Speak to many of those who followed last year's MotoGP title fight closely and they'll inevitably tell you it was a classic, even if the ending proved not to everyone's taste.
It's the sort of contest Formula 1 has missed for the last few seasons, and the chief reason, of course, is the dominance of one particular car over the rest.
MotoGP enjoyed a standout season because of a rare chemistry that doesn't come along too often. Firstly, it got back into a position where its top two teams were relatively evenly matched, so whether you were riding the factory Yamaha or the factory Honda you generally had a shot at winning races wherever you went.
On top of that, you had the fastest rider of recent seasons (Marc Marquez) enduring a bit of a rocky spell, which forced him into the role of rank outsider against the metronomic warhorse Valentino Rossi - who's probably not quite as fast as he used to be but raced cannily and scored points everywhere - and the rapid, but last year erratic, Jorge Lorenzo.
All three were already multiple champions of their chosen discipline, all had different strengths and weaknesses last year, and that all boiled up into an epic title fight that had audiences gripped.
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton romped to his third world championship in F1 (his second in a row) with three races to run, as Mercedes' dominance of the current technical regulations continued.
Too many 2015 grands prix were Mercedes-dominated processions © LAT |
If you asked people to pick just one of the two championships to watch, most wouldn't plump for F1 - and no one could blame them.
Dominance is boring. But it is also an intrinsic part of sport, which comes and goes in cycles. In actual fact, Marquez did to MotoGP in 2014 exactly what Hamilton did to F1 last year - wrapping up his second title with three races to spare. A dominant display if ever there was one. He even won the first 10 straight grands prix.
But just look how quickly it turned around again...
One man walking off with the glory in any sport doesn't make for spectacular viewing - except for the hardcore of those fans that just appreciate a certain craft executed brilliantly.
But the magnitude and difficulty of the achievement should never be underestimated, and in actual fact it's almost impossible for anyone to win a world championship in a car that isn't thebest - or one of the best at the least.
You could perhaps argue Alain Prost nicked the 1986 crown in a McLaren that was inferior to the Williams; Keke Rosberg's '82 success came in a season where he triumphed just once (and six different makes of car won races); John Surtees just about won the '64 crown in a Ferrari that arguably wasn't a match for the unreliable Lotuses driven by Graham Hill and Jim Clark. Memorable seasons all. All unpredictable, with a good smattering of underdog success, which is what makes for captivating sport.
You only have to go back as far as 2012 to find the last classic title battle in F1. Yes Vettel ultimately won his third of four titles that year, but eight different drivers (in six different makes of car) won races, and Vettel's Red Bull only triumphed by three points over Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.
Keke Rosberg is one of the only 'underdog' champions in F1 history © LAT |
Of course we all want the top drivers battling it out in the top cars for the ultimate prize. That's why MotoGP was so good last season. But I'd tentatively suggest we're not too far away from another classic F1 season either.
We've actually got all of the currently active world champion drivers placed at three of the biggest teams on the grid right now, the only problem is those teams are not evenly matched technically.
But it wouldn't take much for that to change. Under relatively stable regulations the technical packages always converge, and Ferrari is arguably not too far away from matching Mercedes, which would immediately provide a fresh dynamic to the 'Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg' show.
Yes McLaren-Honda was a disaster in 2015, but the budget is there, and so are two world champions. The chassis looked strong come the final races of the year, and it would arguably only take a Ferrari-like step in ERS efficiency from Honda plus some niftier suspension on the MP4-31 to put Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button back in the mix at, or at least near, the front.
And that's without even mentioning the young pretenders driving for multiple champion team Red Bull. If their TAG-badged Renault engine is at least decent this year, Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat will be in contention too.
Things can change so quickly in F1, even without the sort of major new technical regulations that usually shake things up. Ferrari dominated F1 in 2002, winning all but two races. There were no major technical changes for '03 - though the scoring system and qualifying format was altered - yet that season featured eight different race winners and a title fight that went down to the wire.
Perhaps Pirelli's new tyre rules will do the job this time around. This has more potential than any other element of F1 2016 to alter the competitive equation, introducing an unknown new compound for certain races, and making three compounds available at each grand prix in a bid to encourage more strategic variation.
Renault made canny use of 2003's format changes © LAT |
But not everyone is convinced, with Williams technical chief Pat Symonds among the sceptics.
"When the new tyre proposals were put together by the teams, there was a real chance that it could introduce a bit of chaos," he said.
"The trouble is, what [Pirelli has] then done is say 'right, we're going to choose two of the tyres - they don't necessarily have to be the same compound - and you have to use one of them in the race'. We're quite clever in Formula 1, and if there's a correct solution we find it quite quickly. And then you've lost everything.
"The parallel I've drawn is 2003 - the first year we qualified with [race] fuel in the car. At Renault, we analysed it and decided to think of qualifying as the first lap of the race.
"Of course, next race most of them were into it; four races down the line everyone was doing it."
Still 2003 was a great season even after everyone worked out how to play the new qualifying game properly, and the next epic title battle could be just around the corner now too.
If not, there are major regulation changes coming for 2017 that could transform the competitive order regardless, which has been a consistent pattern down the years.
Either way, F1 probably isn't far away from becoming unmissable once again.
Speak to many of those who followed last year's MotoGP title fight closely and they'll inevitably tell you it was a classic, even if the ending proved not to everyone's taste.
