The opening race of the MotoGP Riders Championship 2017 season will roar into action on March 26th. That is the first of 18 Grands Prix that make up the season. The opening spectacle comes from Qatar and it is Marc Marquez who will head back into the season to defend his title as the Spaniard takes his ride for the Repsol Honda Team. That was his third MotoGP title and fifth world title overall last season, and he swept the season with three races to spare. That all came about after reigning champion Jorge Lorenzo had made a great start to the season, but couldn’t sustain his challenge through wet races in mid season.
Marquez took five race wins across the season with Lorenzo banking four of them and overall eleven of the 18 races in the season were won by a Spaniard. Fellow countrymen Lorenzo and Marquez have been having a ding-dong battle at the top of the MotoGP for the last seven season now, with them splitting three titles each and Australia’s Casey Stoner the only other man to get in on the title action in that span with a win in the 2011 season. Will anyone be able to break up the dominance that the two of them have laid down?
MotoGP Riders Championship Betting 2017 Winner Odds
Marc Marquez 5/4, Maverick Vinales 15/8, Valentino Rossi 11/2, Jorge Lorenzo 13/2, Daniel Pedrosa 16/1, Andrea Dovizioso 16/1, Cal Crutchlow 33/1, Andrea Iannone 40/1, bar 100/1
MotoGP Riders Championship Betting Promotion
Online betting site Coral offer a Bet & Get Club for their customers. Each week from Monday through Thursday, if you make the qualifying stake amount of £25 across any sport in their sportsbook, then on the Friday you will claim a free £5 bet back to use that weekend! You can opt into this great promotion each and every week and start amassing those free bets just from your regular betting! The offer is open to new and existing customers. Register an account with online betting site Coral and also enjoy £20 worth of free bets as well from them!
MotoGP Riders Championship Betting Preview
Between them, you would imagine that Lorenzo and Marquez are going to get at least half of the 18 Grands Prix titles that are up for grabs. So that doesn’t leave a lot of meat on the bone for the other riders really. Last season there were notable first wins for Cal Crutchlow, Jack Miller, Andrea Iannone and Maverick Vinales at the premier class. That was the first time ever that four first-time winners had emerged from a single season and hopefully that will translate into this being a wide open and competitive season. There was a span of eight races last season where eight different riders each won a race in a remarkable stretch. There was also a record nine different winners across the season too.
Perhaps most notable of all was the victory from Maverick Vinales at the British Grand Prix. The Spaniard has been very well backed in MotoGP Riders Championship Betting 2017 to the point where is 6/5 favourite at Coral to win the opening race of the season in Qatar and he is second favourite in the season outright to land the title. The youngster is a previous Moto3 World Championship and the Yamaha rider won the best rookie award in the MotoGP class in 2015. With his first top division win under his belt last season, where he finished fourth in the final standings, much more is expected from him this season than the four podium finishes he record last term.
Can the 22 year old make such a big impact to knock off legends Marquez and Lorenzo? It looks a bit of a stretch with those two still running strongly. Britain’s Cal Crutchlow, like Vinales is still something of a rookie at this level and from a betting perspective it is hard to see them coming through the pack, especially down the latter stretch when the pressure starts mounting to pick up points. Once Marquez got himself going in the second half of the season, he wasn’t going to lose his momentum that he gained.
So someone would need fast start against him to challenge and would have to look at how well Lorenzo’s Yamaha went last season over the early stages with three wins in six and two pole positions. It was only when things got wet across Europe in the middle part of the season did he go off the boil. However, Lorenzo has ended his 9 year relationship with Yamaha and he moves to Ducati to pair up with Dovizioso. He either knows something very special or he is taking a step backwards because there hasn’t been a title for Ducati since Casey Stoner’s win in 2007. So that just heaps more favouritism to Marquez who stays with Honda.
With Vinales now getting a Yamaha ride, you can see why his stock is rising and he is a fantastic price with Coral to finish second in the Championship favorite Marquez in a 1-2 forecast. If Lorenzo is going backwards slight this year, no-one else looks ready to step in. Valentino Rossi will continue to have his hits and his misses and that means that he is may be worth opposing in favour of compatriot Andrea Dovizioso to finish above him this season. Dovizioso put in some good rides last season with five podium finishes including one win and if this season is going to be as wide open as we believe, then the margin between them is going to much narrower this season. Look for Marquez to retain his title, but for a big season from Vinales.
