Just when it seems like MotoGP can’t deliver any more excitement or drama, the 2021 season seems to crank it up a notch – and that’s exactly what happened at Sunday’s Emilia Romagna Grand Prix as Pecco Bagnaia saw his last remaining title aspirations crash away from him and Fabio Quartararo took his seat as the series’ latest champion in spectacular fashion.
Amid the heartbreak for the Ducati rider and a somewhat unexpected early triumph for France’s first ever premier class world champion, there were as always plenty of other stories throughout the field, including Honda’s best day since 2017 and rookie Enea Bastianini making it two podium finishes from the past three races.
With that in mind, we have, as usual, ranked the whole grid based on their Sunday performances. Our MotoGP ranking system is simple: the riders who we believe performed the best are at the top, and the ones who underplayed are at the bottom, and scored appropriately.
It isn’t just about the end result though, with pre-race expectation and form heavily influencing their eventual score – not just the points they take home with them.
Marc Marquez – 10
Started: 7th Finished: 1st
On both the previous occasions that Marc Marquez has won this year, we’ve called it the best win of his season – and that applies again at Misano thanks to the nature of the Italian circuit.
He’s obviously won here before, but it marks the first time that he’s even stood on the podium at any clockwise circuit since he broke his arm nearly a year and a half ago. He’s not fully fit yet, but he’s on the road to it, and Sunday’s race was a glimpse of the old Marquez back in action again.
Pol Espargaro – 9
Started: 4th, Finished: 2nd
Marc Marquez’s result was a huge deal for Marc Marquez. But on the other side of the Repsol Honda garage, Pol Espargaro’s best ever MotoGP finish in second place wasn’t just a huge deal for the rider but for the team and manufacturer too as it gets back on its feet. Its best team result since 2017 finally hints that Honda may have found a solution to its myriad wider problems.
Espargaro rode a conservative race, somewhat aided by crashes – but you’ve got to be there to score points, and he stayed on when others didn’t. An excellent performance, and one bristling with potential.
Fabio Quartararo – 9
Started: 15th Finished: 4th
Let’s be honest, after some of the barnstorming performances we’ve seen this year from Fabio Quartararo, Sunday’s race definitely wasn’t one of the most spectacular.
But it was almost a better performance for it because the Frenchman seemed to absolutely and perfectly understand the limits of his Yamaha and looked capable of taking the bike to them and no more.
Pushing but not taking undue risks, he rode what would have been an excellent race even had Bagnaia not crashed out. The title a few weeks early was just the icing on the cake.
Enea Bastianini – 8.5
Started: 16th Finished: 3rd
Another famous result from the hottest property in MotoGP right now. Bastianini repeated his performance of Austin three weeks ago to emerge out of nowhere with only a few laps remaining – and then proceeded to rip his way through the pack to the podium for the second time in three GPs.
Obviously aided by his September Misano experience and perhaps by an abundance of caution from Quartararo, he nonetheless made the passes necessary to put on an impressive show.
Valentino Rossi – 8
Started: 23rd Finished: 10th
Yeah, yeah, it’s an overly generous score – but give me a chance to be a bit of a romantic for once. Valentino Rossi has had a torrid season, and the seven-time champion has barely troubled the top 10 in the past year, at least in the dry.
So to suddenly find a little bit of form, to stay on the bike when plenty of others couldn’t, and to go out in magnificent style in front of a home crowd means it’s something to celebrate for him.
Maverick Vinales – 8
Started: 19th Finished: 8th
Only two months after jumping ship from Yamaha, only three races into his Aprilia career, and having been absent from the last race as he grieved for his young cousin, for Maverick Vinales to finish at Misano only a tenth of a second from team-mate Aleix Espargaro is a definitive sign of just how well he’s adapting to the RS-GP.
Sure he’s aided by extensive testing at the Italian venue – but Espargaro has enjoyed much of that track time too, and this result is a sign of how rapidly progress is coming.
Franco Morbidelli – 7.5
Started: 6th Finished: 14th
From the start of action on Friday up until about halfway through Sunday’s race, Franco Morbidelli very much looked to be back to his old pre-knee-injury self.
Unfortunately still lacking the energy and fitness levels to make it all the way to the finish line inside the top six, it’s nonetheless a good sign that he’s on his way back and that 2022 should start very differently for him.
Luca Marini – 7
Started: 3rd Finished: 9th
Perhaps the most promising thing about Luca Marini’s best ever dry weather MotoGP result is that he was disappointed with it!
Starting on the front row and hoping for more at the end, it was nonetheless very much a breakthrough weekend for the Italian, and hopefully, some of the form found at his home track will stick with him for the remaining races of the year.
Danilo Petrucci – 7
Started: 9th Finished: DNF
Over before it even started for birthday boy Danilo Petrucci. What had the potential to be one of his best races of the year ended rather abruptly at the hands of Joan Mir – but honestly, the veteran Italian gets marked up for how well he handled it.
In a situation where some would have thrown punches, he surprised everyone by giving Mir a hug instead – a fine mark of the man.
