MotoGP Valencia Grand Prix Odds, Predictions & Picks: Will Bagnaia Bag Back-to-Back Titles?

After a busy year in the major motorsports series around the world, today is the final notable day on the 2023 calendar. The Australian Supercars season wrapped up in Adelaide, the Formula 1 season will wrap up with the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, and the MotoGP campaign will come to a close with the Valencia GP.

The F1 championship has long been decided, as Max Verstappen wrapped up yet another title in the sprint race in Qatar, the 17th round of the 22-round season.

Down under, the title was decided in the first race of two races this weekend in Adelaide, with Brodie Kostecki clinched the championship over NASCAR-bound Shane van Gisbergen, whose hopes were ended by an early crash.

But in MotoGP, the trophy is still very much up for grabs heading into the final race in Valencia.

Entering the weekend, defending MotoGP champion Francesco Bagnaia (437) held a 21-point lead over title rival Jorge Martin (416).

In Saturday’s sprint race, Bagnaia could have shut the door on Martin’s hopes. Instead, Martin took the win, while the Italian finished fifth. As a result, the lead at the top was shaved by seven points.

With Bagnaia holding a 14-point lead and owning more race wins this season (six) than Martin (four), the Spaniard must win and Bagnaia must finish sixth or worse to cause a final-day flip-flop in the top two.

Valencia MotoGP Odds

Odds to Win

Odds are courtesy of BetOnline.

• Jorge Martin -125
• Brad Binder +400
• Francesco Bagnaia +500
• Maverick Vinales +600
• Fabio di Giannantonio +1000
• Marc Marquez +1600
• Marco Bezzecchi +2500
• Johann Zarco +3300
• Fabio Quartararo +5000
• Alex Marquez +5000
• Enea Bastianini +8000
• Jack Miller +8000
• Aleix Espargaro +10000
• Luca Marini +15000
• Augusto Fernandez +15000
• Raul Fernandez +20000

Odds to Finish in the Top Three

Odds are courtesy of BetOnline.

• Jorge Martin -400
• Brad Binder -150
• Francesco Bagnaia -125
• Maverick Vinales +125
• Fabio di Giannantonio +200
• Marc Marquez +300
• Marco Bezzecchi +600
• Johann Zarco +700
• Fabio Quartararo +1000
• Alex Marquez +1000
• Jack Miller +1200
• Enea Bastianini +2000
• Aleix Espargaro +2500
• Luca Marini +3000
• Augusto Fernandez +6600
• Raul Fernandez +6600

Valencia MotoGP Predictions and Picks

Last year, Bagnaia entered the Valencia GP looking to beat out Quartararo, who trailed by 23 points entering the season finale. Quartararo finished fourth, five spots ahead, but that wasn’t nearly enough to overturn the deficit, as Bagnaia claimed his first MotoGP title by 17 points.

This time around, finishing five spots worse at Valencia will only be enough to get the job done if Martin fails to follow his sprint win with a win in the main race.

In the sprint race, Martin started sixth but took the checkered flag, 0.19 ahead of Binder and 2.12 seconds ahead of Marc Marquez. Bagnaia, meanwhile, started second but finished 4.25 seconds and four spots behind Martin.

In today’s race, everyone will start where they started in the sprint race, so Martin will have to make up the same ground he did in the first race and hope that fortune is on his side.

Yesterday was the ninth time this season that Martin won the sprint, whereas Bagnaia has four sprint wins but hasn’t won one since the Austria GP, the tenth race of the 20-race season.

That sprint success is why Martin is still in the title hunt even though Bagnaia has more race wins and more podiums (14 to 8), but he has had a mixed bag of results when it comes to maximizing his points.

All four of his race wins have come after he also won the sprint, but on the other four occasions, he has two runner-up finishes, a tenth-place finish (in the previous round in Qatar), and a retirement.

Martin has to go for the win in Valencia to really give himself a chance unless Bagnaia–both drivers have three retirements this season–happens to crash out early, and you have to fancy his chances to get that win.

But the best betting value is with Bagnaia to score yet another podium. He doesn’t need to land on the podium to secure his second straight title, but when he has finished there in all but a handful of races this season, you have to like the percentages here.