I don’t usually find the argument that a championship was won thanks to one specific incident during the season particularly convincing. You can say that the 5 points Valentino Rossi lost to Toni Elias at Estoril cost him the 2006 MotoGP title. But to do that, you have to ignore Rossi being taken out in the first corner of the first race in Jerez (again, by Toni Elias), his DNFs at Shanghai, Le Mans, and Laguna Seca, and last but not least, the fact that he crashed in the early laps of the final round at Valencia, when he had been leading the championship. Championships are long, and a lot can happen.
But I do think that when we come to look back at the 2026 MotoGP championship, we will zero in on lap 8 of the sprint race at Phillip Island a week ago, when Jorge Martin’s bike got a fraction out of shape and he lost control going into Hayshed. He fractured his radius in that crash, and with two rounds following on consecutive weekends, that meant that any hope of turning his 2-point championship lead into a second MotoGP crown was as good as gone at that moment.
