Many a MotoGP rider described the 2025 Indonesian Grand Prix weekend as "strange", with the usual pecking order between manufacturers upended and some very unusual rider hierarchies emerging within some of the factories.
Given how Sunday played out, the choice of the number one rider in our rankings this weekend was no choice at all, but rather fittingly for how the three days at Mandalika went the battle for last was a close one - and picking out some of the places in between was even more difficult.
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Qualifying: 2nd Sprint: 2nd GP: 1st
This was too difficult a weekend for a rookie to be spotless in, so Fermin Aldeguer got it out of his system early - crashing on his second flying lap in first practice.
He wasn't exactly perfect from there on - an opening-lap Turn 16 mistake in the sprint may have proven the difference between Marco Bezzecchi catching him and not, and he admitted he buckled a little when he realised weekend-long pacesetter Bezzecchi was the one chasing him, leading to a decision for Sunday's race for Gresini not to tell him who the rider behind was.
But 'perfect' is too high a bar, and Aldeguer was close enough. The other Ducatis could not live with his performance level, Aldeguer thriving with the harder-construction rear tyre - something he says was already a characteristic of his in Moto2 - and just proving much more adaptable, according to team-mate Alex Marquez.
Would Bezzecchi have had more than him had he stayed in the race on Sunday? Maybe. Probably. Maybe not. In any case, with his absence, Aldeguer looked a lot like his late-2023 Moto2 version - i.e. the most exciting rider prospect in the world.
Qualifying: 5th Sprint: DNF GP: 2nd
There's a bit of a perception that Pedro Acosta gets an easy ride in these rankings, and placing him this high will not change that perception - but someone has to be second this weekend, and it may as well be the guy who finished second.
Acosta spoke after the grand prix of dialling out the rookie mistakes this season, which sounded a little funny just a day after he crashed seemingly while on a fruitless chase after Aldeguer - though Acosta himself put it down to rear pushing the front and the general vagaries of the KTM RC16.
The rest of the weekend was top-notch. Over one lap he remains in a different stratosphere to the other KTMs, and though he won't be your pick in that roster to take the best care of the tyres, he rode a true chessmaster's grand prix here, fighting back when he had to, ceding the positions he could cede, then striking back with the pace he'd kept in reserve.
Qualifying: 6th Sprint: 13th GP: 5th
Is third too high for Luca Marini on evidence of the weekend? Yeah. But like in the case of Acosta above, somebody had to be third.
Marini's weekend was clearly not maximised but the vast majority of that was, by all accounts, just not at all his fault.
Sixth on the grid was maybe improve-able if not for the peculiar Alex Rins yellow flag, though maybe not, but he had the best Honda performance during the weekend - and was clearly unable to express it in both races.
In the sprint this was due to some front tyre pressure weirdness, starting with an "unrideable" bike due to it being too low and then trying to salvage things by deliberately dropping behind riders to raise it and avoid a penalty, his quest ultimately unsuccessful.
He then really should have been on the podium in the grand prix, specifically second, but just couldn't find a way to complete an overtake on Acosta before Raul Fernandez behind him ran out of patience.
Both are culpable for their clash but Fernandez appears more so, though Marini then didn't help himself by getting Turn 1 badly wrong in the immediate aftermath.
Qualifying: 7th Sprint: 4th GP: 3rd
Alex Marquez's "saddest podium" - made flat and borderline unwanted by worry over his brother's injury - all but secures him second in the championship, which he deserves.
He was unspectacular relative to his Mandalika supernova team-mate Aldeguer, but really good compared to the other Ducatis, though he also seemed to take the right lessons in steadying himself after crashes in Friday 'pre-qualifying' and then Q2.
Hamstrung by front-pushing from the soft rear tyre, he just "went out and survived" in the sprint - which was pretty fruitful in the end. He had higher hopes for the main race on the medium rear, but had to adopt more or less the same strategy after going backwards off the line due to a not-engaged start device.
On a weekend like this - and given also how much he'd struggled at Mandalika the year before - it was more than enough, even if he was a clear second-best within Gresini.
Qualifying: 3rd Sprint: 3rd GP: 6th
Though Aprilia's ranks being depleted means less certainty over the performance picture, it sure looked like the RS-GP was the best bike by a lot at Mandalika - so Raul Fernandez absolutely had to get a big points haul out of it.
He performed to par in qualifying (front row, but you can only get so excited about a 0.452-second gap to fellow Aprilia rider Bezzecchi), then did a very tidy, professional job in the sprint despite getting "very nervous" in the closing laps en route to his first podium.
But Aprilia boss Massimo Rivola was under the impression another podium was there for the taking on Sunday, and though Fernandez lamented the RS-GP not being the optimal bike for overtaking, he clearly did not run the tidiest race.
Whether he should've bided his time behind Acosta and Marini isn't really even clear in hindsight, much less at the time, but he had the bike under him not to race as ragged as he did.
Qualifying: 1st Sprint: 1st GP: DNF
Still feeling the after-effects of the Motegi clash with team-mate Jorge Martin, Bezzecchi was nonetheless spectacular out of the blocks here - and after the first two days of the weekend it would've taken something really major to keep him from the number one spot.
