With factory Ducati rider Pecco Bagnaia rewriting the history books and becoming the first ever rider to win four races in a row for the Italian brand at Sunday’s San Marino Grand Prix, the 2022 MotoGP championship battle has now very much become a three-horse race with only six rounds remaining.
Impressive work from the Italian, the win came amidst a slump in form for some of his rivals on a crash-strewn day at Misano – and the cumulative effect is a big shake-up in the standings as the series moves on to Spain.
That also, of course, means plenty of performances to judge in this week’s rider ratings.
Our MotoGP ranking system is simple: the riders who we believe performed the best in every race are at the top, and the ones who underperformed are at the bottom and scored appropriately.
It isn’t just about the end result though, with pre-race expectation and form going into a race and a weekend heavily influencing their eventual score, not just the points they scored every Sunday afternoon.
Pecco Bagnaia – 10
Started: 5th Finished: 1st
There was a lot of pressure resting on the shoulders of Pecco Bagnaia on Sunday – and not only the type being doled out by Enea Bastianini.
Trying to close down a championship lead and under the spectre of repeated failures at Misano in the past, he buried some of those ghosts with a conclusive and flawless victory.
Enea Bastianini – 9.5
Started: 2nd Finished: 2nd
In theory, despite him finishing second, Bastianini perhaps had the perfect race on Sunday, as he demonstrated a number of his qualities.
On display was his exceptional late-race speed, his ability to fight with his rivals aggressively but cleanly, and (perhaps most importantly) how well he understands just how much you can push against a fellow Ducati rider fighting for a title.
He might not have won, but he sure will have convinced his new bosses that they made the right call for 2023.
Luca Marini – 9
Started: 7th Finished: 4th
It’s hard to argue at this point that Luca Marini’s maiden premier-class podium is far away.
Steadily improving over recent races and building well into his position as deserving of a factory-spec Ducati, he thought about a podium-targeting lunge but discretion prevented too aggressive a move on his fellow Ducatis.
The good news is, spend long enough at the sharp end and you’ll be rewarded for it eventually.
Maverick Vinales – 8
Started: 4th Finished: 3rd
Sunday legitimately felt like Maverick Vinales’ first chance to write history and become the first person in the modern era to win for three manufacturers.
It didn’t quite come together in the end but, with another podium in the bag for him, it’s further proof that he’s still learning and still improving.
Andrea Dovizioso – 7.5
Started: 18th Finished: 12th
Of course it’s not been the farewell season that Andrea Dovizioso expected – and of course Sunday’s race was never going to bring a miraculous fairytale ending.
But at the very least the three-time championship runner-up came out of his last weekend with a smile on his face after a decent battle to score points.
Alex Marquez – 7
Started: 16th Finished: 10th
Of all the Honda riders, Alex Marquez is arguably the only one who managed to salvage any reputational value from Sunday at all by at the very least emerging from the race as the top bike for the factory.
That it came as a top-10 result too courtesy of Miguel Oliveira’s penalty was the icing on the cake.
Kazuki Watanabe – 7
Started: 23rd Finished: 21st
Kazuki Watanabe was completely chucked into the deep end of MotoGP with no time on the bike since before the pandemic and with zero experience of Michelin tyres, so his weekend was very much about the experience and not the result.
But Joan Mir’s replacement absolutely made the most of it and, despite getting lapped with a few corners to go, didn’t embarrass himself. He’d made the 105% cutoff to qualify for the grand prix, and – aside from one crash in FP4 – kept it clean.
Raul Fernandez – 7
Started: 25th Finished: 13th
If there’s one person on the grid who looked to have struggled lately with motivation, it’s Raul Fernandez.
But, freshly invigorated by the chance to work with super-sub crew chief Guy Coulon in the absence of regular crew chief Nicolas Goyon, recovering from a knee surgery, the Aprilia-bound Fernandez produced one of his best MotoGP rides so far.
Jorge Martin – 6.5
Started: 13th Finished: 9th
If you didn’t know beforehand that Jorge Martin was in Sunday’s race, it would have been easy to miss him, as he cruised to outside the top six without making many waves.
Motivation is low after it was confirmed that he wouldn’t be getting a factory Ducati seat for 2023, and his result reflected it.
Aleix Espargaro – 6.5
Started: 9th Finished: 6th
It’s complicated to score Aleix Espargaro, because on one hand he was content with his performance, but on the other he conceded valuable points.
Aware he was set for a tough race at a track that doesn’t favour his bike or his style, in the end he salvaged something from it by limiting the damage to Quartararo in particular – but you can’t help but feel like more was on offer given where Vinales ended up.
Alex Rins – 6
Started: 12th Finished: 7th
The Suzuki rider was among the more anonymous performers of the weekend, never really registering at any point in the race en route to seventh. Not Alex Rins’ best nor his worst of the year as he prepares for his future as an LCR Honda rider.
