Like the actual Argentine Grand Prix, these Argentina rider rankings have ended up quite Ducati-biased - which is a shame, because having the best bike doesn't necessarily make you a more valuable performer.
But the sheer power of the Ducati GP24 meant its riders had, by and large, the tidiest, most straightforward, smoothest weekends at Termas de Rio Hondo - so could afford to avoid the kind of risks that led to the kind of errors that blotted many of their rivals' copybooks.
Even among the Ducatis, though, there was a pretty clear hierarchy - while one rider was very clearly the standout among those taking on (and losing to) the Bologna army.
Qualified: 1st Sprint: 1st Grand Prix: 1st
Another weekend of Marc Marquez looking in control, though on pure pace it was clearly harder work than in Thailand - and for much of the weekend he sounded convinced a strong challenge to his supremacy would materialise.
It did - "the call came from inside the house", if you will - and Marquez says he was at one point ready to settle for second, but he was always expected to have a late-race advantage and pressed it beautifully.
His Thailand weekend was marginally better - and he skirted a little too close to DNF in some moments of this race - but ultimately there's no real case to put anyone else in first.
Qualified: 3rd Sprint: 4th Grand Prix: 6th
His ambitious but not unrealistic podium target wasn't achieved, but we're not going to get into the business of criticising a Honda rider for missing out on the podium in the year 2025.
Johann Zarco ran a superb weekend, and while the Honda was clearly a good bike to have here, he also offered a compelling theory for why he was extracting so much more out of it than the others.
He was a bit of a Termas phenom in Moto2, but never quite tapped into that circuit specialism on the Ducati - yet has found the Honda a better weapon for himself here.
Qualified: 2nd Sprint: 2nd Grand Prix: 2nd
It was always going to be very-very-very hard for Alex Marquez - a rider who was so clearly biased towards the first half of the race last year - to fight off Marc in a late-race duel.
And he didn't. But he gave it a better go than you would've expected even on the basis of his strong pre-season form, and the evidence is increasingly robust that he's not only a faster rider on the Ducati GP24 than GP23, but a more complete one, too.
The grand prix win is "closer than ever", he says, and he's right. If Sepang were tomorrow, he'd be entering that weekend as a heavy favourite.
Qualified: 6th Sprint: 5th Grand Prix: 5th
Fabio Di Giannantonio is ranked ahead of his podium-finishing VR46 team-mate by the narrowest of margins - largely as an acknowledgment of the fact he just isn't totally fit yet.
That, plus the related limited pre-season mileage, probably explains why he was only truly fast in bursts this weekend, but they were some impressive bursts.
A forceful early lunge from team-mate Franco Morbidelli on Sunday trapped Di Giannantonio behind Brad Binder's impossible-to-overtake KTM for most of the race, but once he was unleashed his pace was tantalising.
Qualified: 8th Sprint: 7th Grand Prix: 3rd
Morbidelli had a sketchy start to the weekend, but waltzed through Q1 to set up a generally mediocre sprint - mostly notable for the fact he collided with Binder (which was correctly ruled a racing incident) and was overall unwell - and then a much-improved grand prix.
He still needs to work on qualifying, but the other big issue from last year - Morbidelli's inability to keep the pace through the full distance on Sunday - was nowhere to be seen this time.
In fact, he was able to make a soft rear tyre gamble work - which, aside from delivering him the podium, is an encouraging sign going forward.
Qualified: 4th Sprint: 3rd Grand Prix: 4th
Pecco Bagnaia was probably - on the balance of things - the third-fastest Ducati rider this weekend, but even if so he was clearly closer to the VR46 duo in pace than to the Marquezes.
Termas remains a puzzle he just hasn't unlocked yet, and he seems to have lost a bit of faith with whatever's new on the bike - and it's not a lot - relative to the one he ran in 2024.
The fact his weekend was a disappointment is a reflection of his lofty standards, and the standards of the dominant team that employs him.
