Where have all the Aliens gone….

“Those guys are riding as if from a different planet…” this was the comments made about a select group off riders in MotoGP, who every week seemed to be in a class of their own. This quickly moved-on to these riders being dubbed the “Aliens”. Initially this group of riders consisted of Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Dani Pedrosa and Jorge Lorenzo; when Stoner retired at the end of 2012 he was replaced by Marc Marquez, who quickly established himself as one of the group. The following table shows how this group of riders dominated the MotoGP podiums, starting in 2006 when Rossi was joined by Pedrosa and Stoner.

In 2006 Valentino Rossi was was already a five time premier-class world champion and he was joined that year in MotoGP by both Dani Pedrosa and Casey Stoner. Pedrosa made an immediate impact and eight podium finishes in his rookie season, including two victories. Stoner’s impact was less immediate, finding it tough going on Michelin tyres and a satellite bike, managing a single podium finish in Turkey. In 2007 these two riders really got into their stride with Stoner winning the title from Pedrosa, with Rossi coming in third. The opening race of that year in Qatar was a sign of things to come, and the first podium consisting of three Aliens: Stoner from Rossi and Pedrosa in 3rd. That year these three rider took more than 50% of the podiums on offer.

The real domination of MotoGP by an elite group of riders became evident in 2008, when they were joined by Jorge Lorenzo. These four Aliens took more than 80% of all the podium places that year, with nine of the 18 races resulting in all Alien podiums.

This domination continued through the next seven year, with the addition of Marquez to the ranks to replace Stoner in 2013. As shown in the above table, there was a dip in 2011 and 2012 when Rossi went to Ducati and finished on the podium just three times over the two years. The 2013 and 2014 seasons were particularly dominated by the group of four riders. In 2013 they took 49 of the 54 podium places available (the others going to – Cal Crutchlow x 4, Stefan Bradl x 1, perhaps Crutchlow at that stage was the best of the Earthlings?). In 2014 just 6 podium finishes went to riders other than the Aliens (Andrea Dovizioso – 2, Alvaro Bautista – 1, Aleix Espargaro – 1, Crutchlow – 1, Bradley Smith – 1).

The domination of the elite group was starting to crack in 2016, when a record nine different rider stood on the top step of the podium and a new wave of riders challenged the established order. As shown above, this trend has continued and last year the Aliens could muster only one podium in total, due to the retirement of Pedrosa and Lorenzo, the injury to Marquez and the ageing of the founding member of the group, Rossi.

Of course it may be speculated that the DNA of these five riders have spread throughout the MotoGP field (not literally of course!), raising the level of all. And there is evidence to support this; Pedrosa having no podium finishes in 2018, Lorenzo none in 2019, Rossi now thirteen races with just one top ten finish. So rather than the Aliens losing their superpowers, is it that others have raised their game; maybe the invasion has been successful and they are all Aliens now?