Honda wraps up MotoGP season with the triple crown

The 2019 MotoGP season wrapped up at Valencia this weekend, and the Honda Repsol team put themselves into the history books by taking the triple crown—the  Riders, Teams and Constructors Championships.

The Constructors and Riders championships were decided all the way back in October, when Marc Marquez clinched the season’s title. Marquez only finished outside the top 2 in one race this season when he crashed out at Malaysia. In all, Marquez won 12 races this year, and finished with 420 points. The next closest rider was Andrew Dovizioso, who rode the factory Ducati to 269 points.

Marquez’s teammate Jorge Lorenzo was little help, ending the year with only 28 points. Struggles with injury and learning the new bike torpedoed any hope he had of returning to competitive racing this season, and instead of trying to fight back to the top in 2020, five-time world champ Lorenzo has opted to retire.

Who will replace Lorenzo for next year? There’s talk that Alex Marquez may join the Repsol team, but there’s also talk about Johann Zarco, Cal Crutchlow and some other riders. But does it even matter? Realistically speaking, although the Teams championship wasn’t decided until this weekend, Marc Marquez basically won it single-handedly.

This is the third triple crown in a row for the Honda squad. They’re the first team in the four-stroke era to pull this off; Honda’s earned the triple crown nine times since the modern MotoGP era began in 2002.

“Always the Riders Championship is the first objective, but I was happy to help win the Team Championship, not just for them but also for Jorge who has been a great champion, a hard rival and a great teammate,” said Marquez after the win. “It will be difficult to improve on this year because we rode in a perfect way.”