until Abu Dhabi Autonomous Racing League
Going into Sunday’s Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island, pretty much everyone expected that we’d get a thrilling race: such is, after all, the incredible nature of the seaside circuit.
However, while it’s traditionally been a good Suzuki stomping ground, not many had money on Alex Rins to be able to take an exceptional victory ahead of a podium return for Marc Marquez in second.
But while it might have been a sweet victory for Rins, coming only three rounds before his team folds and the Japanese manufacturer leaves the sport, it was somewhat overshadowed by what played out behind, with a disappointing race for Aleix Espargaro and a crash for Fabio Quartararo delivering what might prove an unassailable championship advantage for Ducati and its podium finisher Pecco Bagnaia.
All that drama, 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.
10 Alex Rins
Started: 10th Finished: 1st
Every single time Alex Rins wins a MotoGP race, he seems to do it in absolutely spectacular form, and Sunday’s triumph at Phillip Island was no different.
Looking in practice like he had absolutely no business being at the sharp end in the race, he in the end wasn’t just fast but smart, too, playing a blinding strategy that put him exactly where he needed to be ahead of the chequered flag – and outfoxing none other than Marc Marquez (again!).
One of the best rides of his career to date, and exactly the sort of send-off that the Suzuki MotoGP project deserved.
9.5 Enea Bastianini
Started: 15th Finished: 5th
Enea Bastianini’s charges through the pack have become something of a tradition in MotoGP – but this one might be his most special yet, given the drama he endured in the opening laps.
Making contact with another rider early on hard enough to inflate his suit’s airbag, he spent two laps waiting on it to deflate before he could properly push on – and when he did, he was only stopped from a podium challenge by running out of laps.
As it was, he once again defeated fellow Ducati riders Luca Marini and Jorge Martin, and once again proved in the process that he’s absolutely deserving of a factory seat next year.
9 Marc Marquez
Started: 2nd Finished: 2nd
The best ride of Marquez’s season by a long way.
The Repsol Honda rider very much looked to be back to his former strength again, even if it’s somewhat due to the nature of the Phillip Island circuit and the way in which the race played out for him and his crazy gamble on a soft rear tyre.
It doesn’t mean that he’s fully fit again, of course – but it is absolutely a sign that he’s on the up.
8.5 Pecco Bagnaia
Started: 3rd Finished: 3rd
There’s a possibility that Pecco Bagnaia could have won Sunday’s race – but the fact that he (as he admitted afterwards) instead decided to settle for third shows how much he’s matured over the past few years.
There’s a title on the line and he’s going about securing it in the right way, and with the chance of some solid points on the board on Sunday, he didn’t stretch himself too far in securing the safest number possible.
8 Marco Bezzecchi
Started: 9th Finished: 4th
Not that there’s been any doubt this year anyway about the rookie of the season’s skills, but the Aussie GP was yet another example of Marco Bezzecchi’s talents on a MotoGP machine.
Very much looking in the hunt for the win until the final laps and potentially denied a podium finish only by his desire to tiptoe around friend and title contender Pecco Bagnaia, Bezzecchi’s fourth place is still a fantastic result, and the way he was able to manage his race and his tyres until the end is another promising sign for the future.
7.5 Luca Marini
Started: 7th Finished: 6th
Luca Marini continues to silence his critics with strong performances in 2022, and this was yet another.
The collision between Alex Marquez and Jack Miller while the Spaniard attempted to overtake Marini did damage to Marini’s chances by just forcing him out of the leading group a fraction.
By the time he had recovered, a charging Enea Bastianini was upon him – but sixth is still a very, very good result.
7 Remy Gardner
Started: 19th Finished: 15th
If there was one race this year where soon-to-be-exiled Tech3 KTM rider Remy Gardner was going to perform, it was always going to be Phillip Island.
His home track but also a circuit where due to COVID he didn’t get to race in his Moto2 title campaign, it clearly gave him more motivation than ever to perform.
