MotoGP's two 2024 title protagonists each landed a metaphorical blow on the other during the Thai Grand Prix weekend - and mathematically made it a two-horse race with two rounds to go.
Behind them, however, some of their peers were dealing very literal blows to the opposition - and their carelessness is reflected in our Buriram rider rankings.
1 Pecco Bagnaia
Qualified: 1st Sprint: 3rd Finished: 1st
On a weekend where he needed to beat his title rival, Pecco Bagnaia did just that - and didn't allow tricky conditions to stop him from pushing as hard as he could to ensure he did so.
It would've been easy to be risk-averse on Sunday, but he didn't play that card. And while he might have given up a point or two on Saturday with a sprint performance that couldn't quite keep up with Jorge Martin's, there's a sense now that Bagnaia's regained the momentum with only two rounds left.
2 Jorge Martin
Qualified: 3rd Sprint: 2nd Finished: 2nd
A bit of a strange weekend for Martin, who maintained a considerable title advantage but did so in a rather risky way at Buriram.
Pushing seemingly more than he needed to (but perhaps the only way he knows how to) in the sprint, he took valuable points from Bagnaia at the cost of almost not seeing the chequered flag - and then repeated the trick on Sunday as he tried to keep up with his title rival at the front.
Very much treading on the knife edge, it paid off for him and he's still ahead in the most important race.
3 Pedro Acosta
Qualified: 7th Sprint: DNF Finished: 3rd
From the way that Pedro Acosta absolutely attacked Jack Miller in the latter half of Sunday's grand prix, you'd never have known that he was riding in his first-ever wet MotoGP race!
Runner-up Martin is lucky that battling with the Australian cost Acosta as much time as it did; another few laps and second would have been his for the taking.
4 Fabio Di Giannantonio
Qualified: 8th Sprint: 8th Finished: 4th
For a guy signing off on his 2024 season in Thailand, Fabio Di Giannantonio’s way of doing it was stylish.
He was fast enough throughout the weekend despite feeling his shoulder injury in Buriram's hard braking areas, then really shone in the rain when things became a little less physical.
It's no surprise at all that he's somewhat rueful about his decision to step away from the final two races in order to undergo important surgery.
5 Enea Bastianini
Qualified: 2nd Sprint: 1st Finished: 14th
A disappointing wet performance on Sunday doesn't take away from the complete domination, seemingly out of nowhere, that Enea Bastianini pulled off in the sprint race.
He hadn't been quick at all up until that point, but Bastianini delivered the sort of performance we definitely don't expect from him over shorter distances - and was rewarded for it.
It's a shame that we didn't get to see him in the mix on Sunday but, pushed wide at Turn 1, he was under pressure already when he became just another victim of Buriram's Turn 8 right-hander.
6 Jack Miller
Qualified: 15th Sprint: 11th Finished: 5th
You just know that, when Miller woke up to the sound of rain beating down on his roof on Sunday, he was delighted - which probably explains the frustration visible from the Australian at the end of the race when he got rather handily denied a podium finish by fellow KTM rider Acosta, making his wet-weather debut in the premier class.
Miller gave it his all in their fight before first Acosta and then Di Giannantonio got past him. Given his reputation for rain prowess, it's no wonder he was frustrated afterwards.
7 Fabio Quartararo
Qualified: 6th Sprint: 10th Finished: 16th
So much more was on offer for Fabio Quartararo at Buriram, potentially even a podium on Sunday as he capitalised on the rain - but former team-mate Franco Morbidelli made sure that wasn't the case with a pointless lunge that left Quartararo seething in the gravel.
His pace as he recovered, even on a damaged bike, suggested that he would have been fighting at the sharp end all race long, and it's unfortunate we didn't get to see what would surely have been his standout performance of the season reach its conclusion.
8 Brad Binder
Qualified: 13th Sprint: 9th Finished: 6th
A decent weekend for Brad Binder that was salvaged by the rain, because until that point it looked like another event where there was something missing from KTM's package.
The best of the rest in a sprint dominated by eight Ducatis, the wet conditions gave him the chance to improve, and while finishing third-best of the KTMs might not be the most impressive result of the season, it's fair given his team-mate Miller's rain skills in particular.
9 Johann Zarco
Qualified: 12th Sprint: 12th Finished: 8th
Yet another weekend where Johann Zarco emerged not just comfortably inside the points, but as Honda's top rider.
He's absolutely cemented his place as its number one rider when it comes to results (albeit without quite the same development pressures as factory riders Joan Mir and Luca Marini).
Favoured, of course, by wet conditions that always suit him, his ride to eight was a competent one, aided significantly by a very strong qualifying as he once again progressed to Q2.
10 Augusto Fernandez
Qualified: 16th Sprint: 16th Finished: DNF
It's hard not to feel a little sorry for Tech3 GasGas rider Augusto Fernandez, who is desperate to secure a decent MotoGP result before walking away from the grid as a full-time rider in only a couple of races' time.
On track for a very solid top 10 in the wet, it was an important reminder of how talented the former Moto2 world champion is, and it’s a shame that he was punished so harshly for a small mistake that caused him to crash out of the race.
11 Maverick Vinales
Qualified: 10th Sprint: 20th Finished: 7th
Nothing special all weekend from Maverick Vinales, which really is in line with what everyone but he expected.
