If you look at the actual crash statistics for the 2024 MotoGP season after the first 10 rounds, the top three in the standings haven’t crashed a﷽ whole lot.

But certainly in🏅 the case of Jorge Martin and Francesco Bagnaia, who are split by three points at the top of the table, tumbles have com🔯e at critical moments in races and have helped keep the title race so close.

Bagnaia has crashed a total of five times this season, while Martin has fallen seven times. Third-placed Enea Bastianini is also on five, while fourth-placed Marc Marquez has suffered 15 tumbles for the year so far - which is some🌄what understandable given his ongoing adaptation to the Ducati.

At last weekend’s British GP, Bagnaia suffered his fifth race crash of the season aft🎀er sliding out of fourth in the sprint. That adds to a crash out of the lead in the Barcelona sprint, a spill in qualifying at Le Mans,😼 a collision in the Jerez sprint and a tangle with Marquez in the Portuguese GP.

Taking into account where was when he crashed, Bagnaia🐽 has seen at least 34 points go begging from his tally. Martin has only fallen three times in races, but they have been much more costly as two of them were while leading grands prix. His poin🦋ts loss is 57.

Add those to their current championship tally and Martin would be sat on 298 points right now versus 272🍎 - pushing the gap between them from three to 26.

This shows just how much of an impact these crashes have had on the title battle. At its biggest, the gap splitting Martiꦇn and Bagnaia was 44 points after the latter crashed out of the Barcelona sprint. 

But his run of four GP victories following that, including two sprint/GP doubles, coinciding with two crashes for Martin saw that overturned to a 10-point advantage for the reigning dou💞ble world champion going into the summer break.

But his fall in the Silverstone sprint, followed by a📖 lack of pace compared to Martin in the grand prix, pretty much undid all of his hard wo✨rk.

While this is very much down to the competitive nature of MotoGP’s 🐓top riders now, Michelin’s 2024 rear tyres hav♏e had a big part to play too.

Nobody wants to reckon with the idea that tyres could꧑ decide the outcome of a championship.&ᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚnbsp;

The run-in to last year’s decider was overshadowed by the very real danger a tyre pressure penalty could deny either Martin or Bagnaia, while the former’s chances were majorly harmed 🅠by a pr♔oblem rear in the Qatar GP.

But this is the reality of a single-supplier championship. This isn’t to say Michelin’s part in the crashes we’ve seen impacting the title battle is anything to do with its new, grippier rear tyres being bad. Quite the opposite, in fact, as the constant demolition of l💜ap records from track to track proves.

As Bagnaia explained at Silverstone, though, the added grip from the rear tyre is pushing🍌 the front more under brak🧔ing, which is in turn increasing the risk of crashing.

“Fi♔rst of all, the new rear tౠyres are fantastic but are making us crash more because the rear is pushing the front a lot,” Bagnaia said. 

“Today [in the sprint] the first three guys finished the race with eight seconds to fourth, so the speed some guys are havin𝔉g is incredible. 

"I think we’ve never seen something like that and it’s super impressive, I love it. But the risk of a crash is always there.🍨”

He added that this does change the approach to riding in theory, “but every time we ꦫforget” in a race situation when battles are𓆉 so close.

And based on what we’ve already seen in the first half of the 2024 se🅘ason, that’s unlikely to change as each subsequent round proves even more pivotal in decidꦬing the destiny of this year’s world championship.