Finding himself in a huge scrap was exactly the sort of circumstances in which he revels – and he made the most of it by sticking a hard pass on Maverick Vinales in the final seconds to secure one of his best results of the year.
6.5 Johann Zarco
Started: 6th Finished: 8th
Zarco does what Zarco does, and Sunday was yet another example of a steady but ultimately unspectacular race for him.
Caught out in the early stages by problems with his launch off the line (something that multiple Ducait riders struggled with at Phillip Island), it left him with lots of work to do, but he managed to chip away all race long to eventually end up happy enough to be inside the top eight.
6.5 Darryn Binder
Started: 18th Finished: 14th
Coming to Phillip Island, rookie Darryn Binder had a fair idea that he’d be able to deliver, given how much he loved the circuit. And he delivered a brilliant ride that saw him able to keep highly experienced team-mate Cal Crutchlow behind him for most of the race and then stay on the Brit’s coattails afterwards to pick up a few more points.
Even more importantly, he was delighted with the learning experience gained from following Crutchlow, something that he says will serve him well in the two races to come.
6 Jorge Martin
Started: 1st Finished: 7th
Seventh isn’t a disaster – but it’s not hard to imagine that Pramac rider Jorge Martin was left bitterly disappointed with his race after smashing the decade-old lap record to take pole position on Saturday.
Conceding that he was perhaps too conservative with his tyre management, he didn’t give enough when it was the right time.
The final ignominy was once again getting mugged in the final laps by perennial rival Bastianini.
6 Cal Crutchlow
Started: 17th Finished: 13th
Not a bad race for Crutchlow in the context of his opening laps. He was caught up in the mayhem thanks to his qualifying spot, and contact with Di Giannantonio at Turn 4 meant that he was up against it from the off.
Getting then stuck behind team-mate Binder for ten laps, with 10 South African learning on the fly how to ride a Yamaha at Phillip Island, the eventual points-scoring finish for Crutchlow certainly wasn’t a disaster even if he felt that more had been on offer.
6 Brad Binder
Started: 16th Finished: 10th
The Australian Grand Prix kind of called out for a Brad Binder Sunday special, with the nature of the track very much lending itself to someone capable of carving his way through the field. It wasn’t quite to be, and that’s partly down to the fact KTM just wasn’t really at the races at Phillip Island.
In most contexts, turning around a P16 qualifying result into a top 10 in the race wouldn’t be a bad thing, but Binder was understandably not too satisfied.
5 Tetsuta Nagashima
Started: 23rd Finished: 19th
Sunday was perhaps the best race yet for Testuta Nagashima – standing in for Takaaki Nakagami – in terms of the pursuit of his goal while replacing his fellow Japanese racer: improving his own skills and experience to make him a better test rider for Honda going forwards.
With Nagashima able to stay in touch with the group and to learn how other bikes and riders race, it was a useful experience made even better by seeing the chequered flag at the end.
5 Jack Miller
Started: 8th Finished: DNF
Poor Jack Miller. There’d been so much hype coming into Sunday’s first home race in three years for the Australian, and in the early stages it very much looked like he was going to live up to it with a strong result- and maybe even a win, given his pace.
Yet a nonsense move from Alex Marquez, one with approximately zero hopes of ever succeeding, ended his chances at a dream home result.
5 Joan Mir
Started: 14th Finished: 18th
It’s hard to overstate just how crazy the absolute fluke incident that ended Joan Mir’s race before it even started was.
A broken tyre pressure gauge in the garage meant over-pressurised Michelins – and a bike that, after four laps, was unrideable.
Mir was pleased just to finish in the end, but it nonetheless probably cost him a chance to fight for the podium on a Suzuki for what would’ve likely been the final time.
