MotoGP rebounded from its flat Motegi weekend with a Phillip Island epic and a stunning charge to Australian Grand Prix victory.
How the main race was settled probably makes Simon Patterson’s number one pick in his best-to-worst ranking of the entire field’s performance pretty easy to predict but there are a few surprises further down as he sorts the underdog overachievers from the outright underperformers.
1 Marc Marquez
Qualified: 2nd Sprint: 2nd Finished: 1st
An outstanding weekend from Marc Marquez at one of his favoured tracks, finally delivering some of that left-turning magic we expected to see much more of this season.
Rapid all weekend as he made the most of changing conditions and an unknown tyre situation, he still had to go and make it even harder again for himself with a disastrous start on a discarded visor tear off.
Though lucky in the opening corners that brother Alex hacked out a space for him to instantly make up much of his lost ground, that takes nothing at all away from his phenomenal racecraft.
2 Jorge Martin
Qualified: 1st Sprint: 1st Finished: 2nd
Not for the first time this season, Jorge Martin demonstrated his newfound maturity on Sunday by showing that you don’t always need to finish first to win.
A smart play to allow Marquez to escape in the final laps of the race (even if he had to briefly think about it!) was the right move to make for someone hoping to become world champion rather than the winner of the Australian Grand Prix.
There’ll be a little worry that it means he gave up five points on Pecco Bagnaia at a circuit where Martin was very strong, but there’s still a good chance to ensure he stays in front until Valencia’s chequered flag.
3 Fabio Di Giannantonio
Qualified: 12th Sprint: 7th Finished: 4th
Given that it’s set to be his penultimate race of the year before fairly significant shoulder reconstruction work, Fabio Di Giannantonio’s Phillip Island results were pretty impressive stuff.
Now very much an expert performer at the Australian track, his qualifying crash didn’t make things easy for him. But his steady comeback in Sunday’s main event in particular was a very impressive run, and one that arguably justifies the decision to delay surgery until after this weekend.
4 Pecco Bagnaia
Qualified: 5th Sprint: 4th Finished: 3rd
More was expected from Bagnaia at Phillip Island than he delivered - but perhaps that’s not quite true of the reigning champion’s own expectations for himself.
He was very much downplaying his hopes all weekend, largely because the Australian circuit isn’t exactly his strongest of the season, especially compared to Marquez and Martin.
In that context, it’s perhaps a weekend of damage limitation that didn’t excessively dent his title hopes.
5 Brad Binder
Qualified: 11th Sprint: DNF Finished: 7th
Another weekend where Brad Binder was able to remind everyone that he’s still KTM’s number one (something aided by the absence of an injured Pedro Acosta).
There should have been even more to take away from the weekend after spending most of the race battling for fourth. However, pushing too hard too soon meant he had no tyre left for the final three laps and was forced to fall back.
6 Fabio Quartararo
Qualified: 19th Sprint: 11th Finished: 9th
A rather average weekend for Fabio Quartararo, given where the Yamaha package is right now.
Struggling with issues heating the tyres early in the race, his charge through the pack to make it into the top 10 in Sunday’s race was another reminder of the 2021 champion’s ability - even if it left him more frustrated than satisfied in the end.
7 Enea Bastianini
Qualified: 10th Sprint: 3rd Finished: 5th
Sunday should have been Enea Bastianini’s sort of race, with limited track conditions and a new surface meaning that tyre management was a key factor - and it was something of a surprise to see him largely absent from the lead fight in the end, especially after a decent sprint.
But blaming issues with a bad Michelin tyre without outright saying as much, he simply wasn’t a factor in the podium fight and did quite well, all things considered, to end up where he did.
8 Maverick Vinales
Qualified: 3rd Sprint: DNF Finished: 8th
It should have been a much better weekend for Maverick Vinales, and it’s hard to put too much of the blame for it on him given the circumstances of his high-speed crash on Saturday after contact with Marco Bezzecchi.
In saying that, though, his reverse-gear race starts are still a weakness that consistently put him in risky circumstances in the first place.
9 Luca Marini
Qualified: 13th Sprint: 10th Finished: 14th
By the current standards, Phillip Island turned into a pretty good weekend for Luca Marini, with the Honda rider looking stronger than he has in a long time.
Unlucky to not make it through into Q2 (something that would have been a first for him on a Honda), both his sprint and his main race performances were decent, especially in the context of team-mate Joan Mir’s struggles.
Clearly Marini’s now starting to unlock the secrets of the RC213V, and it’ll be interesting to see what that results in over the final few races of this season.
10 Raul Fernandez
Qualified: 6th Sprint: 6th Finished: 10th
Any weekend where Raul Fernandez finds himself in contention to be top Aprilia has to be considered a good one, and this was no exception.
Looking for once like the rider Aprilia wanted him to be when it extended his contract by two more years, he’ll have raised team hopes that it wasn’t just a circuit-specific boost and represents a real form improvement.
11 Franco Morbidelli
Qualified: 7th Sprint: 5th Finished: 6th
Not bad, could have been better for Franco Morbidelli, as he delivered two solid enough performances but still managed to be the sixth of six Ducatis in the top six on Sunday.
