Austrian MotoGP Rider Ratings: Near-perfect Pecco Bagnaia reasserts dominance

From dominant winners to disappointing home appearances, and some positive surprises down the field, here are our rider ratings for the 2024 Austrian MotoGP.

Francesco Bagnaia - 9

Francesco Bagnaia was back to being nearly perfect in Austria, after a crash and third in Silverstone where he was legitimately out-classed by title rival Jorge Martin and factory Ducati teammate Enea Bastianini. But, as in 2022 and 2023, Bagnaia was unstoppable at the Red Bull Ring, winning in the end by over three seconds. He wasn’t perfect — no pole position and a total of two laps that he didn’t lead which put him a minor and ultimately insignificant mark off where he was in the past two seasons — but a 1:27.889 in qualifying, two wins, and reclaiming the championship lead is about as good as it can get.

Jorge Martin - 8

Jorge Martin was outstanding in Austria. Last year, a messy Sprint earned him a long lap penalty for the Grand Prix which knocked him out of contention on Sunday, and he finished seventh. Sure, he had the long lap on Saturday, but mistakes for others and his own excellent pace — bettered only on the weekend by the aforementioned near-perfect Bagnaia — meant he still took second place. Another second on Sunday at one of Bagnaia’s best tracks, and he’s still only five points out of the championship lead. It was a solid weekend by Martin, but it was the fifth in six weekends where he’s been simply out-paced by Bagnaia.

Enea Bastianini - 7

Enea Bastianini’s Silverstone win fired him into championship contention. He was so much better at saving his rear tyre in the British Sprint and Grand Prix that his rivals simply had nothing with which to fight against him. But, in Austria, a lack of comfort with the front saw him finish over seven seconds off the win. Bastianini suffered with front locking all weekend, but so did Martin and Bagnaia — they just dealt with it better. Still, Bastianini rode a smart Grand Prix; he knew he didn’t have the speed to fight with the leading pair, so settled for third, and made pretty much no mistakes on the way there.

Marc Marquez - 7

If you’re judging Marc Marquez’ Austrian Grand Prix on what happened between turn 2b on lap one and the flag, he’s getting more than a seven because his pace was exceptional, his passes were clean, and he was the only Desmosedici GP23 rider to be anywhere near the top GP24s. But, once again, execution proved the downfall of the eight-times champion in Austria. Marquez was closing in on Bagnaia (factually speaking) when he crashed out of what would have been, anyway, a comfortable second place in the Sprint. Then, he blew his chances of a first GP win in almost three years by failing to engage his start device as he pulled up to the grid. And, if you want confirmation of Marquez’ victory credentials, he was 13.9 seconds behind Bagnaia when he took fourth place off Brad Binder on lap 18, and 13.8 behind at the chequered flag. There’s obviously management to take into account with that, but Marquez had the pace to at least be a factor in the fight for victory, but his chances of making use of that pace were completely gone before the lights even went out.

Brad Binder - 7

Brad Binder was second in both races in Austria last year, so no doubt it was a disappointment to not only him but also KTM for him to never be remotely close to contending for even the podium this time around. As last year, Binder was beaten by multiple seconds by a GP23, this time ridden by Marquez, but there were also three GP24s that were multiple further seconds up the road from there. It was not a good weekend for KTM, but Binder was the best of the bunch, and he deserves credit for that.

Marco Bezzecchi - 7.5

Giving Marco Bezzecchi in sixth a better score than Enea Bastianini in third is, on the surface, totally ridiculous. However, in the context of Bezzecchi’s season, Austria was positive for the soon-to-be Aprilia rider. Instead of being quite bad, he was actually quite okay in Austria — sixth has rarely been on the cards for the Italian this season. It’s not where Bezzecchi wants to be, having won three races last year, but an improvement.

Maverick Vinales - 6.5

Aprilia has never been great at the Red Bull Ring and you add into that the current tyre consumption issues they’re facing in comparison with Ducati and the 28-lap race in Austria was never going to be fantastic for them. But, for Vinales, it was an especially anonymous weekend, finishing 11th in the Sprint and 24 seconds off the win. Not great.

Franco Morbidelli - 7

Franco Morbidelli’s eighth place in Austrian is not especially fantastic when the other GP24s were dominating the race. But the Italian was at least able to show some speed in practice. The first corner incident with Marquez obviously didn’t help things for him — and it wasn’t really anyone’s fault, just converging lines in the chaos of a one-line, 90-degree first turn — but he did come back from 17th to take that eighth spot, and so it wasn’t all Mirror Reapers and Clandestine Gates for the #21. On the other hand, to be searching for the positives in an eighth place and having to look back to Friday for competitive pace on the best motorcycle on the grid is a little more doom and gloom.

Aleix Espargaro - 8

By his own admission, Aleix Espargaro is not the biggest fan of the Red Bull Ring’s stop-start layout, and neither, as mentioned above, is the Aprilia RS-GP. But the #41 went from crashing twice in the first 15 minutes of practice and finishing FP1 dead last to being the clear fourth-best guy in the Sprint, and benefited from Marquez’ crash to take one of the most unlikely podiums of the year. Ninth wasn’t great in the GP, but Espargaro proved in Austria that, even on his retirement tour, he still has the capacity to learn.

