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Round two of the 2023 MotoGP world championship, and conditions at the Termas de Rio Hondo circuit once again proved that there’s no more surefire way to turn the pecking order on its head than to throw some rain into the mix – with damp conditions for qualifying, a fully wet main race and a dry sprint ensuring a wide selection of fast (and slow!) riders all weekend.
It was VR46 Ducati rider Marco Bezzecchi who was perhaps the biggest winner, with a dominant Sunday race win, but exceptional performances in the sprint from Brad Binder and in qualifying from Alex Marquez means there’s plenty to talk about.
That means that the weekend’s positions in our MotoGP rider ranking are perhaps a little harder to sort than they were after a more clear-cut weekend in Portugal only one week ago.
Scoring the (much-depleted) grid in order, based on their performances not just in the main event but also Saturday’s sprint race, is obviously all subjective – but comes not just from their final race result but takes into account factors such as the machinery they’re on and their pre-race expectations.
1 Marco Bezzecchi
Qualified: 2nd
Sprint: 2nd
Race: 1st
We knew coming into 2023 that Marco Bezzecchi would contend for race wins – but no-one, not even himself and his VR46 team, expected it to come this soon.
Perhaps even more impressively, no-one really expected it to come specifically on Sunday even after his sprint podium the day before – but wet weather was absolutely no hindrance at all in turning his potential into victory. Don’t be surprised if this is the sort of win that opens the floodgates, at least in the early part of the season, the way that Enea Bastianini did last year.
2 Franco Morbidelli
Qualified: 4th
Sprint: 4th
Race: 4th
There’s no-one in the MotoGP paddock who expected Franco Morbidelli to absolutely outclass team-mate Fabio Quartararo at Termas – but, similarly, there’s no-one unhappy to see the much-loved Yamaha rider find his form again.
More aggressive and faster as a result, Morbidelli looked like the guy who fought for the title at the end of 2020 – for the first time since then. Whether he can maintain that in the coming races is now the big question that remains to be seen, but that takes nothing away from his performances in the meantime.
3 Brad Binder
Qualified: 15th
Sprint: 1st
Race: 17th
Never mind Brad Binder’s weekend at Termas, what everyone will remember is the first three laps of the sprint race, as he launched himself from 15th on the grid into the lead – and then held onto it for the remaining three quarters of the race.
For a rider with a reputation as someone who methodically comes through the field, it was a very impressive performance – and more than enough to make up for his early crash out of Sunday’s main event.
4 Alex Marquez
Qualified: 1st
Sprint: 5th
Race: 3rd
This is exactly the sort of weekend that we’ve been expecting from Alex Marquez since he first started to show form on the Gresini Ducati in testing. And while success in damp conditions is maybe less unexpected for him and the Desmosecidi combined, his speed in the dry and his gamble for slicks on a damp track to secure pole position are what really made his weekend. It really feels like there’s still lots of potential to come from him, too.
5 Johann Zarco
Qualified: 6th
Sprint: 13th
Race: 2nd
Never ever discount Johann Zarco, especially in tricky conditions. Absolutely nowhere in Saturday’s sprint due to what he said was a bad rear Michelin, he more than made up for it with Sunday’s amazing charge through the field in the rain.
He looked very much in control despite a few nervous twitches here and there, and you could tell what was going to happen from the early stages, such was the difference in pace that he had to his rivals. It’s just a shame that, once again, it was for second and not a win.
6 Luca Marini
Qualified: 7th
Sprint: 3rd
Race: 8th
Yet another weekend where Luca Marini looked very fast indeed, even if once again he ended up getting somewhat overshadowed by team-mate Bezzecchi. Nonetheless, the Italian was impressively fast in the sprint and, while he might have struggled somewhat in the rain on Sunday, that was proof that Bezzecchi’s time as the team’s sole race winner might not last for too long.
7 Augusto Fernandez
Qualified: 17th
Sprint: 16th
Race: 11th
The Tech3 Gas Gas rookie continues to impress, this time with a really impressive wet race finish that shows just how quickly Augusto Fernandez is learning his trade.
Jumping straight onto Michelin’s wet tyres and going fast is no mean feat given, conversely, how good they are rather than how bad they are. But despite struggling to get the best out of them in a mixed-conditions qualifying, he quickly learned in the race. Now a points scorer in two of his first two full races in the premier class, it has been a very impressive start for the Moto2 champion.
8 Jorge Martin
Qualified: 8th
Sprint: 8th
Race: 5th
Jorge Martin didn’t exactly have the race-winning form (or at least, the victory-contending pace) that he had at Portimao, but Termas was nonetheless a decent weekend for him in conditions that he’s not always been the most consistent in.
Reasonably competitive in the sprint, even if it’s for fewer points, he was downright impressive in the wet race and in conditions where Martin would perhaps have been prone to error in the past. It’s not just a solid result for him, it’s also one that bodes well for the future too, as he continues to mature into a faster and more consistent rider.
