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Back to back MotoGP races often throw up something of a surprise – but that wasn’t quite the case at Sunday’s San Marino Grand Prix, as Pecco Bagnaia followed up his first win with another flawless performance to make it two from two.
It wasn’t just all about the race winner though, as his title rival Fabio Quartararo maintained his own advantage – and reigning world champion Joan Mir made a mistake that forced him to concede that his aspirations of retaining the crown are all but done.
With that and plenty more interesting results, both impressive and disappointing, 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.
Enea Bastianini – 10
Started: 12th Finished: 3rd
In a word: incredible. Bastianini did things on his two-year-old Desmosedici that he had no right to be doing, with even factory racer Jack Miller amazed at the lean angle the reigning Moto2 champion was able to hold as he blew past him.
There was even a chance when fighting for the win looked like a possibility – but settling for third is perhaps the biggest testament to Bastianini’s skills on the bike on a day when home race hubris could have got the better of him.
Pecco Bagnaia – 9
Started: 1st Finished: 1st
Sublime work from Bagnaia for the second week in a row to ensure that the championship fight remains alive.
Almost robotic at the front of the race again, albeit this time against Quartararo and not Marc Marquez, he kept his cool under pressure and did everything right.
It’s a little too late for any 2021 title aspirations, but that doesn’t mean it’s over – and more races like this will put Quartararo under more pressure than he’s ever known.
Fabio Quartararo – 8
Started: 3rd Finished: 2nd
Not the day that Quartararo won the title, but despite conceding five points to Bagnaia, it was another step closer to glory.
He put on a valiant charge in the final laps and might well have done it had it not been for Miller doing his best to be a roadblock in the early stages of the race.
To salvage second after another tough weekend and to essentially make the title fight a two-man battle means it was a job well done for Quartararo.
Marc Marquez – 8
Started: 7th Finished: 4th
One of the eight-time world champion’s best performances of his return from injury so far, as he suggested after the race.
It’s one thing to win or fight for the podium at tracks where it’s expected like the Sachsenring or Motorland Aragon, but to regroup and surge forward somewhere where he struggled all weekend is a good indicator of Marquez’s improving form – and couldn’t come at a better time, with Austin up next.
Jack Miller – 7
Started: 2nd Finished: 5th
A race of two halves for Miller. The first one was perfect, doing exactly what he said he would with the pace he had – blocking Quartararo and letting his team-mate escape.
The second half was less happy, as Miller expected to remain in podium contention but was waylaid by a vibration issue – most likely caused by tyre wear, if past form is anything to go by.
Not a terrible race for him, but not the one he was expecting either.
Pol Espargaro – 7
Started: 6th Finished: 7th
Nothing to set the world alight for the younger Espargaro brother, but nonetheless a reasonably solid race, especially in comparison to his Honda team-mate Marquez.
None of the Hondas looked particularly fast all weekend, so to be able to do the same as Marquez and rally himself a bit in the race isn’t a bad showing after a tough year so far.
Brad Binder – 6.5
Started: 17th Finished: 9th
The fact that the best Sunday miracle worker Binder could do at Misano was ninth shows the state that KTM was in this weekend.
No feeling, no confidence and, as a result, no speed, the whole team struggled.
It’s testament to Binder that he’s once again the only one who managed to make anything from the mess.
Aleix Espargaro – 6
Started: 8th Finished: 8th
Aprilia’s home race was something of an anonymous one for Espargaro, who never really figured apart from for a few laps when the lights went out.
Eighth is a relatively disappointing result based on the past few weeks of podium contention – but it’s definitely more to do with just where that bike is at than any slump in Espargaro’s form.
Aprilia’s got something that’s fast and he’s shown that – but it’s not fast everywhere yet.
Maverick Vinales – 6
Started: 10th Finished: 13th
Sure, Vinales was really fast in practice, even topping the opening day of action on a rain-hit Friday.
But no one in the team expected fireworks in the race, as he continues to adapt himself to the RS-GP after seven days on the bike following five years on a Yamaha.
Breaking into the points is a solid improvement from last time out, and he’ll continue to get a little faster as the year progresses, before a full attack in 2022.
Valentino Rossi – 6
Started: 23rd Finished: 17th
Outside the points at Misano isn’t the way that Rossi wanted to see off his penultimate race in Italy – yet it’s not really a surprise given the form he’s shown all year.
So let’s give him a bit of a free pass for once and focus on the positives; he might not have been fighting for the win, but he put on a hell of a show for the fans trackside, getting stuck into a battle with old friend Danilo Petrucci that at least means he had some fun.
Stefan Bradl – 5.5
Started: 18th Finished: 14th
There to test and not to race, Bradl did his usual quiet job in Sunday’s race by concentrating on getting a race distance out of whatever new parts were strapped to his RCV213V rather than trying to win anything.
The one nod to his form: he wasn’t last Honda, beating LCR rider and former team-mate Alex Marquez by one place.
