450 Title Odds and Rider Ratings
February 29, 2024
Image from Feld Motor Sports, Inc.
We are almost halfway through the season entering round 8 in Daytona, and we have perhaps the closest / most interesting title battle in a while! To bring some order to this chaos, I rated, ranked, and provided championship odds for all the title contenders. Here are my 450 rider ratings and championship odds.
Championship Contenders: Cumulative 99% Title Odds (i.e. 1 of these 4 will win)
- Jett Lawrence: A- ; 50% title odds
- Cooper Webb: A- ; 18% title odds
- Eli Tomac: B ; 17% title odds
- Chase Sexton: B+ ; 14% title odds
Jett has made lots of mistakes, but he’s unbelievably fast and is the current favorite to win this championship simply because of his pure speed. The rookie is racing like one, but is a lot faster than his competitors and appears to be learning despite many obvious mistakes. After a great opener he had a shaky few rounds, but since then has relatively cleaned up his act with each passing round. One day he’s going to clean it up completely and be unstoppable… In the meantime though, his competitors haven’t taken advantage of his learning curve and he somehow still has the points lead; that’s scary for his competition. I rate Jett at 50% because I truly believe it’s a coin flip… will he crash out too many times and give up too many points? Or will he figure it out and maintain his points lead?
If there’s one guy that can simply grit out this championship it’s Cooper Webb. He no doubt has the mentality to do that; he believes he’s the best guy every weekend. Webb comes on strong when the track gets bad, and pushes through the tail end of the season. If Webb is within striking distance (points-wise) of anybody within the last few rounds, look for him to come-out swinging. I’m giving him the edge over a lot of his competitors for the ability to push through when the going gets tough and his consistency (you don’t often see horrible races from him results-wise). Not to mention, this year is the fastest Webb we’ve seen ever? I’ve been super impressed by his raw speed so far.
I’m torn on Eli. It hasn’t been a great start to the season, but he’s shown flashes of brilliance: most recently last weekend with an amazing come-from-behind ride in Dallas. THAT’S the Eli we expect to see every weekend, but the older he gets, the less we see those types of dominant rides. I’ve said that having the off-weekend before Dallas would be big for him to see how he regroups… so far he’s looking good. He’s amazing at Daytona traditionally; this coming weekend could be big for him to get a shift of momentum in his favor points-wise. He’s still very much in this title fight, and Tomac has the potential to go on a run and bring this championship under his control.
Chase has been solidly good this year right? It’s a new bike and team for him, and he looked strong and fast before his hand injury. With this hand injury though, he might be digging himself too much of a hole and giving up too many points to the likes of Webb, Tomac, and Jett. Also, I still haven’t seen the pure flashes of raw-speed he always displayed on the Honda, which in the past was his one-up over his competitors. Now he doesn’t really have an obvious advantage. He’s consistent with a relatively fast speed though, and that may be enough to get him this championship.
Far Shots / Honorable Mentions: < 1% Title Odds
- Ken Roczen: B+ ; <1% title odds
- Jason Anderson: B ; <1% title odds
- Aaron Plessinger: A ; <1% title odds
Roczen is in his best form out of the last few years. He looks strong and happy on the bike; stress the “happy” part, because it seems to play a pivotal role in his success. He’s getting a better grade than Tomac so far, but I just can’t see Roczen bringing it all the way home to win a championship. He’s undoubtedly fast and can win any given race, but he has yet to showcase the ability to be consistent throughout an entire supercross championship. So far he has shown speed, has gotten a win, but also has struggled with small mistakes and crashes. If he can get better starts and stop crashing, then he has a shot (albeit long shot) at winning this title.
I said earlier this year that Anderson is back to his 2022 self (which he doesn’t like by the way). I’m starting to second-guess that myself too: he has been fast but never the best guy. He’s still searching for his first win this year, and I’m afraid if he doesn’t get momentum on his side to he will do his normal thing of settling for top 5s / podiums. In other words, with every passing race he slips more and more out of this title race, despite having a strong start to the season and showing glimpses of speed.
Plessinger has the best scorecard rating of this entire group! But unfortunately has the least likely chances of winning the title in my opinion. Let’s start with the positives: he’s doing basically everything right so far (starts, consistency, speed, heat race wins) and has improved tremendously since last year. He currently sits 3rd in points, has a ton of podiums, a race win, but yet I just don’t believe he has the speed to straight-up beat any of the guys listed above him in this list. We’ve seen incredible diversity so far this year with mistakes, crashes, and the odd poor race from all of the above this year; somehow, Plessinger has managed to avoid most of that (minus one small crash in Glendale). He’s been the lone guy to consistently take advantage of other’s misfortunes, and will need to hope for those misfortunes to continue in order to have a shot at this title.
Summary
In my opinion, it comes down to whether or not Jett Lawrence can clean up his act and avoid a single costly mistake (like injury, DNF, or a finish outside the top 15). If Jett avoids those things, I think he takes home this title. With his shear speed and talent, it’s hard to imagine anyone consistently beating him.
On the other hand, if Jett can’t clean his act up (which I think there’s a 50% likelihood of) it opens the door for Webb, Sexton, and Tomac. Out of those 3, they mostly have the same odds of winning the title, with a slight edge given to Webb for his newfound speed and sheer grit. However, if any of these riders were to step it up suddenly, expect a charge from Tomac; the only thing holding him back currently are weird bad races (i.e Detroit) or so-so races (i.e. Glendale). Only time will tell…
