The Marquez brothers were the obvious stars of MotoGP's Catalan Grand Prix - yet the temptation was high to leave both out of the top three in our rankings for just the second time this season, the first being Silverstone.
That didn't happen in the end - but it reflects my strong feeling that the weekend's most impressive rider wasn't on a Ducati Desmosedici, GP24 or GP25.
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Qualifying: 2nd Sprint: 2nd GP: 5th
Ahead of his first run with the new Yamaha V4 bike in a private test on Monday, Fabio Quartararo strung together one of his M1 masterpieces and was an obvious pick for first place here.
He was just on the wrong side of the top 10 on Friday and feared "quite bad" race pace, but starred in Q1 and Q2 and was impressively stubborn in the sprint - getting his elbows out early, which was crucial in staying ahead of Pedro Acosta, yet protecting his tyres well.
Sunday featured the familiar issue of the M1 labouring a little in the early laps, but it seemed to pay off further into the race distance with a fifth-place finish Quartararo described as a "real position".
Qualifying: 9th Sprint: 5th GP: 3rd
Enea Bastianini's transformation from the lost, irritable backmarker potentially heading for a mid-contract divorce with KTM into this is among the most striking in recent memory.
He'll never be your qualifying ace - a mistake in the last sector may have cost him a full row of the grid - and he wasn't as fast as he wanted in the early laps of the sprint, but even with that, he was the fastest non-Marquez rider in race trim this weekend.
We're still maybe waiting for his breakthrough to be confirmed at a truly 'conventional' track - Misano seems tailor-made for that - but his recent run of form has already covered a decent range of venues.
Qualifying: 3rd Sprint: 1st GP: 2nd
The fact of the matter is, Marc Marquez just wasn't all that fast - by his own lofty standards - this weekend, struggling in the right-handers, particularly in the two downhill ones that cap off the lap.
Quick out of the blocks on Friday, he struggled quite noticeably over one lap and was quite fortunate to end up even on the front row with the aid of a tow from the much quicker Alex.
The sprint was well-executed but shouldn't have been a win, the grand prix was probably his best session apart from FP1, but this weekend that wasn't enough, Alex's pace proving "a bit too much".
Still, 32 points and only being beaten by the rider who he doesn't mind being beaten by - it's the kind of "off weekend" the rest of the grid would commit copious crimes for.
Qualifying: 1st Sprint: DNF GP: 1st
The younger Marquez was clearly on another level this weekend, which made the crash in the sprint - borne out of relaxation and feeling "unbeatable", by Alex's own admission - extra needless.
Marc theorised it might have been a simple case of Alex pushing less so not sliding the rear, so changing the balance on corner entry and getting caught out, and if that's correct, Alex isn't the first Ducati rider to have that happen to him, but Marc still stayed on.
But pole had been very impressive and Sunday was superb, with the need to re-overtake Marc - and how tidy the move was - putting an extra flourish on it.
Qualifying: 8th Sprint: 9th GP: 6th
I was tempted for a bit to put Ai Ogura into the top three here at the expense of the Marquezes, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that other Aprilias made it easier-than-usual for him here.
His weekend turned on first a close-run place in the top 10 on Friday, then a well-executed Q2 (aided by Acosta as a reference point, but only after Acosta had kind of torpedoed his initial run with an overtake).
And when it came down to race pace Ogura thrived. He lost ground early in the sprint (something he attributed to not being "aggressive" enough, though it honestly just looked like a so-so launch and some unlucky Turn 1 positioning) but recovered nicely, then rode a grand prix - one that he "really needed" - more befitting of a category veteran than a rookie.
Leaning on the front early on and taking care of the rear, Ogura then scythed through his rivals in the end - and even felt he could've gone on the attack a couple of laps earlier.
Qualifying: 5th Sprint: 4th GP: 4th
The soft tyre for the grand prix - an option overlooked by the 23 other riders - was a truly curious choice given Acosta was already hanging on in the sprint, though the language he'd used afterwards suggested he believed in an external culprit on Saturday.
It was not a bad weekend in the end, but it just didn't feel very complete, as Acosta lost his front row start to a track limits laptime deletion and dropped like a stone out of podium contention in both races, with Bastianini clearly the more impressive KTM rider on the weekend.
Still, a pair of fourth places on the second-best bike is hardly a disaster or even below-par.
Qualifying: 10th Sprint: 8th GP: 8th
Since Luca Marini's Sachsenring return there have been four double-digit points weekends by a Honda rider - and Marini is responsible for three of those.
He was again effective here, surprised by how strong the bike was and putting together the most complete RC213V weekend - fewer errors than Johann Zarco, more single-lap pace than Joan Mir.
The only thing that took a little bit of shine off is Marini running out of rear tyre at the end of the grand prix, something he linked to potentially getting carried away with hopes of reeling in Acosta for fourth - but also something that the Honda isn't exactly immune to.
