2016 MotoGP season

The 2016 Grand Prix motorcycle racing season was the 68th F.I.M. Road Racing World Championship season. Jorge Lorenzo was the defending world champion, having secured his third MotoGP title and fifth overall Championship title at the 2015 Valencian Community Grand Prix.

Contents

• Calendar
• Calendar changes
• Teams and riders
• Team changes
• Rider changes
• Rule changes
• Riders standings
• References

The riders' championship title was won for the third time by Marc Márquez, after his fifth victory of the season at the Japanese Grand Prix gave him an unassailable lead over his title rivals Lorenzo and Valentino Rossi – who both crashed out at Motegi – with three races remaining. Márquez's title marked a return to the top step for Honda after a difficult 2015 campaign for its factory team. Márquez ultimately won the championship by 49 points.

Reigning champion Lorenzo won three of the first six races to lead the title race, but very poor wet weather form during wet races in mid-season curtailed his title bid along with no wins in the dry until the season-ending race in Valencia. Rossi was the most consistent title challenger, yet he crashed out of three races up until Márquez's decisive victory in Japan. The Yamaha team suffered a severe win drought from June onwards, going eight races without a win before Márquez clinched the title. The drought reached ten races before Lorenzo's Valencian triumph, in his final race for the manufacturer before his move to Ducati in 2017. Rossi clinched the runner-up position by 16 points from Lorenzo, while their performances earned Yamaha the teams' championship, although Honda won the manufacturers' championship. Interenstingly, the rookie in this season was only Tito Rabat – who clinched a rookie of the year award. LCR Honda rider, Cal Crutchlow, achieved the top independent rider award; which he won at Brno and Phillip Island and finished in 7th place in the championship with 141 points.

The 2016 season saw numerous records in regards to race winners. Cal Crutchlow, Jack Miller, Andrea Iannone and Maverick Viñales won their first races in the premier class, the first time that four new winners had emerged in a MotoGP season. Between the Italian Grand Prix in May and the San Marino Grand Prix in September, eight riders – Lorenzo, Rossi, Miller, Márquez, Iannone, Crutchlow, Viñales and Dani Pedrosa – won in eight successive races, surpassing the previous record of seven, between the 1999 Imola Grand Prix and the 2000 South African Grand Prix. With a win for Andrea Dovizioso in Malaysia further adding to the tally, the total of nine winners was also a record for a single premier class season, surpassing the previous record of eight in the 2000 season.