It is a week ago since Marc Marquez won the 2017 MotoGP World Championship title, on the Repsol Honda - his fourth MotoGP title, and his six world title overall. Valencia - the final throw of the dice for Marquez. Coming in to the final round Marquez was ahead on points, requiring Andrea Dovizioso to win the last race and for Marquez to finish out of the points - not an impossible outcome, but a tough call. No matter what happened to Marquez - he briefly went off track and took a ride through the gravel trap - Dovizioso still had to pass the Repsol Honda of Dani Pedrosa among others. Pedrosa is no pushover when he gets on with it and he actually went on to win the race. Dovizioso also had to pass his Ducati team mate Jorge Lorenzo, which was not a give either, as Lorenzo seemed to be keen to try and win the race himself. There was obviously team orders for Lorenzo to move over to let Dovizioso past - a coded message about changing the mapping of Lorenzo's bike to map 8. And a not so subtle pit board telling him to go back a place - this for many laps, and all ignored. Still, he reasoned that he was helping - I suppose like a sprint team in a cycle race protecting their man for the final dash over the line ? but a bit odd all the same to be ignoring team orders. Dovizioso crashed - not so lucky in the gravel trap as Marquez, which decided the outcome of the 2017 title fight once and for all. Somehow the threat from Maverick Vinales, on the Yamaha, petered out after the early excitement and his success - but a great season and a worthy win for Marc Marquez.
