Ten Best Motorcycles

Julia Robinson

Robinson Collection

Their Mission: To provide MotoGP fans and other stakeholders with performance benchmarks for every rider on every sector of every circuit.

Their Goal: To educate fans, increase MotoGP’s popularity, and help to promote talent though the series.

How They Do It: The team has created a variety of indexes based on factors that are highly correlated to performance. The indexes take into account a variety of variables including speed, consistency, track/sector difficulty, weather, machinery, and rider history. The methodology is scientific with essential art in execution. It’s not just numbers, it’s the interpretation of those numbers.

Coverage: The Scout team ran the numbers for all riders before each race in 2018 and 2019. In-depth rider coverage is determined by combining the core speed and consistency indexes with the other observable factors. Yeah, it’s a whole new way to look at your favorite racer and see what separates those at the front from those in the gravel.

Limitations: There are three swing factors that can’t be accounted for before a race: crashes, penalties (e.g., jump starts), limited rider data on a circuit. This is where science and data meet the human factors; suddenly rider consistency looms large.

This site is fascinating for those of us hooked on GP racing because it goes far beyond the biographies and banal quotes we are currently privy to. The Scout team geeks out on climate and weather per track, the riders’ stats and projected results, their podium picks for upcoming races, how riders train… Getting the idea? As they spread to Moto2 and 3, the Scout team’s stats will become increasingly important to teams searching for the next MotoGP contender.

Friendly Betting: Along with the data and information is a chance to do a little friendly betting on who will finish where under the Gentleman’s Betting tab. The betting side of MotoGP will be helped by the Scout team’s analysis. So will rider choices by teams. Even riders themselves will be helped when they see how Scott’s team has broken down their strengths and weaknesses. If you’re thinking that this is Moneyball for MotoGP, you’ve got the right idea