Qualifying: 6th Sprint: 3rd GP: DNF
The early exit on Sunday left an exasperated Fabio Di Giannantonio "praying for a linear weekend", which have indeed proven hard to come by for him in 2025.
He was "pissed off" on Friday to miss out on a top 10 with traffic and yellow flags, then was relatively fortunate to scrape through Q2 - which did set up a great sprint.
The performance looked reasonable, Di Giannantonio suggesting that this weekend he and his crew have accepted the shortcomings of the current package and tried to simply get more out of its strengths instead of fidgeting with set-up to cure the weaknesses.
Slow off the line in the grand prix (the cause for which wasn't clear to him), he was compromised by an exotic Franco Morbidelli line into Turn 10, then was caught out by the "chain reaction" when Marco Bezzecchi went down ahead.
Qualifying: 16th Sprint: 10th GP: 9th
Yamaha's surplus-to-requirements veteran was close to a really good weekend - a better first sector on Friday would've put him in Q2, which could've been a game changer.
Instead, he ended up in a more conventional 16th on the grid but still managed two good races from there. He was just one lap away from scoring in the sprint and just 2.5s back from Quartararo in the GP.
Miguel Oliveira is clearly good at Barcelona and he described his weekend as "pretty solid", but in the context of his wider season it was better than that - it was genuinely impressive, but just too late.
Qualifying: 18th Sprint: DNF GP: 10th
It must be an unfamiliar position for him but Jorge Martin just can't qualify right now - struggling to put aside "references from the past that are not good for this bike", i.e. his Ducati instincts, and still lacking a qualifying-specific set-up that will give him the stability he needs.
He was unceremoniously removed from the picture by Morbidelli in the sprint, then had his grand prix compromised by an unseen Turn 4 incident - not covered by MotoGP's broadcast, as is so typical for mid-pack scuffles - that Brad Binder was allegedly the author of.
The recovery from there was reasonable - hindered by a sticking ride height device - and there's little cause for concern about Martin's overall trajectory within Aprilia.
Qualifying: 7th Sprint: 7th GP: DNF
If Balaton was a slow weekend for Zarco - who still isn't up to spec with the works Hondas - this was a fast but extremely untidy one.
Friday delivered a Q2 spot but also a "disappointing" crash, Saturday featured a costly mistake that let two KTMs past (but he also fought off Marini nicely), and Sunday was very promising until it wasn't.
Zarco had worried about his race pace early in the weekend but grew in confidence on Sunday, only to crash out of fifth in what he felt was an example of "random behaviour" from his Honda bike. He reckoned Acosta's fourth place would've been in play otherwise.
Qualifying: 15th Sprint: 11th GP: 11th
Raul Fernandez was back in the shadow of his rookie Trackhouse team-mate Ogura this weekend, and a sub-par Friday coloured much of it again - which he put down to a gradual power loss through the day with a late-in-its-lifespan engine.
Getting out of Q1 was always going to be a tall order, and both the sprint and the grand prix were par for the course given the grid position, though he believes the grand prix result should've been better if not for a front brake issue.
Qualifying: 17th Sprint: 13th GP: 12th
Mir insisted through the weekend that he deliberately compromised his peak performance by focusing on the new Honda chassis - the one Marini is thriving on - and trying to adapt it to his liking.
But it also did just seem like a Mir-style weekend - with strong race pace potential, as evidenced by him topping Saturday morning practice, but a lack of those last couple of tenths over one lap.
Grid position conditioned the weekend. He was able to overcome that in his Suzuki times but needs the Honda to be a lot more competitive before he can reliably get away with it.
Qualifying: 22nd Sprint: 17th GP: 13th
Quick in flashes but lacking power and "really limited" on left-hand corners due to his shoulder injury, Maverick Vinales was mostly at Barcelona to ride around - but was good value for the three points he picked up.
His position in the rankings is kind of a shrug of the shoulders, because it's really hard to gauge how fast he should've been. The target was to complete the race, stay out of trouble and build up fitness - and he did, though he had to hold the bike with one arm on the straights to get to the chequered flag.
Qualifying: 14th Sprint: 12th GP: 14th
Jack Miller set what he dubbed a "scorching time" in Q1 - it would've put him seventh in Q2 - but couldn't get out of the segment and couldn't quite overcome the grid position.
His sprint was par for the course after some early promise, with the Pramac Yamaha rider suggesting, as an explanation for the difficulty in battle, that the M1 was suffering more for straightline performance in races in particular - perhaps thanks to the heat of other bikes.
He was caught up in the aforementioned unseen Turn 4 incident at the start of Sunday's race, the one that also compromised Martin. It hurt Miller worse, consigning him to a gravel excursion. And given he'd already had a coming together with Binder at the same corner in the sprint, Miller said it was normal racing business but "two days in a row [it] doesn’t need to happen".
Qualifying: 11th Sprint: 6th GP: DNF
Binder's weekend unravelled pretty badly after his headline-making Friday position (a very uncharacteristic first in practice!). That already owed a bit to a tow from team-mate Acosta, but it's true Binder had good performance here.
