The year comes to an end and the totals are drawn: those who won the most, those who fell the least, but also those who fell the most and the fewest. The ‘stunt rider’ championship has become a winter tradition and often reveals some interesting details about the bikes and riders.
Let’s get straight to the point and reveal the winner of the least coveted award of the year right away: on paper it’s Iker Lecuona, who leads the 2021 ranking with his 26 falls. The numbers have to be interpreted though and so the truth is that KTM’s Spaniard is not the true stuntman of the year, but he is beaten by Marquez. Marc may have taken 22 falls but in 14 GPs that’s almost 1.6 for each weekend versus Iker’s 1.4.
No wonder, given that Marquez has crashed many times in his career, but perhaps it’s not just the driver’s fault. Certainly his physical condition influenced him as he was no longer able to show his legendary saves, but the Honda also seems to have helped. In the overall standings, there are actually 3 HRC drivers in the first 5 places: the aforementioned Marc in 2nd place, his teammate Pol Espargarò in 4th place and his brother Alex in 5th place. Not only that, Takaaki Nakagami is still in the MotoGP top ten, another indication of the RC213V’s criticality.
In the premier class behind Lecuona and the Honda trio is Aleix Espargarò, then the two rookies Bastianini and Martin, with Miller in 8th. Quartararo and Bagnaia, world champions and runners-up respectively, are in the “good” column with just 7 falls each, just one more than Mir, who is 3rd in the championship. Credit also goes to Luca Marini, who limited his contacts with the asphalt to 9 in his debut. The curious thing is Dovizioso: with 0 in 5 races.
In Moto2, the undisputed leader is Canet with 21 falls, earning him the top spot on the overall podium. Teammate Arenas is two falls away, then Garzo and rookie Beaubier. For the Italians, Baldassarri and Vietti each share 13 falls.
In this case, too, the title contenders made only a few mistakes. Very few in the case of Gardner, who fell just three times all season, including one in the race, in Austin. While the Aussie was very good in the gravity challenge, his rival Raul Fernandez still made his mark with 8 falls. an excellent result considering he was a beginner.
In Moto3, on the other hand, Japan reigned supreme with some obvious jokes about suicide bombers. Kaito Toba and Tatsuki Suzuki made it 1-2 with Andrea Migno third but it has to be said that the Italian was often knocked down through no fault of his own.
In the cadet class, the rule that the world champion makes few mistakes does not apply. Pedro Acosta, close to the Crashers podium with 13 falls, but he was a rookie. It was a completely different story with Dennis Foggia, who limited the number of slides to 5. However, if you have a champion to crown, this is Romano Fenati: only 3 falls in 18 races, the same result as last year (in which there were only 15 GPs).
Taking all classes into account, there were 750 falls: 278 in MotoGP, 367 in Moto2 and 305 in Moto3, Figures that do not differ significantly from the average of previous years.
The session where riders have crashed the most (and that goes for all classes) is clearly the race, followed by FP3 where riders are fighting for direct access to Q2, so taking more risks.
On the other hand, if we talk about circuits, Le Mans has always been a driver’s nightmare for the past three years. This year there were 118 falls at the French GP, of which 37 were 3 alone. On the other hand Losail: His two GPs are in the last and penultimate places and on the podium in terms of falls with the Red Bull Ring.