9 Fabio Di Giannantonio
Qualified: 14th
Sprint: 12th
Race: 10th
The opening round of the season was a pretty grim experience for Fabio Di Giannantonio, struggling as he did to find any real form at Portimao. The good news about Termas was that he was at least left smiling again, after finding the feeling from his Gresini Ducati that he missed in Portugal.
Looking OK in qualifying, better in the sprint and really quite good in the race until he lost pace midway through it, there’s plenty there to be positive about again after a strong pre-season testing campaign hinted at an improved 2023.
10 Alex Rins
Qualified: 12th
Sprint: 15th
Race: 9th
On one hand, you’d expect Alex Rins to be if not happy then at least content with his result, coming home as he did as top Honda on an obviously tough weekend for the team. But what he claimed were visibility issues in Sunday’s main race meant he was left smarting rather than smiling.
Believing that he was within touching distance of the podium until his visor steamed up, if not quite running the pace to be on it, that top-five ambition quickly disappeared and left him considerably more unhappy than a solid top-10 finish should have.
11 Jack Miller
Qualified: 16th
Sprint: 10th
Race: 6th
When it first started to look like a wet weekend was in store, people immediately turned to Jack Miller to deliver something special – and were disappointed.
The reality is that the Australian still has things to learn about how the KTM works, and this weekend was another chance for him to gather data and continue to understand the bike. He’s made quick progress so far, but there’s obviously still some way to go, and he leaves Termas perhaps more optimistic than many of his fans might have expected given the potential the weekend would have held had he still been on a Ducati.
12 Fabio Quartararo
Qualified: 10th
Sprint: 9th
Race: 7th
About the only good things to point out from Fabio Quartararo’s weekend is that he salvaged a few points and that he seems to have found a bit of mojo in the rain again. But, still unable to deliver qualifying performances on the Yamaha and therefore set to struggle every Saturday in sprints until it’s addressed, all it produced was a few scraped points.
Come Sunday’s rain, there was more on offer – but an errant shove from Taka Nakagami destroyed any hope of podium contention and left Quartararo obviously frustrated with seventh.
13 Raul Fernandez
Qualified: 13th
Sprint: 14th
Race: 15th
There are some positives to a tough weekend for Aprilia rider Raul Fernandez at Termas. Still not quite able to deliver what seems to be his potential in the dry, he struggled in the wet as well – but at least when the rain came, he was struggling right alongside the Italian manufacturer’s two factory riders.
He’s making steady progress on the RS-GP and he’s keeping his confidence up – something that he failed to do in 2022, and which subsequently sabotaged his entire rookie season.
14 Taka Nakagami
Qualified: 11th
Sprint: 11th
Race: 13th
The only real positive to take from Taka Nakagami’s weekend is that it wasn’t as bad as some of his recent outings have been, with at least a few points on the board in the main race. But, outperformed by newcomer team-mate Alex Rins, it’s still not the sort of result that he needs to be bring home every weekend to secure his future – especially when, once again for the Japanese rider, he managed to sabotage someone else’s race in the process.
15 Maverick Vinales
Qualified: 5th
Sprint: 7th
Race: 12th
Only just outscoring his team-mate, Maverick Vinales’ own potential was perhaps not as clear coming into the weekend – but it was absolutely obvious by the end of practice, as his best ever Aprilia weekend appeared to be on the cards. Struggling in the wet, like all the Aprilias, he had his usual sprint race issues on Saturday too to ensure a weekend dramatically below expectations.
16 Aleix Espargaro
Qualified: 9th
Sprint: DNF
Race: 15th
In terms of expectation versus reality, there’s no-one who suffered a more humbling Termas de Rio Hondo weekend than last year’s winner Aleix Espargaro.
What makes his eventual disappointment even worse is that the pace was clearly there on Friday – but rain at the most inopportune time in qualifying kept him far back on the grid, sprint chaos interrupted his Saturday afternoon, and Aprilia’s hitherto undiagnosed rain issues meant that nothing was there on Sunday for him either. All in all, it was something of a disastrous weekend.
17 Pecco Bagnaia
Qualified: 3rd
Sprint: 6th
Race: 16th
What looked to be a weekend where Pecco Bagnaia carried the aura of a newly-invigorated wet weather rider, despite previous confidence blips in the rain, very much turned into what we’ve seen in the past from the reigning champion as he got it all wrong in Sunday’s main event.
Content to take safe points in the manic sprint and then try to capitalise in the main event, that plan was doomed to fail – and with his crash came a loss of his championship lead to boot. A bad weekend all round.
18 Joan Mir
Qualified: 18th
Sprint: DNF
Race: DNS
The latest name onto MotoGP’s ever-growing list of injuries, Joan Mir was unfortunate that a rather innocuous fall on the opening lap of the sprint left him so badly beaten up.
But it came after a dismal weekend up to that point anyway for the Repsol Honda rider, who qualified last in the field and had two satellite machines comfortably ahead of him. Sure, it was his first weekend on the Honda in the rain, but that’s small comfort for how rough a time he had.
