One race left, and the championship is still open... but mathematically so. Andrea Dovizioso has the opportunity to get his hands on his first MotoGP riders' championship, but it will only happen if he wins the race at Valencia, and Marquez fails to score more than a single point. Considering the Honda rider has crashed only twice (the third DNF was Honda's first MotoGP engine failure in ten years) and when he's finished, he's never finished lower than sixth place, it seems very unlikely that this is Dovi's year.
Third and fourth place have been locked up by the Movistar Yamaha duo of Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi - the former's switch to the factory Yamaha team hasn't turned out quite the way he imagined it, but he will pin his hopes on next year's chassis being better, especially in the wet. In fifth place is the other Repsol Honda rider, Dani Pedrosa, managing a decent place despite some dismal results during the season. In a respectable seventh place for his first season on a new machine is Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo, but preceding him is Johann Zarco, first of the satellite riders. Johann Zarco has had a fantastic year, not just getting Rookie of the Year plaudits, he also locked up the satellite rider top spot for the season, edging out riders like Cal Crutchlow and Danilo Petrucci, who may be on satellite teams but have factory-spec hardware.
With the 2017 MotoGP season being so unpredictable, we're not going to commit to the fact that Marquez is probably going to earn himself yet another title. We'll know for sure, come 12 November!
