carefully reading what the other is doing and anticipating and reacting as they deem appropriate.
And if you watched the 2024 MotoGP Spanish GP round at Jerez, then what an absolute treat all us fans around the world had, as watching Bagnaia and Marquez battle it out was an all-too-rare treat.
In case you didn't stick around for the press conference after the race, Marquez showed off how close the battle was when he proudly turned his shoulder to display the freaking rubber marks on his leathers from Bagnaia's front tire.
Seriously, for anyone who didn't watch this race in its entirety, you absolutely should at least watch their on-track battle. Since both racers finished in first and second place at the end of the race, you can probably already guess that neither of them binned it. Instead, it was just insanely close racing that showcased the consummate skills and professionalism of both racers at this point in their careers.
Gone are the days (at least, seemingly so) when Marquez would just kind of plow folks out of the way heedlessly. And speaking as a longtime racing fan, this seems like a much more intriguing show to watch here in 2024.
If you didn't watch the 2024 Spanish GP, though, you should probably go back and watch the whole thing, and also watch the Sprint race, too.
During the Sprint race, surprise damp patches on the track led to an absolutely wild race of attrition that ultimately saw Dani Pedrosa, wildcarding with KTM, end up taking the third step of the podium. That was after Fabio Quartararo surprisingly took the third step for the Sprint Race podium ceremony, only to be disqualified later because his bike's low tire pressure went against the current regs.
It's enough to make you genuinely excited about what's going to happen in the next race. We've had four races so far in 2024, and the results have been quite different from race to race (though Bagnaia has won twice so far).
What will happen in France? I can't wait to see what happens.
