MotoGP Points Explained: How a Champion is Made

Welcome to the World of MotoGP!

So, you’ve just watched your first MotoGP race. You saw incredible speed, riders leaning at impossible angles, and a thrilling battle for the finish line. It’s an amazing spectacle, but you might be left wondering: what does it all mean in the grand scheme of things? How does one rider separate themselves from the rest to become the World Champion?

The secret lies in the points system. Think of it as the ultimate season-long scorecard. It’s not always about winning every single race; it’s about consistently performing well and racking up points weekend after weekend. Let’s break down exactly how it works, nice and simple.

The Main Event: The Sunday Grand Prix Race

Every race weekend, the most important event is the Grand Prix race. This is the full-length, feature race that happens on a Sunday, and it’s where the biggest rewards are handed out. It’s the one that has decided championships for decades.

In this race, points are awarded to the riders who finish in the top 15 positions. If you finish 16th or lower, you unfortunately walk away with nothing for your efforts, no matter how hard you fought. The higher you finish, the more points you get, with a big prize for the winner to reward their victory.

Sunday Grand Prix Points

The distribution is designed to heavily favour those at the very front. Here’s how the points are given out:

• 1st Place: 25 points
• 2nd Place: 20 points
• 3rd Place: 16 points
• 4th Place: 13 points
• 5th Place: 11 points
• 6th Place: 10 points
• 7th Place: 9 points
• 8th Place: 8 points
• 9th Place: 7 points
• 10th Place: 6 points
• 11th Place: 5 points
• 12th Place: 4 points
• 13th Place: 3 points
• 14th Place: 2 points
• 15th Place: 1 point

As you can see, winning gives a rider a significant 5-point advantage over second place. This makes fighting for the top spot incredibly important. But notice also that finishing fifth (11 points) is still a fantastic result, earning you more than double the points of finishing eleventh (5 points).

The New Twist: The Saturday Sprint

Recently, MotoGP added a new, exciting element to the race weekend: the Sprint race. This is a shorter, more explosive race that takes place on Saturday afternoon. It’s roughly half the distance of the main Sunday race, meaning riders are pushing at 100% from the very first corner.

The Sprint has its own separate points system. Because it’s a shorter race, it awards fewer points, and they are only given to the top nine finishers. This makes the fight at the front even more intense, as there’s no reward for just cruising home in the top 15. Every move counts.

Saturday Sprint Points

Here’s the breakdown for the Sprint:

• 1st Place: 12 points
• 2nd Place: 9 points
• 3rd Place: 7 points
• 4th Place: 6 points
• 5th Place: 5 points
• 6th Place: 4 points
• 7th Place: 3 points
• 8th Place: 2 points
• 9th Place: 1 point

These points are just as valuable as the Sunday points. They all get added to the same championship total. The Sprint gives riders a second chance to score during a weekend and can seriously shake up the title fight.

Putting It All Together: A Race Weekend Example

Let’s imagine a rider, we’ll call him Alex, is having a great weekend. How do his points add up?

On Saturday, the Sprint race is a frantic affair. Alex battles hard and manages to finish in 3rd place. For that brilliant ride, he earns 7 points.

On Sunday, in the main Grand Prix, Alex feels even better on the bike. He fights for the win but is just beaten at the final corner, finishing in a superb 2nd place. This nets him a brilliant 20 points.

So, for the entire weekend, Alex’s total is calculated by simply adding the two results together: 7 points (from the Sprint) + 20 points (from the Grand Prix) = 27 points. This is a solid haul and a great result for his championship campaign.

The Bigger Picture: The Road to the Championship

Those 27 points Alex scored are added to his running total for the entire season. This running total for all the riders is called the Championship Standings. You can think of it as the league table of MotoGP.

A MotoGP season is a marathon, not a sprint (even with the new Sprint races!). The calendar is long, with over 20 race weekends organised across the globe, from the season opener in Qatar to the traditional finale in Valencia, Spain. A rider’s job is to score as many points as possible at every single round.

This is where consistency becomes the most important word in MotoGP. A rider who wins five races but crashes out of ten others might end up with fewer points than a rider who never wins but finishes on the podium (top three) almost every weekend. Every single point is precious.

The goal is simple: after the final race of the season, the rider who sits at the top of the Championship Standings with the most total points is crowned the MotoGP World Champion. It is a title earned through incredible skill, bravery, and, most importantly, the ability to score points, week in, week out.

Quick Takeaways

• Points are awarded in two races per weekend: the Saturday Sprint and the main Sunday Grand Prix.
• The Sunday Grand Prix offers the most points, rewarding the top 15 finishers, with 25 points for a win.
• The Saturday Sprint is a shorter race that gives fewer points (12 for a win) to only the top 9 riders.
• All points from both races are added together to form a rider’s total in the Championship Standings.
• The rider with the most total points at the end of the entire season is crowned the MotoGP World Champion.