Unfortunately, there was "something major" in the form of taking himself and a rival off in a hard-to-understand move - given the profile of Turn 7, and given the massive edge of pace Bezzecchi had enjoyed all weekend.
He got through from eighth to first in the half-distance race without needing to do anything too wild. Did he not quite back himself to do the same in the main race so got hurried by something - whether it was concern about Aldeguer up front, concern about Marc Marquez right ahead, concern about the medium rear tyre or just a split-second mental blunder unconnected to the race circumstances?
Or did he, as theorised by TNT's Neil Hodgson, get caught out by a minor slide through Turn 6 that, instead of slowing him, gave him more of a rear contact patch and therefore more speed onto the straight - and forced him into a Marquez 'overtaking attempt' he never wanted?
In either case, it turned out very badly. He really should be a lot lower than sixth, because crashes from a position of pace dominance and crashes with another rider are both hard to accept, but I just cannot find anyone else to put ahead of him.
Qualifying: 4th Sprint: 12th GP: 10th
Placing Rins a spot ahead of a rider who finished six places higher, on machinery that honestly felt comparable this weekend, was difficult to talk myself into but harder to talk myself out of.
This may have been the fastest he's ever looked on a Yamaha, and Q2, though aided by a tow from his team-mate Fabio Quartararo, was very well-executed - up to his crash but also after it, in the 'dark-artsy' decision to try to remount the bike, which may have only served to extend the yellow flags as there was never going to be time for him to do another lap.
He should've got a good chance in the sprint but was removed from contention by the Marquez lunge. On Sunday, however, Rins appeared to simply overplay his hand on the soft rear - with the glorious moments in second place coming at the expense of the much-more-important actual finishing position.
Qualifying: 15th Sprint: 10th GP: 4th
Bad qualifying, good opening laps, respectable finishes - Brad Binder played the greatest hits here, but it was a bit more than what he's usually been able to get from this "really-really-really hard season".
It was a little concerning that he couldn't hang on to the points in the sprint once he got himself in the mix, but KTM team-mate Acosta's Sunday strategy allowed Binder to exploit the strengths of the "rocket" RC16 in the pack, aided by what he described as an improved front feeling.
Qualifying: 8th Sprint: DNF GP: 7th
This was a pretty reasonable weekend for Quartararo, just one lacking his usual edge of pace relative to the other Yamahas - which was unfortunate given the baseline level of the M1 appeared to be quite high.
Uncomfortable on the bike, he nonetheless had good potential in the sprint - but had a slipping clutch and then a tangle with Enea Bastianini, so was doomed to a recovery ride that was set to be fruitless even before he crashed out on the final lap.
His Sunday was for once his clear best session of the weekend - with an awareness that fellow soft-tyre runner Rins was pushing too much and an eventual healthy finish thanks to how he approached the race.
Qualifying: 9th Sprint: 6th GP: DNF
At this point, Mandalika must be Marquez's worst track in MotoGP - worse than Sepang or Portimao or Silverstone. While he was obviously unfortunate and absolutely blameless in his exit on Sunday, everything before that looked uncharacteristically difficult.
Uncomfortable with the grip of the rear tyre and rattled by a couple of crashes on Friday - in particular, the second one, a very nasty highside - Marquez kept trying to follow team-mate Pecco Bagnaia at various crucial moments in single-lap sessions, seemingly unaware he was absolutely not the rider to follow.
Yet the evidence is the race pace was at the very least pretty alright. He looked strong in the sprint but had tried to do too much too soon with the early move on Rins, which wasn't egregious but was rightly penalised (something that Marquez himself accepted).
Bezzecchi must've taken note of Marquez's Saturday pace - or perhaps of his apparent improvement in Sunday warm-up - because there was an urgency to his botched overtaking attempt in the grand prix that no other rival would have warranted.
Qualifying: 10th Sprint: 9th GP: 11th
Miguel Oliveira put the building blocks for a strong weekend in place on Friday, though Q2 was then relatively unspectacular - despite using Fabio Di Giannantonio's Ducati as a reference.
He inherited a (deserved) point in the sprint after Marini's sanction, then - like his factory Yamaha peers - felt he had to crack on with the soft rear due to concerns about the Yamaha's ability to put temperature into the medium.
It bit him like it did Rins, with the soft running out of performance with around eight laps to go.
Qualifying: 12th Sprint: 5th GP: DNF
Joan Mir was clearly competitive at Mandalika, which he said "means a lot" and gives him "a bit of tranquility" for the rest of the season, given it's a track he just doesn't particularly enjoy.
He was unlucky in Q2, probably denied five places by yellow flag timing, though Honda team-mate Marini appeared out of reach. But he could then advance in the race, and move ahead of his tyre pressure-hobbled team-mate for a good fifth-place finish.
But he struggled badly to warm up the rear tyre in the main race and crashed very early from eighth in a slightly strange-looking fashion, admitting that "we missed something, technically" and that this left him "very angry".
Qualifying: 13th Sprint: 7th GP: 8th
Never particularly fast nor comfortable with the stiffer rear tyre, and unable to find the right set-up to counter that, Franco Morbidelli probably got more out of the weekend than his pace warranted - which can both be construed as disappointing and as a job well done.