He’s still not performing at anything close to the same level as the other GP24 riders, and rides like this weekend where he’s easily beaten by 2025 VR46 team-mate Di Giannantonio on an older bike are reinforcing Ducati’s decision to promise Valentino Rossi’s team’s sole 2025 bike to Di Giannantonio’s side of the garage.
12 Alex Rins
Qualified: 9th Sprint: 12th Finished: 13th
Another tough weekend for Yamaha, and the best that Alex Rins can take from it is that at least the pace wasn’t terrible even if early-race issues with the bike kept him from capitalising on a decent qualifying performance.
Being a little closer than usual to team-mate Quartararo on pace (and 10 places ahead of him in qualifying before still getting beaten on Sunday) at least that hints that Rins himself is getting closer to form, even if the bike still has a long way to go.
13 Marco Bezzecchi
Qualified: 4th Sprint: DNF Finished: 19th
A punishing weekend for Bezzecchi, but it’s hard to put too much of the blame for that on him.
He was as unfortunate as Vinales to be the victim of a chain of events in the sprint that led to him running into the back of the Aprilia at the scarily fast first corner but was handed a penalty for Sunday, effectively ending any aspirations even before he managed to make his most significant mistake of the weekend shortly after serving the penalty by falling off!
14 Lorenzo Savadori
Qualified: 22nd Sprint: 15th Finished: DNF
It’s hard not to feel sorry for Trackhouse stand-in Lorenzo Savadori, whose weekend was essentially brought to a premature end by race control missing something.
He was struck by on-track debris from the Vinales/Bezzecchi crash that wasn’t spotted, and the impact on his right forearm caused lingering physical issues that curtailed his main race performance and brought him into the pits at half distance.
15 Johann Zarco
Qualified: 14th Sprint: DNF Finished: 12th
Last year’s Australian GP winner Johann Zarco knew his 2024 challenge was going to be considerably harder, and he wasn’t disappointed in how it turned out.
Being top Honda was little consolation for him but it continues to reinforce the idea that he’s far better able to tread the line between success and disaster on that bike than anyone else, sitting nicely as he does between Mir on the disaster side and Marini and Taka Nakagami on the other.
16 Jack Miller
Qualified: 16th Sprint: DNF Finished: 11th
A rather poor home race weekend all round for Jack Miller.
The Australian never looked anywhere near the sharp end, even in tricky wet conditions earlier in the weekend, and you get the sense that he somewhat settled for seeing the chequered flag in Sunday’s race rather than pushing too much trying for something more like he did in Saturday’s sprint.
One to forget for the KTM racer.
17 Alex Marquez
Qualified: 8th Sprint: DNF Finished: 15th
More disappointment for Alex Marquez on what should have been a better weekend.
He ended up one of only two Ducatis outside the top eight on Sunday thanks to a complicated race start and a long lap penalty from the previous weekend.
Contact with Miller early in the race denied him the chance to recover better from the sanction, but that’s unfortunately yet another case of him putting himself into the sort of position that just calls out for trouble.
18 Augusto Fernandez
Qualified: 17th Sprint: 9th Finished: 17th
A rather quiet weekend for Augusto Fernandez amid ongoing struggles for KTM.
Not really much of a surprise anymore as it becomes the norm rather than the exception for him, he came into the weekend expecting Phillip Island’s fast corners to play havoc with his bike’s high-speed vibration issues.
Unfortunately, he was correct in his prediction - and very unhappy about his result.
19 Aleix Espargaro
Qualified: 20th Sprint: 8th Finished: 16th
A disappointing weekend for Aleix Espargaro at a circuit where traditionally far more should have been expected of him and Aprilia given that in the past Phillip Island was one of the team’s designated ‘go-fast’ tracks.
There’s perhaps a bit of acceptance of his impending retirement starting to creep into his commitment level with only three weekends left as a full-time racer.
20 Pedro Acosta
Qualified: 15th Sprint: DNF Finished: N/A
Obviously, without a Sunday race to assess Pedro Acosta’s full potential at Phillip Island, it’s a little harder than usual to score him.
He had a decent start to the sprint, as usual, and it’s hard to stick the blame for his shoulder-dislocating crash on anyone.
All in all, a pretty standard weekend for him in that regard, except this time the crash out a decent result ended in a relatively bad injury.
21 Taka Nakagami
Qualified: 21st Sprint: 14th Finished: 18th
One of those weekends where there isn’t much to talk about from Nakagami.
Suffering the same tyre heating woes as the other Hondas, his race was done before it started thanks to having to wait for his Michelin to come up to temperature, and while his sprint performance wasn’t awful, it’s still far from where he wanted to be at this point in his final MotoGP season.
22 Joan Mir
Qualified: 18th Sprint: 13th Finished: DNF
Yet another tough weekend for Mir, and yet another Sunday with nothing to show except bruises.
Arguably the championship’s unluckiest rider, it seems that things conspire against him, and this week he claimed to have been undone by a bad tyre on Sunday - which meant he was pushing harder than he should have been when he fell.
Still undoubtedly very motivated to make the Honda work for him, he’s riding beyond the bike and we’re seeing the results in the gravel traps.