5 Miguel Oliveira
Started: 24th Finished: 12th
Given the circumstances in which the race started for Miguel Olivera, demoted three places on the grid and with a long-lap penalty to serve for making a practice start before Q1 had ended, and with not much to show for the weekend until the lights went out anyway, Sunday actually ended on something of a high for the Portuguese racer.
Yes, he was a long way behind team-mate Brad Binder – but only two places back in the classification.
5 Raul Fernandez
Started: 21st Finished: 16th
On a weekend when all four KTMs were struggling somewhat, it’s not a bad end at all for Raul Fernandez to only just miss out on the points – and let’s be honest: his team-mate Gardner’s home field advantage meant there was no way on earth that the Spaniard was getting past him!
But Fernandez did manage to pick off Maverick Vinales on the final lap to end up one place behind his team-mate and only seven seconds behind factory rider Oliveira.
4.5 Fabio Di Giannantonio
Started: 20th Finished: 20th
Normally, a rookie race starting where you finished wouldn’t be terribly disappointing – but given that Di Giannantonio was the only Ducati rider to finish outside the top eight, and very far outside of it, too, it certainly doesn’t look fantastic for him.
However, given that he had to recover from contact with Cal on lap four that pushed him onto the grass, it’s hard to judge his result too harshly.
4 Aleix Espargaro
Started: 4th Finished: 9th
Is there still a championship hope for Aleix Espargaro? Yes. Did Sunday’s race make it more likely? Hell no.
Struck with the same issues as team-mate Vinales, partly (it seems) thanks to Aprilia’s relative inexperience with the current iteration of the RS-GP at Phillip Island, Espargaro needed to win even more than Fabio Quartararo, and while he might have salvaged something more than the Frenchman with ninth, it doesn’t make the job ahead of him any easier.
The only consolation is that he didn’t do something silly while trying to over-ride a struggling machine, but he can’t be happy about how the race ended.
3.5 Pol Espargaro
Started: 13th Finished: 11th
Given his pace at Phillip Island, where cooler track conditions played in his favour against his chronic rear grip issues, 11th was perhaps an unfair result for Pol Espargaro – but the damage to his race was done not on Sunday but on Saturday, where the failure to progress to Q2 by the slenderest of margins prevented him from moving forward much in the race.
Missing out on the top 10 on Sunday stung – but it’s perhaps even worse that 11th counts as a decent result by this season’s standards for him.
3 Maverick Vinales
Started: 12th Finished: 17th
A disappointing day for both Aprilia riders – but, given both his expectations and eventual result, worse for Maverick Vinales.
Struggling from the moment the race got underway to make any progress forward at all, all he could do as the laps progressed was watch others pass him.
Spinning the tyre even on the straights (perhaps due to a too conservative electronic strategy), he was bitterly frustrated to see an expected victory chance slip away; something not tempered by putting the blame firmly on the bike and not himself.
2 Fabio Quartararo
Started: 5th Finished: DNF
The day a championship defence ended? It’ll take one or two more rounds before we’re absolutely certain of that, but it very much feels like Fabio Quartararo’s hopes could now be over, after falling out of what should have been his best chance of these races to score good points.
And yet, which was the level of the Yamaha against the Ducatis in particular, it’s hard to see what else he could have done but ride beyond the level of the bike and risk everything for whatever was on offer.
1 Franco Morbidelli
Started: 22nd Finished: DNF
It’s really getting to the point now where Franco Morbidelli’s MotoGP future must surely be in doubt, after what was certainly one of his worst outings of the year.
It’s hard to see how Yamaha can carry his performances into another season, contract or no contract.
0 Alex Marquez
Started: 11th Finished: DNF
As dumb moves go, Alex Marquez’s on Sunday was one of the dumbest of the season so far. Attempting a do-or-die overtake on Marini, the LCR Honda rider simply didn’t ever have a chance of stopping his bike, absolutely t-boning home hero Miller in the process.
No longer able to play the rookie card as an excuse, he should know better and will rightly serve a long-lap penalty at Sepang for his blunder.