It's the sort of contest Formula 1 has missed for the last few seasons, and the chief reason, of course, is the dominance of one particular car over the rest.
MotoGP enjoyed a standout season because of a rare chemistry that doesn't come along too often. Firstly, it got back into a position where its top two teams were relatively evenly matched, so whether you were riding the factory Yamaha or the factory Honda you generally had a shot at winning races wherever you went.
On top of that, you had the fastest rider of recent seasons (Marc Marquez) enduring a bit of a rocky spell, which forced him into the role of rank outsider against the metronomic warhorse Valentino Rossi - who's probably not quite as fast as he used to be but raced cannily and scored points everywhere - and the rapid, but last year erratic, Jorge Lorenzo.
All three were already multiple champions of their chosen discipline, all had different strengths and weaknesses last year, and that all boiled up into an epic title fight that had audiences gripped.
Meanwhile, Lewis Hamilton romped to his third world championship in F1 (his second in a row) with three races to run, as Mercedes' dominance of the current technical regulations continued.
Too many 2015 grands prix were Mercedes-dominated processions © LAT |
If you asked people to pick just one of the two championships to watch, most wouldn't plump for F1 - and no one could blame them.
Dominance is boring. But it is also an intrinsic part of sport, which comes and goes in cycles. In actual fact, Marquez did to MotoGP in 2014 exactly what Hamilton did to F1 last year - wrapping up his second title with three races to spare. A dominant display if ever there was one. He even won the first 10 straight grands prix.
But just look how quickly it turned around again...
One man walking off with the glory in any sport doesn't make for spectacular viewing - except for the hardcore of those fans that just appreciate a certain craft executed brilliantly.
But the magnitude and difficulty of the achievement should never be underestimated, and in actual fact it's almost impossible for anyone to win a world championship in a car that isn't thebest - or one of the best at the least.
You could perhaps argue Alain Prost nicked the 1986 crown in a McLaren that was inferior to the Williams; Keke Rosberg's '82 success came in a season where he triumphed just once (and six different makes of car won races); John Surtees just about won the '64 crown in a Ferrari that arguably wasn't a match for the unreliable Lotuses driven by Graham Hill and Jim Clark. Memorable seasons all. All unpredictable, with a good smattering of underdog success, which is what makes for captivating sport.
You only have to go back as far as 2012 to find the last classic title battle in F1. Yes Vettel ultimately won his third of four titles that year, but eight different drivers (in six different makes of car) won races, and Vettel's Red Bull only triumphed by three points over Fernando Alonso's Ferrari.
Keke Rosberg is one of the only 'underdog' champions in F1 history © LAT |
Of course we all want the top drivers battling it out in the top cars for the ultimate prize. That's why MotoGP was so good last season. But I'd tentatively suggest we're not too far away from another classic F1 season either.
We've actually got all of the currently active world champion drivers placed at three of the biggest teams on the grid right now, the only problem is those teams are not evenly matched technically.
But it wouldn't take much for that to change. Under relatively stable regulations the technical packages always converge, and Ferrari is arguably not too far away from matching Mercedes, which would immediately provide a fresh dynamic to the 'Lewis Hamilton versus Nico Rosberg' show.
Yes McLaren-Honda was a disaster in 2015, but the budget is there, and so are two world champions. The chassis looked strong come the final races of the year, and it would arguably only take a Ferrari-like step in ERS efficiency from Honda plus some niftier suspension on the MP4-31 to put Fernando Alonso and Jenson Button back in the mix at, or at least near, the front.
And that's without even mentioning the young pretenders driving for multiple champion team Red Bull. If their TAG-badged Renault engine is at least decent this year, Daniel Ricciardo and Daniil Kvyat will be in contention too.
Things can change so quickly in F1, even without the sort of major new technical regulations that usually shake things up. Ferrari dominated F1 in 2002, winning all but two races. There were no major technical changes for '03 - though the scoring system and qualifying format was altered - yet that season featured eight different race winners and a title fight that went down to the wire.
Perhaps Pirelli's new tyre rules will do the job this time around. This has more potential than any other element of F1 2016 to alter the competitive equation, introducing an unknown new compound for certain races, and making three compounds available at each grand prix in a bid to encourage more strategic variation.
Renault made canny use of 2003's format changes © LAT |
But not everyone is convinced, with Williams technical chief Pat Symonds among the sceptics.
"When the new tyre proposals were put together by the teams, there was a real chance that it could introduce a bit of chaos," he said.
"The trouble is, what [Pirelli has] then done is say 'right, we're going to choose two of the tyres - they don't necessarily have to be the same compound - and you have to use one of them in the race'. We're quite clever in Formula 1, and if there's a correct solution we find it quite quickly. And then you've lost everything.
"The parallel I've drawn is 2003 - the first year we qualified with [race] fuel in the car. At Renault, we analysed it and decided to think of qualifying as the first lap of the race.
"Of course, next race most of them were into it; four races down the line everyone was doing it."
Still 2003 was a great season even after everyone worked out how to play the new qualifying game properly, and the next epic title battle could be just around the corner now too.
If not, there are major regulation changes coming for 2017 that could transform the competitive order regardless, which has been a consistent pattern down the years.
Either way, F1 probably isn't far away from becoming unmissable once again.