Fabio Quartararo – 6
Started: 8th Finished: 5th
A rather mediocre performance for the reigning world champion.
And as he failed to improve on a rather lacklustre long-run pace while his rivals found something more, it means that Bagnaia has, worryingly, now managed to eviscerate Fabio Quartararo’s title lead in only four rounds.
Stefan Bradl – 6
Started: 20th Finished: 14th
We get what we’ve come to expect from Stefan Bradl nowadays, as his time as Marc Marquez’s injury replacement thankfully (for him, as he goes back to the full-time testing duties he favours) comes to a close. No heroics, no drama, just a steady race to score two points.
Franco Morbidelli – 5
Started: 11th Finished: DNF
Poor Franco Morbidelli looked to be having his best weekend of a very tough season in front of his home crowd. A strong qualifying set him up for a better Sunday – until Fabio Di Giannantonio went down in front of him and left the Yamaha rider with no escape.
Pol Espargaro – 5
Started: 19th Finished: DNF
Over practically before it even started, there wasn’t much to say about another disastrous race day for Pol Espargaro.
Never looking like someone set to challenge for the top 10, he was perhaps the most unlucky among those caught out in the cascade triggered by Johann Zarco’s and Brad Binder’s contact – bringing another weekend of misery at a track where he was on the podium last year to a sudden end.
Johann Zarco – 5
Started: 6th Finished: DNF
A race ended before it began. Zarco was the initial victim of first-lap contact with Brad Binder, triggering a cascading crash that arguably denied him the chance for an easy top-eight finish.
However, a better start and he wouldn’t have been where he was on track, which absolves Binder of at least some of the blame.
Michele Pirro – 5
Started: 17th Finished: DNF
The third rider caught up in the first-sector chaos, Pirro had been enjoying a solid weekend at a track that he knows intimately thanks to his Ducati testing experience there.
The good news is that it doesn’t seem that he’s too injured to join in on Tuesday and Wednesday, for the part of the week that’s probably a lot more important given his role.
Miguel Oliveira – 4.5
Started: 10th Finished: 11th
We normally measure Miguel Oliveira’s performance these days in terms of the gap to team-mate Binder – and for the first time in a while, that looked set to be quite a small one, at least until the Portuguese rider exceeded track limits, had to take to the long-lap loop and dropped out of the top 10 as a result.
Darryn Binder – 4
Started: 21st Finished: 16th
It looked like the younger Binder was on course for a few more points in his rookie season tally after a strong start – but in a race where no-one else was worrying about tyre conservation, he proved that he’s still got some things to learn by burning out his own Michelins and just missing out on the top 15.
Brad Binder – 4
Started: 15th Finished: 8th
Not by any means a spectacular Sunday for Binder, as in the end he had a relatively average result considering KTM’s struggles at Misano.
However, he was also the antagonist in the opening-lap mayhem in which Pirro, Zarco and Espargaro hit the deck, thanks to Binder going for a space that just wasn’t there, according to Zarco.
Marco Bezzecchi – 3
Started: 3rd Finished: DNF
It’s hard to predict exactly what could have been for Marco Bezzecchi had he stayed on the bike on Sunday, but the chance to fight for another podium wasn’t entirely out of the question.
Dejected afterwards, it’s worth remembering that he’s still a rookie, something evidenced by his rookie fall after getting caught up in Vinales’ slipstream under braking.
Taka Nakagami – 3
Started: 22nd Finished: 15th
A race finish and a single point are about the only highlights of Taka Nakagami’s weekend at Misano, with team-mate Marquez once again outshining him and further damaging the Japanese rider’s own future MotoGP career prospects – if those are even a thing at this point.
Remy Gardner – 3
Started: 24th Finished: 19th
After the Australian spent all weekend taking a metaphorical kicking from KTM as its bloody sacking of him became public, the usually-motivated Gardner looked like he wanted to be anywhere but Misano all weekend long.
That’s reflected in his result, Gardner finishing behind even fellow Aussie Jack Miller after the Ducati rider crashed and remounted.
Fabio Di Giannantonio – 2
Started: 14th Finished: DNF
Rookie mistakes from rookie riders are fine – but when they end the races of others, it becomes a little more complicated.
Going all guns blazing from the second the lights went out, Di Giannantonio’s strategy failed both when he went down and took Franco Morbidelli with him. A little too much home race hubris.
Jack Miller – 1
Started: 1st Finished: DNF
If Jack Miller could finish every race where he is when he crashes out of them, he’d be a world champion.
But he’s not a champion, and Sunday again proved why, with a completely unforced error leaving him watching from the sidelines rather than on the top step of the podium.
An all-too-common Miller race still.