Alex Marquez - 5

There’s anonymous and then there’s Alex Marquez’ Austrian Grand Prix weekend. The standout memory is him sliding out at turn 2a in the Sprint. An 11th-place qualifying and 10th-place finish nothing to write home about, and clearly the speed he showed in Germany has not carried across the summer break, but it wasn’t a disaster, either.

Pol Espargaro - 7

11th place doesn’t feel like it really does Pol Espargaro’s weekend justice. He led practices and made Q2 having not raced since Italy. It feels like, if the end result is considered negative, it’s more of a condemnation of KTM’s development than Espargaro himself.

Miguel Oliveira - 4

Germany is feeling ever more distant for Miguel Oliveira. 30 seconds off the win in Austria, Oliveira was also two seconds behind Aleix Espargaro. Compared to Friday, Oliveira did show improvements by Sunday, but 12th place is hardly what he’s going racing for.

Pedro Acosta - 3

There’s no doubt about Pedro Acosta’s talent but that only makes his Austrian Grand Prix weekend even more bizarre. He showed some competitive pace early on in the weekend and was comfortably inside the top 10, but two crashes on Friday morning, including that 300kph crash at turn four, seemed to derail his weekend, and it never really got back on track. Knocked out of Q1 by the rider he’s replacing at KTM next year and the rider he replaced at GasGas this year, Acosta quietly rode to an entirely forgettable 13th. Far below the benchmark he has set for himself so far in his rookie year,

Takaaki Nakagami - 8

Admittedly, an eight might be a little high here but allow us to revel in the rare opportunity to say that Takaaki Nakagami was the best Honda rider in Austria. He might be about to be replaced by Somkiat Chantra, but a 14th place and top-Honda finish is about as good as it can get for an RC213V rider at the moment.

Augusto Fernandez - 5

15th for Augusto Fernandez feels like it’s about where he is, and ultimately that’s why he’s going to sign with Yamaha to test, not race.

Alex Rins - 6

Alex Rins struggled all weekend in Austria, mostly because of rear lifting during braking. Trying a different setup for the Sprint made the bike difficult to ride, and he had to pull out with decreasing engine power. A finish on Sunday was therefore an improvement, but 16th place misses the points, and rather misses the point.

Joan Mir - 6

Similar to Rins, it was not an easy weekend for Joan Mir, which is something you can probably predict for the next round in Aragon, too. The 2020 champion had a new engine spec from HRC this weekend, but 17th place doesn’t indicate it was an especially big step forward for Mir.

Fabio Quartararo - 6

A solid weekend was building for Quartararo in Austria. His pace on used tyres in FP2 was especially encouraging, but Yamaha is still struggling to make the most of the grip provided by fresh tyres. That impacted Quartararo’s early race speed and qualifying performance. He didn’t help his race by picking up a long lap penalty, but in general there were more positive signs in Austria for Yamaha and Quartararo in particular than at Silverstone.

Jack Miller - 7

Jack Miller was the best KTM in qualifying and the best KTM in the Sprint, which already indicates in improvement over where he has been in general this season. He was already behind his teammate, Binder, when he crashed out of the GP while battling with Marc Marquez, but another top six was potentially on the cards for Miller without it. 19th not telling the full story for the #43 this weekend, which stood out among the KTM riders as one which seemed to genuinely show progress for Miller.

Lorenzo Savadori - 6

20th is a perfectly fine result for Lorenzo Savadori, especially at a circuit like the Red Bull Ring where his Aprilia struggles. What will be of more concern to the Noale brand’s test rider will be that the things brought to try to combat some of the issues the RS-GP has faced in the past at the Red Bull Ring didn’t seem to work.

Johann Zarco - 6

Johann Zarco has generally been the best Honda rider this season, at least in terms of speed. So, his 21st place in Austria was a surprise. The Frenchman reported engine power issues after the race, but he kept on going to gather data and in the hope that rain would arrive — it didn’t. Not a great result but Zarco proved once again his worth as a development rider.

Stefan Bradl - 6

As ever, Stefan Bradl was at the Red Bull Ring to test, not for a result, so that he was last over the line of the 22 finishers doesn’t really matter, and this weekend he managed to avoid destroying the qualifying of a title contender, so an improvement over Germany.

Raul Fernandez - 4

The switch to the 2024 Aprilia RS-GP has not been straightforward so far for Raul Fernandez, who was 13th at the Red Bull Ring until lap 22, when he started to fall backwards. Earlier in the year, Fernandez’ speed was generally better than Miguel Oliveira’s. That was not the case in Austria, but it’s hard to say at this stage where the balance of that lies between Fernandez’ adaptation to the 2024 RS-GP, the 2024 RS-GP versus the 2023 RS-GP, and any drop off in performance for Fernandez relative to his teammate. He retired in the end, but it was never a great weekend before that, anyway.

Luca Marini - 5

Luca Marini was 17th in the Sprint and his weekend was seemingly continuing his recent trend of becoming more competitive versus the other Honda riders. However, a retirement in the race left him with nothing, and completing only five laps means he got barely any data, either.