Indonesian MotoGP rider ratings: 9/10 for Honda's star man

Jorge Martin brushed off a crash in the Indonesian Grand Prix sprint to take MotoGP victory in Sunday’s main race to extend his championship lead.

The Pramac rider got his lead back up to 21 points on Sunday having seen it cut to 12 by Francesco Bagnaia, after Martin crashed out of the sprint and gifted the world champion the win.

Bagnaia couldn’t quite come through to battle Martin in Sunday’s race, with the Italian settling for third after a bad start and a poor opening few laps left him with too much work to do.

Pedro Acosta was second for Tech3 GASGAS and later had a tyre pressure investigation go in his favour, as he was cleared of any breach.

Marc Marquez’s title challenge looks to have gone up, literally, in smoke as an engine failure ruled him out of the grand prix. A crash for Enea Bastianini while running third has also pretty much ended his hopes.

After a dramatic weekend, Crash.net ranks the grid.

Jorge Martin - 8

The Pramac rider smashed away his rivals in qualifying to take pole with a lap record and his performance in the grand prix was simply stunning. Leading from the off, Martin battled massive mental pressure as previous Mandalika crashes weighed on his mine and some attention from Acosta in the first half of the race. 

Staving off any potential attack from Acosta, Martin notched up his third grand prix win of the season. It was a perfect response to his crash out of the lead of the sprint, but that spill did again highlight the tendency to make critical errors when the pressure is on. Without that crash, Martin would have scored a perfect 10. But given what’s at stake now, those types of error will have damaging effects.

Pedro Acosta - 7

Acosta was pretty adamant that the Mandalika track would suit the KTM well and a good result could be on offer. He qualified a fine third on his Tech3-run machine and was a solid sixth in the sprint. In the grand prix he emerged from the off as Martin’s nearest challenger, proving again that - when the bike is in the right place - he is a cut above the rest of the KTM stable. 

Issues with the bike that keep him from being fast in sprints are something being worked on and a step forward in the early laps of the GP will provide a good launch pad for future top results in the last five rounds.

Francesco Bagnaia - 7

The reigning world champion really needed a better weekend than he had in Indonesia. From Friday he was well off the pace of his main title rival, and even team-mate Enea Bastianini looked quicker. A bit of improvement for Saturday meant he could qualify fourth, while a good launch put him into second to capitalise on Martin’s crash. 

Bagnaia’s soft tyre pace was never the weak point of his weekend, though. In the grand prix, a bad start and cautious early laps meant he was cast well adrift of the victory battle. This was a good salvage job but not enough against a Martin in the form that he was in the grand prix.

Franco Morbidelli - 6.5

The Pramac rider has been in a much more consistent run of form of late and that carried over to Mandalika. A fairly average qualifying in ninth won’t have helped his weekend, but fifth in the sprint and fourth in the grand prix was a good take home. Perhaps a better qualifying wouldn’t have forced him to use the soft front tyre, and so maybe he could have factored more in the podium battle late on. But his form remains encouraging.

Marco Bezzecchi - 6.5

The VR46 rider was fast in qualifying, putting his GP23 in second despite a crash in Q2. But, much like the San Marino GP when he qualified on the front row, he couldn’t really transform this into a podium challenge. Those hopes faded in the sprint when knocked back brake pads sent him off at Turn 11. In the grand prix, on the soft front tyre, he was able to run well and fifth is a good reward.

Maverick Vinales - 6

Expecting a bit more from Vinales in Indonesia wasn’t unreasonable given his podium form last year. And while Aprilia’s struggles pace continued, Vinales was the strongest of the RS-GPs. Qualifying 10th, Vinales made ground in both races to seventh in the sprint and sixth in the grand prix.

Fabio Quartararo - 7

Carrying on the strong form that started at the San Marino GP, Quartararo was once again able to get into Q2 directly on Friday. Running well in the sprint, contact with Morbidelli dropped him out of the points to 12th - a consequence of the Yamaha’s lack of strong points to actually fight its rivals with. After struggling to get the medium rear up to temperature in the first laps of the GP, Quartararo actually carved his way through the pack to finish a solid seventh to confirm the M1’s raised benchmark.

Brad Binder - 5

Binder’s weekend was somewhat conditioned by a bike issue forcing him out in Q1. But a crash in second practice dumped him into Q1 in the first place, which meant 13th was all he could do in the sprint. He managed eighth in the grand prix, though the high attrition rate will have contributed a little.

Johann Zarco - 9

The LCR Honda rider is our highest-rated runner from the Indonesian Grand Prix and for good reason. Strong from the off at Mandalika, he narrowly missed a direct Q2 place but secured anyway in Q1. He then went on to qualify his bike seventh and took his first sprint points in eighth.  He backed that up in ninth for HRC’s first sprint/GP points haul of 2024. Of all the Honda stable, Zarco was the one able to take biggest profit of the steps forward it has made with its package since Misano.