Michele Pirro – 6.5
Started: 22nd Finished: 9th
Just Michele Pirro doing Michele Pirro things as usual on his wildcard appearance, working away towards the middle of the pack testing out something new and improved for Ducati without any fuss like only he can do.
He earned a few bonus points on Sunday for keeping his cool and staying calm while plenty of his full-time rivals didn’t – and more importantly, earned himself a nice top 10 finish in the process.
Alex Rins – 6
Started: 13th Finished: 6th
A rather quiet race for the Suzuki rider despite a strong enough start from an average enough qualifying position, but credit where it’s due – for someone with a (perhaps unfair) reputation for falling off, he made the most of everyone else around him doing exactly that to come home safely.
Johann Zarco – 5
Started: 10th Finished: 5th
Johann Zarco seems to have spent the entire weekend at Misano as something of a ghost, never really making an impression on any of the action – yet somehow managing to come out of it all with a solid result to show for it.
A testament to putting your head down and getting on with it, it’s a performance that he needed to reset a little after a tough few races.
Alex Marquez – 5
Started: 14th Finished: DNF
Hard to assess too much of Alex Marquez’s race pace considering a technical problem halted it before we got to see much of him, which really is a shame on a day when the other Hondas shone.
He’s on a different bike from his brother, and maybe the performance wouldn’t have quite matched up – but an engine warning light on his dash means we’ll never know.
Aleix Espargaro – 5
Started: 11th Finished: 7th
Not an amazing day for the Aprilia rider in the end, despite a glimpse of something more in the early stages of the race.
Looking like he might even be in podium contention early on, Espargaro’s pace dropped as the race proceeded, and he admitted afterwards that he was struggling to feel the rear tyre in the end. However, it’s points on the board and a full race under his belt on a tricky day.
Miguel Oliveira – 4
Started: 5th Finished: DNF
Crashing out of podium contention isn’t exactly an amazing finish to Sunday’s race for Miguel Oliveira – but the important thing that he’ll be focusing on is that he was able to be in podium contention in the first place.
Once again much closer to the front after admitting that his Austrian wrist injury had played a far bigger role than expected in his season, it was a welcome return to form right up until it wasn’t – but with a second chance at home in Portugal coming up next, it couldn’t have happened at a better time.
Andrea Dovizioso – 4
Started: 21st Finished: 13th
Given the amount of time he’s spent on the Petronas Yamaha at Misano now, it’s fair to say that Andrea Dovizioso expected better than 13th – especially as that position was aided by falls from those in front of him.
However, after struggling all weekend in both wet and dry conditions, it was better than what he expected to take from a tough event.
Jorge Martin – 3.5
Started: 12th Finished: DNF
On more than one occasion this year, Jorge Martin has shown lots of promise in a race but failed to deliver on it… and this was another of those days.
That takes nothing away from some other exceptional performances of course, his problem is that he set the bar high earlier in the year, and it means that when he makes a mistake now, expectations are higher. But there was a top five waiting for him here had he not fallen.
Brad Binder – 3
Started: 20th Finished: 11th
When your race starts with a crash on the sighting lap it’s not going to be a good day. And really, from there it only got worse for Brad Binder.
There was no Sunday magic to be found this week for the South African, and an early long lap penalty for exceeding track limits was really the icing on the cake.
Iker Lecuona – 3
Started: 8th Finished: DNF
There was a point quite recently when Iker Lecuona got a bit of a free pass for rookie mistakes – but that point has passed now, and Sunday was an example of a day when he simply should have done better.
Yes, conditions were treacherous and difficult, but that’s beside the point when there was a result to be stolen.
Pecco Bagnaia – 3
Started: 1st Finished: DNF
Sunday’s race is a day that will no doubt haunt Bagnaia for a few sleepless weeks at least, as he threw away any remaining chance at a title with a stupid mistake exacerbated by his choice of tyre.
Yet, the reality is, it was a do or die kind of day. He needed to not make a mistake, but at the same time, he needed all the points he could get – and add to that the pressure cooker reality of Marc Marquez breathing down his neck and it was unfortunate but perhaps understandable that he made an error.
Taka Nakagami – 2
Started: 17th Finished: 15th
Another disappointing Sunday for Nakagami, his second in a row after crashing out both last time at Austin and at the first Misano race before that.
Able to remount and score a single point, it hardly makes up for what could have been on a day when Honda came home first and second.
Jack Miller – 2
Started: 2nd Finished: DNF
Jack Miller and team-mate Bagnaia made almost the same mistake at almost the same point on the track and under almost the same circumstances – yet the Australian doesn’t quite get the same hall pass for his error simply because he wasn’t under the same pressure.
The team choice of hard front tyre played a role – but with Mir also falling, Miller missed a chance to close down on third in the championship.
Joan Mir – 1
Started: 18th Finished: DNF
Frankly disappointing for the 2020 world champion. He shouldn’t have started where he did in the first place, he shouldn’t have jumped the start, and he really should have avoided wiping out poor Petrucci from his last ever home MotoGP race.
Not a result of anything wild or dangerous, it was nonetheless a mistake – and it marked an incredibly flat end to his time as the reigning MotoGP champion.
