2024 Australian MotoGP rider ratings: Aprilia shining light stars

The MotoGP Australian Grand Prix delivered the kind of thrills Phillip Island is known for as Marc Marquez beat Jorge Martin in an exciting duel in the close stages.

Recovering from a dismal start due to a discarded visor tear-off getting stuck underneath his rear wheel, Gresini rider Marquez delivered one of the best rides of his career to fight his way back into victory contention.

A nice battle with Martin saw no quarter given, but ultimately the championship leader had to concede the win.

Martin has gained in the championship, though, with a bad weekend for title rival Francesco Bagnaia seeing the gap between the pair swell to 20 points with three rounds to go.

As ever, there were standout performances further down the field and some disappointing ones.

We rate each rider’s performance across the 2024 Australian GP.

Marc Marquez - 9.5

The Gresini rider was outclassed by Martin in qualifying, while a mistake at Turn 1 in the sprint denied him the chance to fight for victory. Another recovery ride was on the cards when he got a terrible launch in the grand prix due to his own discarded visor tear-off, but the way he rallied from 13th back to sixth almost instantly and then went on to fight - and beat - Martin for victory was vintage Marquez. Given the added deficit of the GP23 since his Indonesia engine failure relative to the GP24, Australia 2024 stands as arguably his best MotoGP win ever, and it’s entirely his Sunday performance that has boosted our ratings score for him so high.

Jorge Martin - 9

Martin came just a few laps away from completing an absolutely perfect weekend at Phillip Island. Qualifying on pole by almost six tenths and then dominating the sprint, Martin wasn’t quite able to replicate that in the grand prix as he struggled with traction more than he had done on Saturday. But his counteroffensive when Marquez overtook him the first time showed he wasn’t going to take second lying down, while the way he handled the threat of potentially missing Q2 on Friday after an early crash was a true test of his mettle that his now 20-point championship lead reflects.

Francesco Bagnaia - 8

Nothing really seemed to go Bagnaia’s way at Phillip Island. He got off to slow start on Friday, while on Saturday he could do no more than fifth on the grid in qualifying before struggling to fourth in the sprint as a set-up change took him in the wrong direction. While there was a step for Sunday, it wasn’t enough to make anymore than third realistic. Briefly leading after a Martin error midway through the grand prix, Bagnaia took a pounding as more turning struggles left him 9.1s away from the championship leader. He limited the damage, which was important, but he’s let Martin steal a march again.

Fabio Di Giannantonio - 7.5

We now know the VR46 rider will not see out the 2024 season as he gets set to undergo surgery following next week’s Thailand GP on the shoulder he injured in Austria. Twelfth in qualifying wasn’t much to shout about, but fifth in the sprint before it was stripped from him for a tyre pressure infringement was a good rebound, as was his feisty ride to fourth in the grand prix. Marc Marquez is on another level on the GP23, but Di Giannantonio has continually been impressive this year.

Enea Bastianini - 7

The factory Ducati rider’s impressive ride from 10th to third in the sprint hinted at him being a key player in a grand prix that would be dictated by tyre preservation. But that challenge never materialised, with Bastianini struggling to fifth as he lacked support from his hard front tyre. Ultimately not a problem of his own making, and fifth was not a bad result, across the weekend he was not as good as Marquez as the Spaniard takes the advantage in their battle for third.

Franco Morbidelli - 6.5

Morbidelli continues to sail well below what a GP24 rider should be doing, but the Pramac rider is continuing to be consistently solid. Putting his bike seventh on the grid, Morbidelli cracked the top five in the sprint and took a decent sixth-place away from the grand prix.

Brad Binder - 6.5

Binder upheld KTM honour in what was a disappointing Australian GP weekend for the Austrian manufacturer. Binder was the stable’s only representative in Q2 but couldn’t do anything with that in the sprint as he crashed out. He faired a little better in the grand prix in seventh as the first non-Ducati rider in the Italian marque’s first top six lockout in MotoGP.

Maverick Vinales - 4

The Aprilia rider was once again rapid in qualifying trim, but faded away in both races. The collision that took him out of the sprint wasn’t his fault, but his conduct in the gravel - albeit in the heat of the moment - when Marco Bezzecchi lay stricken fell well below the standards a MotoGP rider should uphold. He once again dropped away in the grand prix to a distant eighth, but didn’t blame his physical condition for this. The RS-GP is still lacking in speed in race trim, but Vinales also isn’t making the most of his strong starting spots.

Fabio Quartararo - 6.5

The 2021 world champion was resoundingly beaten by his Yamaha team-mate in qualifying, as Alex Rins made direct Q2 entry and was ninth on the grid. Quartararo gave himself too much work to do coming from row seven, but managed to jump Rins in the sprint and was a superb ninth in the grand prix even if he was hampered by the M1’s difficulties in generating tyre temperature.

