This latest edition of MotoGP 2025 was mentally pre-written with Marc Marquez in first place, but he dropped the ball in a big, big way at Austin - allowing other riders to emerge from his shadow.
Again, they were primarily Ducati riders, whose lives are made easier week in, week out by the continued excellence of the Desmosedici, whether a GP24 or a 'GP25'.
The idea behind the rider rankings is to grade riders' performances all through the MotoGP weekend - though primarily the sessions that actually count towards something - in how impressive they really were.
I base it on what I think I know about those riders' machinery, performance level and outside circumstances - but it's not an exact science, and your own ranking may of course differ hugely. It's often more fun if it does.
Qualified: 3rd Sprint: 2nd GP: 2nd
Alex Marquez deserves the championship lead and this weekend's first place.
I don't know if Alex Marquez has been the best MotoGP rider so far in 2025, but I do believe he has been the least worst.
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The most impressive part about his six consecutive second places is, bizarrely, not one of them really feels like it should've been a win. Whatever the factory guys are giving him right now, he is taking.
Qualified: 2nd Sprint: 4th GP: 3rd
Why rank Fabio Di Giannantonio ahead of a fellow Ducati rider who beat him in both races?
Firstly, he remains fitness-limited, and overcoming that at a track like the Circuit of the Americas is a serious achievement. Secondly, getting within a tenth of Marc Marquez in a COTA pole fight is genuinely stunning.
As much as Di Giannantonio hurt his weekend a bit with so-so starts and an ill-conceived attempt to overtake VR46 team-mate Franco Morbidelli early in the sprint (which cost him so much momentum), he's looking a little more potent than an injured rider who had no meaningful pre-season should do.
Qualified: 6th Sprint: 3rd GP: 1st
Pecco Bagnaia underwhelmed with qualifying form that, let's be very clear here, would've equated the depths of Q1 on any other bike, and for ongoing struggles for pace with a sprint-spec fuel tank.
But his Sunday was a delight, starting with the instinctive riding in the early laps that powered him past Alex Marquez and ending with the familiar 'total control' once Marc Marquez went down.
Qualified: 9th Sprint: 14th GP: 5th
Jack Miller needed the red flag to save his weekend - when he ran to the pits for a bike swap, he'd found his spare bike also equipped with wets, so would've been in dire straits if not for the stoppage.
But his weekend really deserved saving. The sprint was unfortunate, rendered a write-off by a very poor start and a Turn 12 error, but in changeable conditions he looked the Miller of old, which we hadn't got so much of during the KTM stint.
Fifth on Sunday set up by a typically incisive opening lap while others were still tiptoeing was a calling-card effort, but his canary-in-the-coalmine first laps on the slicks on Friday during that conditions crossover point were almost more impressive - a ridiculous flex of just how good a feel he has for a damp track.
Qualified: 7th Sprint: 8th GP: 8th
Luca Marini beat himself up a fair bit after the finish for picking the soft front tyre and soft rear for the race distance - the lingering water on the ground was the culprit for his decision, but after the finish he described it as "impossible to understand".
"Super disappointed with myself... [Normally] I am always super clever and smart in this kind of situation," he vented.
It's just quite funny overall because compared to the weekends other Honda riders had, Marini's faux pas is genuinely nothing.
It never felt like he was the fastest Honda rider all weekend, but while others did more to showcase the peak of the RC213V, the firm's respectable points yield is thanks to him and him alone.
Qualified: 11th Sprint: 6th GP: 10th
Fabio Quartararo emerged out of Yamaha stablemate Miller's shadow with a tour-de-force performance in the sprint race, one of the most impressive rides anyone's had at any point this season... which was nice because the rest of his weekend was nothing to write home about.
His Sunday was compromised by the sighting-lap crash - slicks on a still-wet track, so can't be too critical - that forced him to race with a "totally different" bike (different chassis, different swingarm), which also had a suboptimal electronics set-up. He did all right considering.
Qualified: 5th Sprint: 5th GP: 4th
Not that fast at all in many important parts of the weekend - on Saturday he was grip- and vibration-limited and on Sunday he badly used up his tyre and was desperately hanging on by the end.
It felt a bit like the Franco Morbidelli of this pre-season: doing enough to be there or thereabout, without really dazzling, although now that we're actually racing he has been unmistakably effective in his wheel-to-wheel conduct.
