When you thought you had seen it all...

You actually had. You just may not remember it right now in the age of instant twitter updates and Facebook memes. Marc Marquez’s relentless charge towards a second straight MotoGP title has resulted in the 21-year-old Spaniard winning the first seven races of the season. And that too at varying levels of competitiveness as compared to how close Yamaha’s Valentino Rossi and Jorge Lorenzo got to preventing Marquez from winning. And on the odd occasion, Marquez’s Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa.

But in case you thought Marquez’s magnificent seven is a new landmark in MotoGP dominance, you may want to think again. Way back in 2002, a 23-year-old Valentino Rossi won eight of the first nine races of the season while riding a four-stroke Honda machine, just like Marquez. And that included seven straight wins from the third to the ninth rounds of the year after Rossi’s teammate Tohru Ukawa managed to pip him to a win at the South African Grand Prix, the second round of the championship.

The year 2002 also happened to be one where Michael Schumacher romped his way to his fifth Formula 1 drivers’ title. A championship run that included 11 wins from the season’s 17 rounds, including nine wins from the first 12 races of the season. The most wins in a row Schumacher had that year were four but two years later he won 12 of the first 13 races of the year. A run that included five straight wins to start the year, and seven straight wins after Jarno Trulli triumphed at Monaco.

Dry statistics like these reveal a truth about motorsport. Dominance comes and goes. Only thing that changes is the shifting loyalty of the knee-jerk fans who have a problem with someone winning ‘too much’.