Buriram was never really going to favour the Aprilia, in the dry or in the wet - and while it might have been a decent performance from Vinales on Sunday given the conditions, it's yet another weekend that's going to leave the Aprilia engineers scratching their heads about why the bike just won't work at flyaway races.
12 Luca Marini
Qualified: 21st Sprint: 19th Finished: 12th
One of Marini's better Honda weekends, as he continues to make solid progress in his first year with the factory.
He might not be back to the podium heights of last year but, when you look at the graph of his improving results, it's hard to argue that things aren't getting better for both Marini and Honda.
More time is needed, but they're on the right trajectory, which very much vindicates his signing.
13 Aleix Espargaro
Qualified: 14th Sprint: 15th Finished: 9th
A rather average weekend for Aleix Espargaro that was, of course, immediately impacted by his Friday crash - but which most likely wouldn't have been too much different even if he'd had a less disrupted weekend, given the limitations of the Aprilia at Buriram.
All things considered, a top-10 finish in the main event isn't bad, and while perhaps more Friday track time might have helped improve his sprint performance, it'll be hard for him to be too upset.
14 Joan Mir
Qualified: 19th Sprint: 13th Finished: 15th
A frustrating Sunday for Joan Mir, who looked set for much better than he ended up with even before getting bounced off the track by Marc Marquez.
Strong in the sprint and delighted to have been able to once again battle his way forward through a race, the majority of the grand prix was similar for Mir until something went disastrously wrong in the final laps. Exactly what went wrong is still to be determined, but the good news is that there's plenty of promise to take out of the weekend.
15 Marc Marquez
Qualified: 5th Sprint: 4th Finished: 11th
It's hard to explain away Sunday's crash out of second place as anything other than Marc Marquez getting a little greedy.
He desperately wanted the win, especially after a sprint race that kept him off the podium, and he risked a little too much trying to get past Bagnaia for it.
That's one thing, of course, but his charge through the pack on a damaged bike to try to recoup something was pure Marquez, with little concern for those in his path and a deserved penalty for his subsequent actions. Not his finest moment of the season.
16 Lorenzo Savadori
Qualified: 22nd Sprint: 21st Finished: DNF
An unfortunate race for Lorenzo Savadori, who (finally given the chance on Sunday to race rather than test) felt like the wet conditions should have offered him the opportunity to be comfortably inside the points.
However, electrical gremlins (also experienced by Trackhouse team-mate Raul Fernandez) first sent him deep into the gravel (without coming off) before finishing the job later in the race and causing him to crash.
17 Marco Bezzecchi
Qualified: 4th Sprint: 7th Finished: DNF
A tough weekend for Marco Bezzecchi on what should have been a decent one, given that he's one of the racers you expect to perform in the wet and considering his starting position.
But he went into reverse gear off the line, almost crashing out multiple times and taking others with him as he struggled for any feeling at all in the middle of the pack, before finally losing it and going down (thankfully without hitting anyone else in the process). One to forget for one of MotoGP's usual rain masters.
18 Raul Fernandez
Qualified: 20th Sprint: 14th Finished: DNF
This wasn't a weekend that started well for Raul Fernandez, at least on paper, as the team devoted Friday and Saturday to ergonomic work for 2025.
He nonetheless went into Sunday confident that the radical changes had generated progress and that more would be possible - right until the engine braking on his bike decided to stop working just as he entered a corner, leaving him no choice other than to crash or to take out Zarco. He chose the former.
It was deeply frustrating for the rider, and a real cause for concern for the team considering it also happened to Savadori.
19 Taka Nakagami
Qualified: 18th Sprint: 18th Finished: 13th
Given that he's at a significant disadvantage to the other Honda riders right now in terms of development, with new parts even being stolen off his bike to replace crash damage from his fellow Honda racers, Taka Nakagami's solid race on Sunday is testament to his consistency.
Not just finishing but fighting against the other Japanese machines to the end, it was a very decent run from him.
20 Alex Rins
Qualified: 17th Sprint: 17th Finished: DNF
An utterly demoralising weekend for Alex Rins, who faced the same problems in the wet and the dry, who tried reinventing the wheel multiple times with his Yamaha (even copying team-mate Quartararo's settings), and who never managed to find anything even approaching progress despite it all.
The winter break and a slew of Yamaha developments over it can't come fast enough from Rins, to hopefully give him and the factory the reset they need.
21 Alex Marquez
Qualified: 9th Sprint: 5th Finished: 10th
There's no bigger red-face moment than a sighting-lap crash.
Unfortunately for Alex Marquez, that’s what happened on Sunday, ending his race before it even started and arguably denying one of the class's best rain riders the chance to fight for a podium when the extensive damage to his bike meant he was forced to start from the back of the grid on his second bike. A decent recovery considering that, but so much more was on offer.
22 Franco Morbidelli
Qualified: 11th Sprint: 6th Finished: DNF
Morbidelli is lucky that MotoGP no longer has a penalty points system, because if it did he would be looking at much harsher penalties than the long lap he served on Sunday.
Regularly one of the series' most careless racers these days, his pass on former team-mate Quartararo was never going to work, bumping the 2021 world champion into the gravel as Morbidelli rode on.
There was a certain karmic element to his own crash shortly after exiting the long lap loop, but that doesn't change the fact he ended someone else's podium chances as well as his own.
