After the traditional 3 Asian flyovers – Japan, Australia, and Malaysia – riders and paddock finally head home for a few days rest before the closing act in Valencia.
Some will bring home a big smile, like Marc Marquez who won the world championship in Japan in front of the big bosses, or Alex Rins with 2 podiums and a 5th position. Some will come home a tad more disappointed… Petrucci for example, who only managed a top 9 as his best result.
And the rest?
The following graph shows the difference in average points per race during the 3 flyovers and the average points per race during the previous 14 races.
We can see that Rins has improved the most, with 8.4 points more per race than befora. Bautista (5.9), Viñales (5.2), Morbidelli (3.3) and Smith (3.2) complete the top 5 riders who have improved the most during the packed 3 weeks.
At the bottom of the table we find Lorenzo (-9.3) – who did not start any of the 3 races – accompanied by some of the top riders in the championship: Dovizioso (-5.2), Rossi (-4.6), Petrucci (-3.0), and Marquez (-2.7).
Another way to show that change in scored points is to use an arrow plot, with arrows starting at the average points scored during the first 14 races of the season, and ending at the average points scored during the three flyovers. This time riders are sorted by average points during the flyovers.
Marquez scored the most points per race during the flyovers (16.7) despite a decrease in points, as he averaged 19.4 points per race on the previous races. Viñales and Rins both scored 15.7 points per race over the 3 flyovers, Viñales improving by nearly 50% and Rins more than doubling the average points he scored per race. Bautista is the fourth best performing rider during the flyovers after doubling the points per race (5.1 to 11.0). Morbidelli, (2.4 to 5.7), Syahrin (2.0 to 4.0), and Smith (1.4 to 3.7) also doubled their scoring points during the last three races.