The 2024 season hasn’t begun but that doesn’t stop us casting a critical eye to the future and predicting who’ll not make the 2025 cut.
So sit back with your lavender heated cushion, tell the nurse to bring your meds and enjoy our top six candidates for an end of season retirement.
Johann Zarco
When it comes to quitting then no one does it as well as the French. The only thing they don’t ever quit is a strike. Zarco himself famously quit KTM in a ball of tears because it was ‘too hard’ and conveniently found himself with a plum Ducati ride. But in 2024 Zarco will be on the Honda…
Unlike the Ducati the Honda is a pure filthy machine designed to inflict pain on anyone who dare ride it – similar to Sheryl Crow’s love life. Last year the Honda hospitalised every one of its ill-fated riders at some point in the season (except maybe Nakagami as no one can ever remember if he was there or not).
Inevitably Zarco will end up injured in 2024. His only calcium intake is from the copious amounts of butter in every French meal (known as the ‘French Paradox’) meaning his bones are already probably very brittle and unable to withstand the beating they’ll suffer.
One crash too many and the white flag and salty eyes will be on show before Zarco, along with his accountancy haircut, will be then seen no more.
Retirement rating: 👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽
Joan Mir
Mir, like Zarco, is also contracted to the HRC torture programme. Unlike the Frenchie though Joan has already suffered a year of abuse so is under no illusions of what to expect. Last season Joan fell off in every race (not including the ones he missed due to falling off previously) so is already starting the season deflated.
If the Spaniard, with the best looking manager/mother (seriously look her up) on the planet, is subjected to another year of pain like 2023 then the COVID-19 champion will probably hang up his helmet.
Retirement rating: 👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽
Jack Miller
Everyone loves Jack. Especially commentators who clamber over themselves to tell us when it’s raining that it’s “Miller’s conditions”…before the Australian inevitably falls off.
Miller’s 2023 wasn’t very good. The Australian was comprehensively outpaced by his teammate, had a worrying slump mid-season and was shamed by KTM’s microscopic test rider Dani Pedrosa.
But 2024 has a different shark circulating under Jack’s coral reef. Pedro Acosta. The part-stoat Spaniard joins the KTM b-squad as a rookie with mass expectations from the drooling onlookers. Should Pedro, who often burrows for his food, make Miller even more of a laughingstock by outpacing him then KTM will certainly promote Acosta and give the Australian the boot. With nowhere to go this could the force Jack to retire.
Retirement rating: 👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽
Franco Morbidelli
Poor Franco’s been dreadful for as long as any of us can remember. Luckily he’s always been able to blame the bike…until now.
2024 sees the underachieving Italian switch to riding the best bike on the grid. A bike so fantastic even Johann Zarco won a race on it. If Morbidelli continues to be awful then he’ll have run out of excuses as, proven over the last few seasons, any b-grade MotoGP rider can perform well on the Desmosedici.
And that’s sadly not where Franco’s troubles end. In case you missed it Marc Marquez is also moving to Ducati albeit on a watered-down version of Morbidelli’s bike. Should Marquez embarrass the Italian with his performance on a lesser machine then the Italian will really have nowhere to hide.
Retirement rating: 👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽
Marc Marquez
What? We all know that Marc is already the 2024 world champion based on the Valencia test. The Marquez fans are already gloating about it and the Rossi fans scrambling around in the dark for some excuses. It’s set in stone.
But imagine and alternative universe where this didn’t happen? We know it will…but imagine, if you can, the crazy possibility where it doesn’t? Instead Marc struggles and falls off a lot. From there the Spanish Antichrist might just call it a day and prove the bitter yellow fans correct?
Retirement rating: 👨🦽👨🦽
Aleix Espargaro
The clock is ticking for the remaining Asparagus brother. 2023 ended with everyone hating him for always having a massive strop when someone does something he doesn’t like whilst thinking it’s totally acceptable to slap other riders on the track.
2024 could be the final chorizo in his coffin as the other three Aprilia riders, who now all have factory bikes, attempt to topple him as the manufacturer’s top rider.
Retirement rating: 👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽👨🦽
Takaaki Nakagami
The good thing about if Nakagami retires is that no one will notice. So we won’t need to write about it.
In fact the first clue we’ll get that Token Takaaki’s gone is seeing someone else on his bike not being utterly terrible.
Retirement rating: Who cares?