His position this week is a prime illustration of why Ducati riders are being ranked so consistently high. Having a Desmosedici right now means that even when you're off your game you have the margin not to blot your copybook.
Qualified: 18th Sprint: 9th GP: 9th
Ai Ogura looked destined for the first bad weekend of his nascent MotoGP career when he spent the opening practice trundling around a scarcely believable nine seconds off the pace in the wet, hamstrung by an under-heating Aprilia engine and a general lack of feeling.
But after a muted qualifying triggered by a crash right before it, he delivered the goods in both races - powering his way into the points in the sprint and then keeping things clean in the attritional grand prix for another top 10.
He gets some bonus points too for the slicks call for the original start, even though he made it pretty clear post-race it largely came from his crew.
Qualified: 16th Sprint: 12th GP: DNF
If this ranking was based on Sunday alone, Brad Binder would probably be number one. I fear that's a sentence I'm going to need to deploy again and again this season.
It is impossible to filter out the fact that Binder was seven tenths of a second off KTM team-mate Pedro Acosta in Friday's 'Q0', then over a second off in actual qualifying trim on Saturday.
His KTM "just turned off" in the grand prix while on course for a comfortable top-five finish, and the call to start on slicks with Enea Bastianini and Ogura could've been a race-winning one. But Binder's mastery of MotoGP chaos and "floor-raiser" abilities cannot fully mask a consistent trend of qualifying underperformance - though they very nearly did this weekend.
Qualified: 13th Sprint: 10th GP: 6th
A weekend well-rescued in the end but still short of the lofty heights his pre-season had promised.
Marco Bezzecchi put down his complicated weekend largely to a deeply messy wet opening session (bike issues and a high-side), but qualifying trim still seems the big limitation.
Sunday's race was long enough and chaotic enough to make up for it, and the pace was there, but it's all a bit too 'damage limitation' even if the end result was an impressive one.
Qualified: 17th Sprint: 13th GP: 7th
I think KTM has two Brad Binders now.
Enea Bastianini remains "not comfortable" over one lap so qualified terribly just like Binder, but repaired the damage on Sunday just like Binder.
His method remains different - Binder is incisive early on, then defensive, while Bastianini continues to exploit his used-tyre wizardry - but here the results were eerily comparable (if you ignore Binder's mechanical failure).
Qualified: 12th Sprint: 11th GP: DNF
Fermin Aldeguer's blistering late-race pace on Sunday was a neon sign that screamed 'I am a rookie and I am about to crash'. Then he crashed.
He still has not put together a tidy MotoGP weekend - he'd also crashed in qualifying - but this was the first strong glimpse of the talent on offer.
There was a lot to like about his Friday (very quick in those changeable conditions), about his Saturday (recovering to 11th in the sprint after going to the back due to a domino effect triggered by Di Giannantonio and Morbidelli) and about his Sunday.
Zero points to show for it, but encouraging all the same.
Qualified: 10th Sprint: DNF GP: 14th
Unfortunately my editor won't let me submit a Maverick Vinales entry that's just 10 question marks and the phrase "why was he sprinting down the length of the grid" followed by 10 more question marks.
Beyond that exceptionally goofy moment, assessing Vinales' weekend is all about reading tea leaves. All the available data suggests he was actually quite fast and impressive when not beset by weird technical gremlins, those being a race-ending vibration on Saturday and problems during the start(s) on Sunday.
Qualified: 1st Sprint: 1st GP: DNF
Marc Marquez's massive rear slide at the start of the sprint felt foreboding, a massive Chekhov's gun that finally fired on Sunday - even if it was a totally different moment in totally different circumstances.
He was unquestionably fast all weekend, clearly the fastest, but didn't give off the impression of being in total control. That wet Turn 4 kerb that caused the crash was clearly a bit of a lottery, but it's also clear Marquez misplayed the odds.
This ranking isn't too low because his sprint win and sheer pace should not be taken for granted. But the result is hard to accept.
Marquez spoke on Thursday before the weekend of his crash from the lead in 2019 at this same venue - which was merely a blip in that campaign. But I just don't think he has the same kind of margin to work with this year.