Raul Fernandez - 5

The lone Trackhouse rider this weekend following Miguel Oliveira’s withdrawal through injury did a solid enough job as he continues to work on the 2024 RS-GP’s problems. Coming through Q1, Fernandez was 11th on the grid. A crash in the sprint threw away a good points opportunity, while 10th in the grand prix - albeit a distant one - made up for it.

Alex Rins - 3.5

Having missed the Emilia Romagna GP with bronchitis, Rins’ picked a tough place to make his racing return. Friday started solidly, but it never improved from there. Rins was 15th on the grid, 15th and last in the sprint and finished 12th and last on the road in the grand prix - well over 15s off his team-mate Quartararo. Evidently, Rins needs to find more to extract the potential from the bike his team-mate is.

Takaaki Nakagami - 3

While Honda’s genuine progress is a welcome boost for most of its riders, Takaaki Nakagami seems stuck. The Japanese rider was 18th on the grid, 17th in the sprint and 11th in the grand prix. A tyre pressure penalty dropped him to 12th, though that will hardly matter for a rider who was aiming for the top 10 before battling an ‘ice-like’ rear tyre at the start of Sunday’s race.

Enea Bastianini - 5

The factory Ducati rider promised a lot after Friday’s practice. Leading the way with a lap record and showing Martin-matching race pace, it never quite went to plan. Second in the sprint was a good step as it closed him a little bit more towards Martin in the standings. But a difficult first few laps as he struggled to warm up his medium rear left him with work to do and he crashed while in third on lap 21 of 27 at a point when he was the fastest rider on track. It’s all but ended his title hopes and was a disappointing follow-up to his brilliant Misano 2 win.

Augusto Fernandez - 2

Fernandez was on for some points in the grand prix before a mechanical issue late on forced him to retire. But qualifying last on the grid was never going to give him many chances for anything big without some drama ahead of him, though he feels like his pace was good before his retirement.

Joan Mir - 3

The Honda rider has been plagued by a vibration issue on new tyres, which helped him to 20th on the grid and out of the sprint. Generally lacking in pace compared to his Honda counterparts, Mir’s grand prix ended with another crash - pushing his total for the season to 12.

Marc Marquez - 4

Never considering himself a true title contender, recent form still kept Marquez in the hunt and Indonesia offered a good opportunity to take some more points out of Martin. Not quite on the pace as the leaders on Friday, two crashes in Q2 - the third qualifying session in a row where he thrown it down the road - left him 12th. He recovered with a brilliant start in the sprint to finish third. But it mired him at the fringes of the top eight in the grand prix before his bike expired. The difference between the GP23 and GP24 is widening, but costly qualifying crashes are seriously hampering his weekends now.

Fabio Di Giannantonio - 6

Not riding at full fitness still with the shoulder he dislocated in Austria, Di Giannantonio was downcast on Friday as the injury really got to him. Even like this, though, he made it directly into Q2 and qualified eighth on the grid. Ninth in the sprint was solid and he was making the soft rear (the only rider running it) work in the grand prix as he battled hard - and won - against Marc Marquez. A crash denied him a possibly top seven, but he should take heart in his speed.

Aleix Espargaro - 3

Repeatedly stating in Indonesia that he was “never competitive” on his Aprilia, Espargaro really struggled to get anything going. He was 13th on the grid having missed a Q2 place and tumbled to 16th in the sprint. His grand prix lasted just two corners when he was involved in a pile-up triggered by Jack Miller.

Alex Marquez - 3

A crash on Saturday left Alex Marquez a bit beaten up. But generally he didn’t have much to offer this weekend. Qualifying 14th, he stayed there in the sprint and also got tangled up in the Turn 3 pile-up on lap one of the grand prix. A weekend all round to forget for the Gresini rider.

Jack Miller - 2

The KTM rider continued to struggle to get much more out of the RC16 than he’s been able to for a few rounds now. Qualifying 16th, he made a solid charge in the sprint to 11th, which hinted at a better Sunday. But, though rightly deemed a racing incident, his was the error that triggered the Turn 3 pile-up in the grand prix and wasted a good chance at some decent points.

Luca Marini - 3.5

After the highs of Misano 2, Mandalika was a bump back to Earth for factory Honda rider Marini. Unable to advance on 17th in qualifying, he was 18th in the sprint and a victim of the lap one pile-up in the grand prix. That wasn’t his fault. But given how close he was to a direct Q2 spot on Friday, how Marini’s weekend unfolded could have been much different.