Raul Fernandez - 7

The Trackhouse rider enjoyed a consistently good weekend at Phillip Island as he put his RS-GP sixth on the grid, before converting that to sixth in the sprint. He couldn’t quite put in the same level of performance in the grand prix, but completing the top 10 was an ok return for his efforts. Impressively, Fernandez achieved that result with an RS-GP devoid of wings as he elected to take them off his bike. 

Jack Miller - 6

Miller’s homecoming didn’t live up to the mass support he received from the Phillip Island crowd this weekend. Largely, though, his tough weekend wasn’t all of his own making. A rabbit strike damaged his bike in qualifying and kept him from improving on 16th. He was running inside the sprint points as the top KTM in eighth despite a seagull strike leaving a “gaping hole” in his fairing, but then crashed. He would have been on for similar pace on Sunday had a coming together with Alex Marquez on the first lap not sent both tumbling down the order. Eleventh was all Miller could muster as a result.

Johann Zarco - 4

The LCR Honda rider briefly on Friday looked like being on for a good weekend before he was dumped out of the Q2 places. His weekend was derailed here, as he qualified 14th. He tumbled out of the sprint but still took top Honda honours in the grand prix in 12th.

Alex Rins - 5

Rins began the Australia weekend off as the leading Yamaha rider and his qualifying performance deserves a lot of credit. But he couldn’t do much to tame the M1’s deficiencies in the sprint and ended up behind team-mate Quartararo in 12th, while he was over three seconds away in 13th in the grand prix.

Luca Marini - 5

The factory Honda rider very briefly held onto a top 10 place in practice, which would have transformed his weekend. As it was, he failed to get out of Q1. Tenth in the sprint was good, not least because he missed a point by mere hundredths. The grand prix was less impressive, but Marini at least came away with points in 14th.

Alex Marquez - 3

The second of the Gresini riders was a bit anonymous at Phillip Island. Qualifying was solid enough in eighth, but he crashed out of the sprint. In the race, early contact with Jack Miller sent both down the order, while a long lap penalty for his collision with Joan Mir in Japan meant 15th was the best Alex Marquez could do.

Aleix Espargaro - 3.5

At no point over the Australian GP weekend was Espargaro anything you could consider to be competitive. A sluggish start on Friday left him in Q1 and he could do no more than 20th on the grid. A crash-strewn sprint helped him to eighth, but he wasn’t able to cling onto any grand prix points due to bike damage from contact with Miller on the opening lap. He was a distant 16th at the chequered flag.

Augusto Fernandez - 3

Fernandez was last of the KTM riders in qualifying in 17th, but the chaos of the sprint helped him to sneak a point in ninth for his first Saturday score since Jerez. An “imbalance” in rear grip in the grand prix didn’t help his cause and he was out of the points in 17th.

Takaaki Nakagami - 2.5

The LCR rider didn’t do himself any favours when he ignored a black and orange flag during practice, which netted him a three-place grid penalty. That left him last, with a distant 14th in the sprint followed up by an 18th in the grand prix. He was only narrowly resigned to 18th, but the best he could have hoped for was still leaving Phillip Island pointless in 16th.

Marco Bezzecchi - 2

The VR46 rider put in a good qualifying performance to clinch fourth on the grid. But went out of his way to undo all of that good work in the races. His scary collision with Vinales in the sprint earned him a long lap penalty for the grand prix, which he served when he was running second before crashing a lap later. He remounted to finish 19th. While the stewards agreed that aerodynamic turbulence contributed to his sprint crash, the data showed he braked later.

Joan Mir - 2

The 2020 world champion’s difficult 2024 continued in Australia. Second-last Honda on the grid in 18th, he got to 13th in the sprint, while an apparent defective rear tyre led to him crashing out of the grand prix. That aside, team-mate Marini was just consistently better than him across the weekend.

Pedro Acosta - 3.5

Acosta’s rookie season came to something of a crunching halt at Phillip Island. A crash at the end of Practice on Friday consigned him to Q1, and the Tech3 rider never made it out of the session. Lining up 15th he didn’t really make much forward progression when he highsided out of the sprint. Though he didn’t break any bones, he injured his shoulder enough to force him to miss the grand prix. An unfortunate moment just as his speed at recent rounds threatened victory challenges, Acosta’s still making too many mistakes.

Lorenzo Savadori - 1

The Trackhouse stand-in would have been last on the grid had it not been for Nakagami’s three-place penalty. He ended up last of the classified runners but was somewhat lucklessly caught up in the Vinales/Bezzecchi tangle, as errant debris struck Savadori. The injury from this would ultimately force him to retire early from the grand prix.