He got on a couple of riders' nerves this weekend but, while aggressive, none of the available evidence suggests he took any undue liberties in wheel-to-wheel action, and his reputation for being an on-track menace does occasionally get a bit exaggerated.
Qualifying: 11th Sprint: 8th GP: 9th
"Pretty poor" out of the blocks on Friday, Di Giannantonio felt his weekend was wrong-footed by working on two bikes of different configurations - which he said contributed to a disappointing Sunday.
He did appear to have decent pace in clean air, much better than whatever madness was going on at Motegi, but struggled to extract it in the pack in both races, which also led to some largely misguided angst in his VR46 team-mate Morbidelli's direction on Saturday.
Qualifying: 14th Sprint: 11th GP: 14th
Turn 6 was Jack Miller's Achilles' heel through the weekend - and he rued the impact it had over several corners after that - but the biggest issue was probably missing Q2 on Friday. He got unlucky with a yellow flag, and advancing from Q1 against the Ducatis always looked a tall order, though his Q1 laptime also just didn't seem great.
His sprint was compromised by failing to get the front ride height disengaged at the first three attempts - meaning a difficult run until Turn 10 - while the grand prix was wrecked by a crash.
He indicated he saw Morbidelli as partly culpable in forcing him to the dirty part of the track (which then brought on a crash later in the lap), but Morbidelli's move appeared very above-board and Miller himself ultimately described himself as having "f**ked it up".
Qualifying: 18th Sprint: DNF GP: 12th
The upgraded Honda is better but it's clearly not better for Johann Zarco yet, the LCR rider lacking confidence in the front (something that the works Honda riders had acknowledged has been 'weakened' in the development process) and unable to match the performance of Mir or Marini.
Two crashes on Friday didn't help, ditto one in the sprint, while the grand prix was rendered an immediate write-off by an early clutch issue - with Zarco suggesting the early indications were it was a repeat of what Marini had had at Motegi.
The only real positive? A "very good meeting with my team and with Honda" on Saturday that Zarco believes can put him on the path to better clicking with this new RC213V.
Qualifying: 17th Sprint: DNF GP: DNF
"I'm crashing a lot in the last period. Every Friday, and also Saturday, I crash," lamented Bastianini after crashing on Friday and before, indeed, crashing on Saturday - twice, in Q1 and the sprint.
He was admittedly helped off his bike by Rins, at Turn 16, at quite a fast speed, but not before he'd gone wide in the previous corner - opening the door to the Rins move that was ultimately deemed fair game - and not before he'd already put some aggressive moves on his own on some other riders.
Ultimately it was just rough all throughout, in terms of performance also, though Sunday at least brought an improvement in the high-speed corners (at the expense of braking performance).
"Technical issues" forced his retirement because he could get into what should be the best part of his weekend, though by then it already wasn't looking fantastic.
Qualifying: 19th Sprint: DNF GP: 13th
After the relative highs of last weekend, this was an unfortunate return to form for Somkiat Chantra - even if he ended up doubling his season-best tally with a career-best grand prix finish.
A winner at Mandalika and Motegi in Moto2, he proved competitive on a Honda in Japan but just wasn't really in the mix at all after the opening session here, perhaps sapped of confidence by a crash later on on Friday, then going down again in the sprint - a fall he attributed to "something not good" on the rear.
He found Sunday's race "really difficult" but at least stayed on, picking up a 13th place despite a near-50 second gap to the winner.
Qualifying: 16th Sprint: 14th GP: DNF
It was close for last place here, but honestly maybe not that close, for this was a weekend that couldn't help but remind you of Maverick Vinales at the Sachsenring in 2021. A round after that, Vinales went and got himself fired.
There's obviously no indication Bagnaia can do the same, and hope within Ducati circles that there's a simple explanation to this - the Desmosedicis were held in check by the combination of the stiffer rear tyre and Mandalika's particular conditions, and Bagnaia was hurt worse than anyone else by this. His Motegi breakthrough can show up again in the following rounds.
Maybe so. Maybe it would've been OK if he'd just stayed at his Friday level or so - but he was mind-bogglingly slow in the sprint, so slow that it suggested a technical issue on his Desmosedici, which the onboard doesn't really corroborate. It looked recalcitrant, yes, but not outwardly broken - and if it were obvious they'd have fixed it on Sunday.
Instead, more of the same. He struggled to stay on track, going off at Turn 1 at one point and then crashing, but even when doing clean laps he was just not fast at all.
Qualifying: 20th Sprint: DNS GP: DNS
Following round after round of feeling like he was getting stronger and building crucial muscle mass riding around, even if the laptimes didn't really seem to reflect it, Maverick Vinales suddenly dramatically changed tone at Mandalika, no longer convinced that the mileage was doing any good.
The result was a swift withdrawal after Saturday qualifying, and there had been the suggestion from Vinales that might be it for his season.
Given how little progress there had been in laptime, it feels like it would be right to abandon the 'MotoGP therapy' recovery plan with four rounds to go and focus fully on getting into the best shape for 2026.
