Thai MotoGP Rider Ratings: One rider's slump ends in Buriram podium charge

Here's our rider ratings after the Aragon MotoGP - with one rider standing out after a return to form that almost landed him on the podium.

Francesco Bagnaia - 8

Franceso Bagnaia’s World Championship was over on Saturday. He didn’t have the speed to match Jorge Martin and the reigning champion was cutting a seemingly defeated figure in the aftermath of the Sprint.

Whether he would have won the Thai Grand Prix in the dry will never be known, but if the wet weather was an opportunity, Bagnaia certainly grabbed hold of it. He was helped, of course, by Marc Marquez’s crash, but the key thing there is that Bagnaia didn’t crash.

Instead, Bagnaia took victory in an almost flawless display, and his tally of nine Grand Prix victories for the season means that, even if he had to stick the #63 back on the front of his Desmosedici at the Valencia test, it will be impossible to enter the winter feeling as though Bagnaia has somehow passed his peak.

Jorge Martin - 8.5

If Bagnaia lost his nine on Saturday afternoon, Martin lost his on Sunday. After Saturday’s second place, Martin entered the enviable position — even if it reads and sounds much easier than it is in reality — of being able to finish second from now until the end of the season to win the title, regardless of what Bagnaia does.

And, on Sunday, he did exactly that. Sure, he was helped out by Marc Marquez’s crash, in a way, but if Marquez hadn’t have crashed he’d have probably won, and that would have cost Bagnaia another point compared to Martin.

But it’s only an eight for Martin simply because he wasn’t as fast as his now-only mathematical opposition for the 2024 MotoGP World Championship. Overall, though, it was a solid weekend for Martin: he came in with a 20-point lead, and leaves with it having reduced only by three.

Pedro Acosta - 7.5

In the 2013 French Grand Prix, Marc Marquez made about 100,000 mistakes in the first half of what was his first MotoGP race in the rain, and then stopped making mistakes and rode his way onto the podium in third place.

It sort of felt a bit like that in Thailand with Pedro Acosta, who ran wide at turn three early on in what was his first MotoGP race in the rain, and made several other smaller mistakes as he tried to recover from it.

But his pace late on was outstanding. He deprived Jack Miller of a podium, and could have perhaps even caught Jorge Martin if the Australian didn’t put up such a strong fight.

After his Sprint crash saw him not score points for the fifth race in succession since his Indonesian podium, Acosta’s rostrum return on Sunday was a reminder of his speed, and his journey to it was a reminder of his adaptability and talent.

Fabio Di Giannantonio - 7.5

Di Giannantonio’s race followed much the same pattern as Acosta’s, just without the mistakes.

He started off with fairly average pace, but got stronger and stronger as the race went on.

It’s objectively weird that the one Ducati rider who will end the season without a podium in either a Grand Prix or a Sprint is the one that has been given the third factory Desmosedici for next year, but Di Giannantonio’s trophyless season has nonetheless been deeply impressive at moments, and this final race of the year for him in Thailand was another one of those.

Jack Miller - 7.5

Jack Miller seemed set for a first MotoGP podium of 2024 in the Thai GP until the final two laps. He wa caught and passed by Acosta, and then by Di Giannantonio, who were much faster than him at the end.

He gets the same 7.5 as those two, though, because it represents an improvement over where he has been. Okay, the conditions were ones that he generally does well in on Sunday, but you still have to ride the bike, and he did that very well — he just could’ve done with a downpour and a red flag about three-and-a-half laps before the chequered flag was thrown.

Brad Binder - 6.5

Of the three KTMs that are expected to be competitively inside the top-10 (with respect to Augusto Fernandez, by now very few people are expecting him to feature in the top-10 of a MotoGP race), Brad Binder was the worst-placed in Thailand. He wasn’t especially bad, just out-performed on the day by his brand mates.

Maverick Vinales - 4.5

Grip issues hurt Maverick Vinales in the dry, but they were less apparent in the wet. Even still, a seventh for Vinales in the Thai Grand Prix hardly makes up for the 20th-place finish in the Sprint the day before.

Johann Zarco - 8

Getting a Honda in the top-10 of any MotoGP race is an achievement in 2024, so Johann Zarco’s eighth in the Thai GP is surely one of the rides of the season that will go most underappreciated on account of Zarco not being in title contention. A great result it was, though, and that went in combination with his direct-to-Q2 performance on Friday afternoon.

Aleix Espargaro - 6

Saturday for Aleix Espargaro in Thailand was marred by the heat coming off his Aprilia RS-GP — not a new thing — and he didn’t have the pace of his teammate, Vinales, in the wet. Any time you’re finishing 10 seconds behind your teammate, it’s not been a great day, and by now Espargaro’s Austrian Sprint podium is feeling incredibly distant.

Alex Marquez - 6.5

Alex Marquez’s Grand Prix in Thailand was not good. He crashed on the sighting lap and then raced to an underwhelming 10th, only 1.1 seconds ahead of his crashed-and-remounted teammate and brother Marc Marquez. But his Sprint was okay — fifth and ahead of Franco Morbidelli on a GP24 Desmosedici, compared to Marquez’s own prehistoric GP23.

Marc Marquez - 6.5

It feels like a lot of 6.5s on this list, but a lot of riders had weekends filled with good moments that seem to be balanced out by bad ones.

Marc Marquez’s Grand Prix is maybe the obvious example, having been challenging for victory for the first half, and then charging through the field for the laps remaining after he crashed out of second.

No doubt about it, Marquez would’ve beaten Bagnaia had he not crashed. However… he did crash, and he was also fairly underwhelming — by his own exceptionally high standards — in the Sprint, in which he finished fourth with nothing to offer in response to the pace of the podium-finishing GP24 riders.