Qualified: 4th Sprint: 7th GP: DNF
Pedro Acosta sounds increasingly disillusioned with a KTM that he's struggling to trust to start the season. Whether he's crashing because he's disillusioned or he's disillusioned because he's crashing is a question only he and those working with him at KTM can really answer.
His qualifying was a titanic effort but the sprint was compromised by "crazy" vibrations and the grand prix by "massive locking" on the front that quickly triggered a crash.
If you're starting to doubt him, I think that's way, way premature - but his uncompromising ambition increasingly feels unsuited to the current state of the KTM project.
Qualified: 14th Sprint: 15th GP: 11th
A top-10 was probably in play on Sunday had Alex Rins not got roughed up over the opening couple of laps, but overall it was a bit of a nothing weekend.
Not conspicuously slow or anything - just quite anonymous, even relative to the other Yamaha riders, to the point where being just four tenths off team-mate Quartararo in Q1 felt vaguely encouraging.
A harsh ranking, but you just expect more from Rins at COTA.
Qualified: 20th Sprint: 18th GP: 13th
A very sensible ahead-of-schedule first outing for Augusto Fernandez as a Yamaha racer, substituting for Miguel Oliveira at Pramac - of which Fernandez said that "you can see it's a world champion team, working with them".
Tenth place in the wet opening practice was an eyebrow-raiser. Once the track dried, he returned to the usual 'test rider zone' of the timesheets but made steady progress.
Qualified: 22nd Sprint: 20th GP: 15th
The ever-affable Aprilia tester gritted it out through the weekend with his injured shoulder. Lorenzo Savadori had been unconvinced he could get to the end of the grand prix, but he did so and was rewarded with a point.
And there was some pretty solid pace progression, which makes sense given Savadori had never raced here before.
The expectation is that Jorge Martin will reclaim the bike for Qatar.
Qualified: 19th Sprint: 17th GP: 12th
Raul Fernandez said after both Saturday and Sunday that his missing piece of the puzzle is a lack of calm in the biggest moments of the weekend.
I am not sure it's that simple, but yes, his current situation would be a lot more tenable if he found a way to clean up his weekends - as this was another sketchy one, with a bad crash in qualifying (as he dropped the rear wheel off the kerb and got launched) and errors on Sunday.
He's held up his hand about this fragility and hasn't shied away from the fact he's working with a psychologist to address it, but he would be wrong to feel like he isn't under pressure. Both Trackhouse team principal Davide Brivio and team boss Justin Marks cut distinctly unimpressed figures when shown on the broadcast in the aftermath of Fernandez's Q1 shunt.
Qualified: 15th Sprint: 16th Race: 17th
Johann Zarco's weekend unravelled catastrophically and surprisingly after his crash while pushing for Q2 on Friday.
He was suddenly slow and bereft of feeling, "fighting against the bike", lacking on the brakes and unable to lean. It was enough for him to effectively sacrifice the sprint by bolting on the medium rear tyre to gather data for Sunday.
That data helped positive changes, though Zarco was always going to be more competitive in a longer race with some sketchy grip - but the crash while being overtaken by Bastianini means that while he's able to take positives out of his weekend, I really struggle to.
Qualified: 21st Sprint: 19th GP: 16th
The wheels have come off Somkiat Chantra's rookie season a bit after a promising start. He warned pre-weekend that COTA is not one of his stronger tracks, and it sure looked like it. Sector one was making his life miserable, seemingly because of all the changes of direction.
Finishing a minute back without a crash is really, really rough.
Qualified: 8th Sprint: DNF GP: DNF
In explaining his latest pair of non-finishes, Joan Mir pointed to a single primary culprit: the Honda's lack of straightline speed leaving him exposed in battle and forcing him to "ride in a more offensive way".
"Offensive" is right. It is offensive to crash out of qualifying and both races on a weekend where you're so clearly the fastest Honda rider, and it is doubly offensive for that not to prompt some public self-reflection, ala the aforementioned Raul Fernandez.
Mir had revealed after the sprint that he was texting with new Honda tech boss Romano Albesiano - and that Albesiano asked him to take more care. So Albesiano must've loved what he saw on Sunday.
Mir's a great rider and the seventh-six-fifth place he might’ve got would not change Honda's MotoGP history.
But at some point you have to prove that you can be relied on.