But Q2 didn't come together, a technical issue forcing him onto a spare bike and then Binder reporting a lack of grip on his second run.
He was OK in the sprint, though admitted he maybe went too hard too soon in using up the rear tyre, then was saddled with a fightback mission by an apparent start problem on Sunday.
A Turn 7 get-off, in which Binder admits he may have clipped the white line on entry, was mission failed.
Qualifying: 12th Sprint: DNF GP: DNF
An abrupt, screeching halt to Marco Bezzecchi's stellar recent run - with a lack of execution in Q2 the catalyst for the mess that was to follow.
He was obviously blameless in being taken out by Fermin Aldeguer in the sprint, but had a much more active role in his Sunday exit.
Bezzecchi was cagey on his view of the accident afterwards, and it seems quite possible that he blames his VR46 peer Morbidelli for shutting the door. There can be some slight sympathy for that argument, yet even like that at best it was a gamble that didn't pay off.
Bezzecchi felt he had the pace to go ahead of Ogura in the end, which the form book suggests is plausible, but this was a lot more like an early-2025 weekend for him.
Qualifying: 19th Sprint: 16th GP: 17th
A battered and bruised Aleix Espargaro - whose cycling pivot has proven every bit as much the injury risk as being a MotoGP career - laboured through a weekend in which he "couldn't move good" on the bike, limited less by the two fractured vertebrae than the fractured rib.
A track specialist, he was properly competitive over one lap, with his best time of the weekend just three tenths of a second off the best Honda time. But he was hanging on in races, vibration-limited in the sprint and just too worn down over the 24-lap main event.
Qualifying: 21st Sprint: 14th GP: 7th
Optimistic coming into the weekend, Pecco Bagnaia tried the radical Balaton set-up he'd felt good about (it didn't work) and his set-up from the track last year (it didn't work until Sunday, where it kind of worked with some small tweaks and the friendlier GP-spec fuel tank).
He was jaw-droppingly poor through the first two days, potentially the slowest fit full-time rider on the grid, but brought things back to respectability for the grand prix - nailing the start, Turn 1 and Turn 2 to set up the comeback, though excessive rear tyre consumption limited his possibilities.
He has hope but not expectation for Misano, aware that his enthusiasm coming out of Balaton backfired hugely here.
Qualifying: 24th Sprint: 18th GP: 16th
Given Somkiat Chantra is coming off a long absence and isn't totally fit, it's fair to say he was quicker than expected - perhaps aided by previous experience of the track with a MotoGP bike in last year’s test.
He couldn't do much over a single lap, limited by pain that deterred him from using his injured knee - but rode a reasonable sprint and wasn't too far off on peak pace in the grand prix.
His MotoGP odyssey is all but over - the expectation is he will join the Honda World Superbike squad in 2026 - and this weekend didn't exactly suggest he should've been given a second year, but it was a genuinely fine return.
Qualifying: 23rd Sprint: DNF GP: DNF
Having tested here recently, Lorenzo Savadori was on good pace right away - and produced a semi-comparable effort in both Friday practice and qualifying to other Aprilias, suggesting that whatever he's been trying out to help out the RS-GP's single-lap performance is reasonably promising.
Even with the double long lap penalty to serve for a yellow flags breach in Germany, it was very nearly a model test rider weekend here until he fell off in the grand prix - in a crash he found puzzling.
Qualifying: 13th Sprint: DNF GP: 15th
This was exactly the kind of weekend Aldeguer should've outgrown already in his rookie season.
A so-so Friday and narrow Q1 exit were totally understandable, and a "s**t feeling" with front and rear tyres can happen on a track like this over 24 laps - with Aldeguer completely running out of pace and hinting at an underlying issue out of his control afterwards.
But the sprint crash that also took down Bezzecchi seemed like another case of over-exuberance, in a dossier that really doesn't need more cases.
Qualifying: 20th Sprint: 15th GP: DNF
A total non-factor through the weekend, save for his fast Turn 12 get-off that briefly looked like it might have caused race-ending barrier damage.
Qualifying was compromised badly by a crash in the preceding practice session that had dented his confidence, the sprint was combative but ultimately inconsequential and the grand prix - though he felt he'd picked up some useful cues from Yamaha team-mate Quartararo's data - already wasn't promising much when he crashed.
Just rough all around.
Qualifying: 4th Sprint: DNF GP: DNF
It was hard to get a real gauge on the competitive level of VR46's newly re-signed rider this weekend, but that anyway quickly became secondary to his brazen elimination of former team-mate Martin from the sprint.
The move - very similar to how he took down Vinales at Mugello - earned sarcastic applause from Martin in the gravel and somehow only a single long lap, though that was still enough to thoroughly compromise his Sunday prospects.
The contact with Bezzecchi won't have helped, and a post long-lap crash brought his weekend to a fittingly ignominious end.