Taka Nakagami – 5.5
Started: 13th Finished: 10th
Gradual improvement throughout the weekend to a top-10 finish is probably about as much as Nakagami was expecting to happen at Misano.
Neither LCR Honda rider found the extra boost that the factory bikes did, but the consolation prize for Nakagami should be finishing only a few places behind Espargaro on the Repsol machine.
Michele Pirro – 5
Started: 14th Finished: 11th
Came to do a job, tested some things (who knows what with Ducati), finished the race without appearing on TV once – nothing dramatic about that in the life of a test rider.
A standard Sunday wildcard outing for Pirro, and exactly what we’ve come to expect from him.
Jorge Martin – 5
Started: 4th Finished: DNF
Sometimes it’s important to remember that, despite a podium, a pole position and a win so far in 2021, Martin is in fact still a rookie – and with that comes an abundance of hubris and a lack of experience.
Inexperience caught him out on Sunday and caused a crash, which really isn’t the end of the world for him even if he leaves Misano frustrated.
Franco Morbidelli – 5
Started: 16th Finished: 18th
For someone who won at Misano last year, finishing outside the points is disappointing for Morbidelli.
But for someone who hasn’t ridden in three months and who admitted that he wasn’t sure he’d be able to race after the warm-up, just getting the Yamaha home in one piece is a job well done for him.
It’s clear that he’s still suffering from the aftermath of surgery, and it’s going to take time to return to strength – so let’s just remember that the point of 2021 now is to give him that time.
Andrea Dovizioso – 4
Started: 24th Finished: 21st
On one hand, no one expected Dovizioso to set the world on fire at Misano as he jumped on a Yamaha for the first time in nine years and into a MotoGP race weekend for the first time in nine months – and 21st isn’t terrible given his expectations.
But on the other hand, it’s something of a surprise to see just how far off the pace he was, especially compared to the gaps from the front recorded by rookie Jake Dixon last weekend on that bike.
Clearly there’s still a lot of work to do.
Iker Lecuona – 4
Started: 20th Finished: DNF
Whenever Lecuona figures out how to stop crashing, he’s going to be a force to be reckoned with – but unfortunately the day it all clicked wasn’t Sunday.
Though he fought inside the points and again on track to be second KTM, it wasn’t to be, again. But he showed his pace and his talent, and hopefully he gets a chance to show his true capabilities before his time as a MotoGP rider comes to a close at Valencia.
Alex Marquez – 3.5
Started: 19th Finished: 15th
Unfortunately for Marquez, just breaking into the points on a day when the other Hondas put on a good showing is perhaps indicative of his level right now.
The LCR Honda rider has never once looked like returning to the highs of 2020’s two podiums now that we’re in a more ‘normal’ MotoGP season, and this is about what we can expect from him until the bike starts to improve.
Danilo Petrucci – 3.5
Started: 22nd Finished: 16th
When the KTMs struggle at a track, it seems that, with his size and weight, Petrucci is always destined to struggle a little more, and that means that Sunday’s race was kind of par for the course for him.
Outside the points at the chequered flag, at least he was able to win his race-long duel with Rossi.
Johann Zarco – 3
Started: 5th Finished: 12th
A rather invisible race for Zarco despite his strong qualifying, it all seemed to go wrong from him as soon as the lights went out.
One error seemed to trigger another after fluffing the start, then getting a long lap penalty, losing contact with the leading group and being forced to basically cruise it home a long way from the fight at the front.
Miguel Oliveira – 3
Started 21st Finished 20th
It’s almost impossible to believe that the current Oliveira was a race winner this season, so severe has his slump been since the summer break ended.
Sure, it was a tough weekend for KTM, and losing a wing early on didn’t help. But it looks quite bad for Oliveira when his team-mate is 11 places ahead of him, and at the end of the day had he not qualified 21st, he would have been less likely to get caught up in opening lap antics.
Joan Mir – 2.5
Started 11th Finished 6th
The day a title was lost, not just because of his mistake on the last lap, but because of his mistake before the race even began.
Choosing the wrong front tyre, Mir admitted afterwards that it left him unable to push and unable to take the podium he needed to keep his championship dreams alive.
And exceeding track limits on the last lap? Just the icing on the cake that was a bad day all round.
Luca Marini – 2
Started 15th Finished 19th
We’ve always said that Marini is something of a slow burner who would take some time to get up to speed, especially on an old Ducati.
But the thing is: it’s now three quarters of the way into his rookie season, we were racing at a track he knows intimately thanks to the VR46 Academy, and his team-mate has just stuck the same bike on the podium. Not a day to remember for the Italian.
Alex Rins – 1
Started 9th Finished DNF
Rins is fast. In fact, he’s faster than his world champion Suzuki team-mate Mir.
Yet until he gets a handle on his consistency woes, it’s all for naught. He didn’t need to crash on Sunday, just like he never needs to crash in races – because his mistakes all come when he doesn’t have to be pushing.
There were solid points for the taking, and it’s a disappointment to see him throwing them away again.