A(nother) qualifying crash caps of a fairly up-and-down weekend for the rider who one week ago we all agreed was going to make 2025 a total bore.

Well, maybe he will anyway, but at leas this weekend he kindly reminded us he’s not infallible.

Luca Marini - 6.5

Luca Marini doesn’t seem to be able to get the hard-construction rear tyre — that Michelin takes to Thailand, Indonesia, and Austria — to work. He was only ahead of the out-of-grip Vinales and Miguel Oliveira’s replacement, Lorenzo Savadori, on Saturday, complaining that he couldn’t improve the bike.

But, on Sunday, the rain meant that the harder construction was gone, and he was back to where he has been recently, among the Hondas and ahead of his teammate, Joan Mir.

Not spectacular, but fine enough — and, in any case, it’s probably better to struggle with the tyre that’s only used three times a year rather than the one that’s used for the other 17 races.

Takaaki Nakagami - 6

Takaaki Nakagami was essentially anonymous all weekend. To an extent, you get the feeling that he’s sort of waiting for the end, which is probably fair enough when he has no hope of fighting for meaningful positions at the moment given the performance of his current technical package.

13th and three points, though, is pretty acceptable for a pilot of the RC213V in 2024.

Enea Bastianini - 7

It’s an extremely weird reality that Enea Bastianini’s recent record is so much better in Sprints than in Grands Prix, but that’s how is.

MotoGP’s tyre whisperer has been on the podium in each of the last three Sprints, including a win this weekend in Thailand, but has crashed in two of the last three GPs.

In Thailand, Bastianini’s crash was induced by his poor start. He started second, but was 13th at the end of the first lap — he was told by his Ducati Lenovo Team not to use the front start device to avoid wheelspin, but found himself with reduced power in the first sector of the opening lap.

The result was a push to recover positions, but then he fell at turn eight, which resulted in a further erosion of his title chances such that, now, they no longer exist.

So, not one of Bastianini’s best weekends, but that second-place qualifying performance and Sprint win mean that it was also far from his worst.

Joan Mir - 7

Perhaps we’re being guilty of sympathy here, with Joan Mir, but he was having a strong weekend in Thailand, in general, but both races sort of died for him in the closing stages.

The Sprint went downhill in the last laps when Mir ran out of grip, and there was a similar pattern in the Grand Prix; only on the latter occasion he slipped towards the remounted Marc Marquez who promptly punted him out of the way at turn three.

The results weren’t there for Mir, but he showed some decent speed and was even optimistic on Saturday, which at the moment feels like it’s about as good as it gets for him.

Fabio Quartararo - 8

A MotoGP World Champion getting an eight on a weekend where he scored no points is probably insane. But, here we are.

Fabio Quartararo probably had pace to disrupt Ducati’s top-eight lockout in the Sprint, but was shoved back to 15th by a lap one pass from Brad Binder, so could only manage 10th,

Then, at the same corner, he was taken out by Franco Morbidelli in the Grand Prix.

Afterwards, Quartararo reckoned a top-seven was possible in the Grand Prix, but, just like 2022, he didn’t have the luck in the wet in Thailand.

A bit like Mir, only to a greater extent (hence the higher score), Quartararo had the potential in Buriram, just not the final result.

Augusto Fernandez - 5

It’s difficult to rate the weekend of a rider who hasn’t been seen by a TV camera between Friday and Sunday, but a 16-DNF scorecard for Augusto Fernandez is about as underwhelming as his season has been in general.

Alex Rins - 5

For a justification of Alex Rins’ rating, see the ‘Augusto Fernandez’ section (it’s just above). A 17-DNF for Rins means that the only tangible difference between his weekend and Fernandez’s is that he was riding a black Yamaha and Fernandez a red KTM.

Lorenzo Savadori - 5

Like Fernandez and Rins, Savadori was anonymous all weekend — apart from when he crashed. Ultimately, Savadori is there to fill a seat, not necessarily score good results, but a 21-DNF scorecard is probably not worth more than a five whatever the circumstances.

Franco Morbidelli - 4

Franco Morbidelli’s weekend was sort of like Joan Mir’s and Fabio Quartararo’s, apart from the reason he didn’t achieve the results his potential suggested he could is basically: Franco Morbidelli.

He crashed in qualifying so started only 11th; then he was beaten by two GP23s — those of the Gresini riders — in the Sprint. On Sunday, he was showing good speed, and then cleaned out Fabio Quartararo, got a long lap penalty, and crashed out.

Morbidelli said the contact was Quartararo happened because the Yamaha rider braked earlier than expected, so he had to go to the inside to avoid the contact. Aiming your bike where the bike you’re trying to avoid is going to be seems — admittedly to the non-racer — like a suboptimal way to achieve the objective of avoiding contact.

Raul Fernandez - 5.5

Having endeared himself to about 95 per cent of motorcycle racing fans in Australia by racing without wings to 10th place, Raul Fernandez was promptly forgotten by them all in Thailand by finishing 14th in the Sprint and crashing out of the GP.

Marco Bezzecchi - 6.5

Marco Bezzecchi was the first retirement of the Thai Grand Prix and the major positive for him is surely that he has only two more weekends to complete on the Desmosedici GP23 before he can get on his new bike in Valencia next month.

The bad news on that is that the bike he’s getting onto is the Aprilia RS-GP. Even if Bezzecchi’s sixth place in the Sprint in Thailand was mediocre, it wasn’t horrendous, whereas Vinales’ 20th place in that Sprint certainly veered more towards the latter adjective.