Qualified: 5th Sprint: 9th Grand Prix: 8th
Given the current state of the KTM RC16, Pedro Acosta qualifying in the middle of the second row was an enormous effort.
But KTM's pace held up dreadfully in the sprint so he didn't capitalise then, and in the main race he was unlucky to be on the outside of a three-bikes-into-one-corner Turn 1 situation.
He let team-mate Binder pounce on him, then had issues with front tyre pressures and arm pump - which he hadn't had since his MotoGP debut (or, apparently, had before that).
The speed was there. He's still the guy.
Qualified: 7th Sprint: 10th Grand Prix: 15th
Genuinely a much better weekend than you might think - yet also one from which Fabio Quartararo said there are "no positives" to take away.
Dragging the Yamaha M1 into the top 10 on Friday without using a reference rider (Quartararo had picked Bagnaia, who duly crashed) was a Sisyphean accomplishment, but that big boulder went rolling down the hill in the sprint as Quartararo ran out of tyre.
And Marco Bezzecchi's error on Sunday instantly consigned Quartararo's grand prix ride to irrelevance, on a weekend where he otherwise clearly restored his position as Yamaha's leading man.
Qualified: 11th Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: 7th
A weekend of playing the Brad Binder classics.
Qualifying underperformance? Check. A 50/50 incident with another rider? Check (with Morbidelli in the sprint). An awesome, gutsy Sunday ride comprising a canny start and then double-digit laps of frustrating faster riders and bikes behind him? Check.
Acosta's emergence has cast doubt on Binder's prospects as a top project's lead rider - but if you need to drag a fundamentally flawed bike to seventh place, he's the best guy for the job. And I swear that's a sincere compliment.
Qualified: 15th Sprint: 15th Grand Prix: DSQ
This wasn't the surprisingly-polished masterpiece of his Thailand debut, but make no mistake - the evidence that Trackhouse has really nailed this rider choice only grew in Argentina.
Ai Ogura crashed in Q1 and botched his start in the sprint, and he was actually frustrated by the step forward he made on Sunday through being smoother on the first part of acceleration because he wished he had figured it out before.
That's hilarious, right? Ogura, at the end, is the only person who can make a cogent case that his weekend was somehow disappointing outside of the 'wrong ECU firmware' post-race disqualification - which will be relevant to the points table but not to the performance.
Qualified: 10th Sprint: 8th Grand Prix: 9th
A step behind fellow Honda rider Zarco in terms of traction throughout the weekend, though Joan Mir felt he could've gone with his stablemate on Sunday if he didn't get roughed up by rival bikes with a big straightline speed advantage (and sent into tyre pressure trouble).
Thailand had left a bigger impression, but this one is worth a lot more points - and serves as a proof of concept for what looks like it could be a genuinely good season.
Qualified: 12th Sprint: 12th Grand Prix: 11th
Alex Rins' Q2 ticket was a bit of a mirage made possible by a nice tow from Marc Marquez on Friday (and yes, you still have to do the lap, but it skews the picture).
But he did look markedly more competitive than in Thailand, and deserves credit for going against his team's recommendations and picking a soft rear tyre on Sunday - a choice that, though risky, helped him secure top Yamaha honours at the finish.
Qualified: 16th Sprint: 13th Grand Prix: 10th
A profoundly hard-to-grade weekend.
Luca Marini wasn't as fast as he should've been on the first two days, which saddled him with a bad grid position and meant he had no chance in the sprint - a fate that is no longer a given for Honda.
But a settings change and a switch to the medium rear on Sunday brought on a big performance step.
His race was badly hindered by being 'collateral' in Jack Miller's bad getaway, but the used-tyre pace was very good.
Qualified: 13th Sprint: 11th Grand Prix: 13th
Miller's Sunday was compromised by a really bad start and potentially a tyre choice he wasn't convinced by - but there was no real glory to be found for any Yamaha rider this weekend, and he was no exception.
In terms of performance among his fellow M1 riders, he's holding up his end of the bargain.
