Suzuki had a fond farewell to its time in MotoGP. Team Penske made more history. All that anger produced nothing of substance. Honda had great races in Motegi, but Nissan concluded great seasons. Indy Lights changed its name, because that is what the problem was. Cadillac completed a test. Jimmie Johnson became a team owner and will be returning to a familiar grid in 2023. NTT Data will sponsor a different team next year. Kyle Busch and Kyle Larson will likely have rather normal Mays next year. Hardware was handed out. Here is a rundown of what got me thinking.
What Does It Mean To Be Champion?
There were many championships awarded this weekend, and not just on pavement.
Champion has a definition, but what does it really mean? What is its purpose?
A general consensus would define a "champion" as the "best," but a champion requires some format to determine who is the best, and we have seen many different ways to produce a champion.
In motorsports alone, the customary practice is to award points for finishing position and the driver to aggregate the most over the course of a season is champion. It is a widely accepted practice, and it has been used for over a century.
The one exception has been NASCAR with its playoff format, originating as the "Chase" and introducing resets to the championship standings in the later stages of the season. For nearly a decade now, the resets now occur four times and race victories carry increased weight in determining who will be champion.
Max Verstappen recently clinched the World Drivers' Championship with four races remaining. Verstappen has now won 14 races with two remaining. He could still match the record 18 podium finishes in a single season, which he set last year. The most victories any other driver could get is five. Verstappen could end this season with anywhere from nearly three times to over five times the number of victories as the next closest competitor.
Such dominance is clearly the best, unquestionable a championship level. Verstappen clinched the championship over a month before the finale, but that should be the case. There is no need to reset. It would just be delaying the inevitable or potentially providing a false picture of the season if Verstappen had a bad race befall him at the wrong time.
With NASCAR, the championship has been boiled down to one event. All the other races set the table, but what truly decides who is champion is one race. A bad day and there is nothing to fall back on. No points scored or race victories earned prior will bring home a championship. A driver could win three to five times the number of races as the next closest competitor and not be champion.
Is the champion the best or the best in the system presented? What do we really want?
NASCAR is set on having the championship coming down to the final race. It forces everyone to watch until the end, but such a system can wash away the results of a season very easily. Whether it is Formula One or MotoGP or most other championships, the championship could make it to the finale, but if someone is good enough, it could be decided earlier.
MotoGP didn't reset the points at any point during the season and the championship went to the finale, though there was a moment this summer when it appeared it could be clinched sooner and clinched by a different rider than the one that won the title. A season played out uninterrupted. Fabio Quartararo and Francesco Bagnaia both had great days, and both had dismal days.
This season both riders were clear of the field and then appeared to have tossed the championship away at certain points. Each rider can look at points where they let points slip away, whether it be Bagnaia's three retirements in the middle of a stretch of winning six of nine races or Quartararo twice falling at Assen or falling at Aragón or Phillip Island struggling in changing conditions in Thailand. It wasn't one race result that decided who took the trophy but all of them.
Every sport has seen an evolution in how a championship is decided.
This year was the first season under the expanded playoff format in Major League Baseball with three wild card teams. When the San Diego Padres and Philadelphia Phillies, the fifth and sixth seeds in the National League, met in the League Championship Series, it did cause angst around baseball circles as the National League had three 100-win teams, including the 111-win Los Angeles Dodgers, the best team in baseball, and none of them won a playoff series.
Baseball is a 162-game season. It is large enough of a sample size to know who is best and many felt more must be done so the regular season means something. Unlike motorsports, baseball is an unbalanced competition. Those 162 games are not the same for everyone as teams play divisional opponents more than non-divisional opponents and the interleague opponents are entirely different in some cases.
A playoff is an equalizer for this disparity. Philadelphia did play the Washington Nationals, the worst team in baseball, 19 times and went 16-3. If every team faced Washington 19 times, there is a high probability Philadelphia does not make the playoffs, but with Philadelphia making it as the final wild card team, it had to run the gauntlet, going on the road for the wild card series and not getting a home game until game three of the divisional series. Philadelphia overcame the disadvantage playing on the road, defeated San Diego and made it to the World Series.
However, in the American League, the 106-win Houston Astros started 7-0, making the World Series in the fewest number of games possible and then beat Philadelphia in six games to claim its second championship in six seasons.
Motorsports is different from baseball, and most team sports. Everyone is competing against one another in every race. Everyone is competing against each other two-dozen or three-dozen times. There isn't a case where a pair of drivers only compete twice against each other all year and both those meetings came before April 22nd or a case where two drivers in the same series never race against one another. We have enough examples of who is the best among the drivers from these races. We don't need a blank slate to figure out who is the best in one race. We don't need a final race to put the final two or four against one another for the first time.
The champion should be the best. Sometimes it will be obvious but when it isn't it should be because the competition was close, and two or more competitors had nothing between them to the very end. It should be a case where it feels like neither deserves to lose, but someone must be second. The champion should feel right and rarely feel questionable.
Champions From the Weekend
You know about the Houston Astros, but did you know...
Francesco Bagnaia clinched the World Riders' Championship with a finish of ninth at Valencia.
Augusto Fernández clinched the Moto2 World Championship with a finish of third after Ai Ogura fell out of the Valencia race.
Joey Logano clinched the NASCAR Cup championship with his victory at Phoenix.
Ty Gibbs clinched the NASCAR Grand National Series championship with his victory at Phoenix.
Zane Smith clinched the NASCAR Truck Series championship with his victory at Phoenix.
The #12 Team Impul Nissan of Kazuki Hiramine and Bertrand Baguette clinched the Super GT GT500 championship with a runner-up finish at Motegi.
The #56 Kondō Racing Nissan of Kiyoto Fujinami and João Paulo de Oliveira clinched the Super GT GT300 championship with a 19th-place finish at Motegi.
Winners From the Weekend
You know about some results from Phoenix and Motegi, but did you know...
Álex Rins won MotoGP's Valencian Community Grand Prix, his second victory of the season. Pedro Acosta won the Moto2 race, his third victory of the season. Izan Guevara won the Moto3 race, his seventh victory of the season.
The #100 Team Kunimitsu Honda of Naoki Yamamoto and Tadasuke Makino won the Super GT race from Motegi. The #55 ARTA Honda of Hideki Mutoh and Iori Kimura won in GT300.
Coming Up This Weekend
Formula One's penultimate race of the season from Interlagos.
The 8 Hours of Bahrain closes out the FIA World Endurance Championship season.
Rally Japan closes out the World Rally Championship season.
World Superbike has its penultimate race weekend at Mandalika.