Qualified: 20th Sprint: 18th Grand Prix: 12th
Maverick Vinales was properly aghast at the end of play on Saturday, shuffling his bike set-up around session after session to no tangible benefit - and finding a fastest lap of around 1m38.2-3s a hard limit in both practice and qualifying.
A change in riding position going into the grand prix did seem to help, though. His assertion that his pace was comparable to the factory KTMs is a bit on the charitable side but if you zero in specifically on very-used tyre performance, then... yeah, it really was.
Qualified: 17th Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: DNS
I briefly deliberated whether to include Miguel Oliveira (and another rider who withdrew before the grand prix), but both he and that other rider ran the sprint and the sprint is a race.
And Oliveira had done a pretty good job on Saturday, qualifying acceptably - even if he's still lacking relative to Pramac team-mate Miller - and running in a decent position when he got wiped out by Fermin Aldeguer.
His injury rut is truly rotten.
Qualified: 21st Sprint: 14th Grand Prix: 17th
Like in Thailand, Enea Bastianini continued to take his difficult start at KTM on the chin, talking of a "disaster" Friday in a friendly-but-blunt tone that was then echoed in his dry humour after the sprint: "To be honest, if you see [my] race… no, you can’t see, because I’m [too far] behind."
But at Buriram those tribulations were repaid with a real pick-me-up of a Sunday. Here, a tangle with Raul Fernandez quickly put paid to any chances of another palette-cleanser ride through the pack.
Qualified: 22nd Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: DNS
A total newcomer to Termas - preparing for it by playing the PlayStation and binging onboards - Aprilia test rider Lorenzo Savadori acquitted himself pretty reasonably, ending up just three tenths of a second off the last of the regulars in Friday's 'Q0'.
But a non-crash highside in Q1 wrecked havoc on his left shoulder, forcing a sprint retirement and a Sunday withdrawal, and it comes as unwelcome ahead of COTA, where he is likely to be called upon again as Jorge Martin's replacement.
Qualified: 19th Sprint: 17th Grand Prix: 18th
Somkiat Chantra looked solid enough in one-lap pace and in the sprint - the fourth-fastest Honda, sure, but not outrageously far.
The main race was poor, though, seemingly a consequence of a 'why not' punt on the soft rear that he wasn't really ready to take.
You do not want to be finishing behind somebody who had not only crashed but wasn't really that fast anyway (Bastianini), and yet Chantra could only follow him home in the end. Not ideal, although nothing too alarming.
Qualified: 14th Sprint: 19th Grand Prix: 16th
Aldeguer's clash with Oliveira overshadows an otherwise anonymous weekend.
He wasn't conspicuously slow for a rookie - that Q1 lap was pretty good! - but allowed his weekend to get away from him with the aforementioned collision and a spiking front tyre pressure in the main race.
Qualified: 9th Sprint: 6th Grand Prix: DNF
Marco Bezzecchi can hardly be blamed for the fact that he's still struggling for that last bite of single-lap speed on an Aprilia that's new to him.
Bezzecchi can absolutely be blamed for the fact that he botched Turn 1 on Sunday and, as he himself admitted, "destroyed" both his race and that of Quartararo.
In Bezzecchi's own words: "Very, very sorry but s**t happens."
So, yeah, he held his hand up, which is fair enough, and also the underlying pace was good, but the big takeaway is an error that then left Aprilia's weekend fully at the mercy of Ogura's apparently-illegal ECU firmware.
Qualified: 18th Sprint: 16th Grand Prix: 15th
I told my colleagues on Saturday that it would take something remarkable in the grand prix for Fernandez to avoid last place this week, and something remarkable did occur. Unfortunately, it was Fernandez punting Bastianini out of the race.
He had been shockingly uncompetitive the previous two days - something he put down to being badly lost with set-up due to his injury-compromised pre-season - and did at least show signs of improved performance on Sunday.
But it's another messy weekend in what feels like a litany of them.
Fernandez can obviously be much better than this, but on current form he will be really testing the strength of that two-year contract he'd signed.
