Coming into this weekend’s British Grand Prix, there was certainly the usual anticipation given that Silverstone tends to produce a different winner each year – but even with that in mind, an absolutely dominant double win (including a first ever podium) for Enea Bastianini was certainly not what many were expecting.
And that’s exactly what Bastianini delivered, putting himself back in the title race as Jorge Martin and Pico Bagnaia struggled to keep him in check.
This of course means that there are a lot of metrics that can be used to rank the network based on performance in the first weekend after the summer break.
The grid is judged on their performance not only in the main event but also in the sprint race on Saturday, and obviously it’s all subjective – but it doesn’t just come from the final race result but takes into account things like the machinery they’re using and expectations before the race.
1 Jorge Martin
It started: the fourth race: 2nd I finish: 2nd
The willingness to settle for podiums and abandon winning ambitions in order to keep championship hopes alive is a sign of Martin’s growing maturity, and on a weekend where he could have lost points, he came away with a deserved championship lead.
He doesn’t have to lead every lap to win the title, and he seems to have finally realised that.
2 Enea Bastianini
It started: 3- The third race: 1- The first I finish: 1- The first
As is the case on MotoGP weekends, Bastianini’s performance was largely flawless.
Although Bestia’s Sunday race – in which he forcefully made his way through the field and used his late-race speed to take an excellent win – brought in the big points, it was his sprint performance that really stood out, as it was not only his first win, but his first ever podium in the shorter races, demonstrating a whole other side of his skills.
3 Fabio Di Giannantonio
It started: The tenth race: Ninth I finish: Fifth
It was another strong weekend for Di Giannantonio as he showed he fully deserved to be on the MotoGP grid as he highlighted how the extra support from Ducati (and next year’s GP25) has become a necessity rather than a luxury for the Italian brand.
There is still plenty of potential to be unleashed from him, and the Silverstone battles with Marc and Alex Marquez are just a taste of what is to come.
4 pico banya
It started: 2nd race: Not finished I finish: 3- The third
It’s hard not to view Bagnaia’s weekend in the context of his sprint race accident – given his unforced error that cost him the championship lead, it was indeed the main focus of his trip to Silverstone.
He limited the damage to Martin’s faster bike somewhat on Sunday, but it wasn’t what he needed even if it wasn’t one of his favourite tracks.
5 Marc Marquez
It started: Seventh race: Not finished I finish: the fourth
Silverstone was perhaps the best example of the GP23’s shortcomings compared to current spec, as it looked as though Marc Marquez wasn’t even able to think about keeping up with the trio in front of him on Sunday.
The crash he had during the sprint obviously didn’t help matters, but even so it seemed as though a large part of the weekend was largely out of his control.
6 Aleix Espargaro
It started: 1- The first race: 3- The third I finish: VI
On the other hand, getting a podium in the sprint race and a top-six finish on Sunday is no easy feat – but given that Silverstone is one of Aprilia’s designated ‘maximum speed’ circuits, Espargaro expected more than he got.
Despite his impressive qualifying performance, he was not entirely competitive over the race distance throughout the weekend, with sixth place being the best available, but it was hoped he would get more.
7 Brad Binder
It started: VI race: the fourth I finish: Not finished
It’s a shame we didn’t get to see what Binder was capable of on Sunday due to a technical issue that almost saw him collide with others on the start line when the lights went out.
Given his strong performance in Saturday’s sprint race, I would have expected him to be in the thick of the battle for the top six and perhaps even at the end of the podium battle.
8 Alex Marquez
It started: Fifth race: VI I finish: Seventh
It was a strong and consistent weekend for Alex Marquez, if not quite exceptional, following his sprint race win last year.
It’s likely to be a bit disappointing given what happened 12 months ago, but he’s put in a fairly strong performance and there’s nothing to worry about with a pair of top seven finishes and decent points on the board.
9 Marco Bezzicchi
It started: 12 race: Not finished I finish: VIII
It may not have been quite the weekend Bezie wanted, but it was a fairly strong finish after a tough start.
He lost out to his friend Morbidelli at the first corner of the race, leaving him exhausted and bruised, meaning his top-eight finish on Sunday was damage limitation rather than a true mark of his form.
10 Pedro Acosta
It started: Ninth race: Fifth I finish: Ninth
There was an element of something left on the table this week by Acosta, which may have been a slightly unusual experience for him in his impressive debut season in MotoGP.
He was faster than his ninth place result suggested, as evidenced by a decent start (especially considering the damage to the bike’s aerodynamics), but it all came to naught in the end.
11 Fabio Quartararo
It started: 18 race: eleventh I finish: eleventh
This is pretty much what we’d expect from a Yamaha that is still very experimental at this stage of the season, with new components arriving and Quartararo working more on long-term plans than this week’s results.
With that in mind, he wasn’t too upset with where he ended up. He clearly wanted more, but this wasn’t the time to offer it.
12 Jack Miller
It started: eleventh race: Seventh I finish: 12
It was a record weekend for Miller, as he started with a very quick attack and then faded away once the lights went out.
He was faster (as expected) in the race than on Sunday, and was again outpaced by Binder and Acosta, but that’s kind of the expectation these days.
13 Maverick Vinales
It started: VIII race: VIII I finish: 13
Given the pace of his team-mate Espargaro throughout the weekend, and given that we know Vinales performs well at Silverstone, it was disappointing to see a somewhat anonymous weekend.
While he complained about the rear tyre problems that made him suffer, the truth is that Vinales’ old problem of poor starts did not help his condition either.
14 Remy Gardner
It started: 22 race: 18 I finish: 18
After being thrown into deep water once again as a replacement rider, this time for test rider Cal Crutchlow in place of Alex Rins, world superbike star Gardner once again put in a very decent performance on the factory Yamaha.
Sure, he’s struggled with tire drop in the race, but it’s very clear he’s trying to get a handle on the M1 even as it transitions from production to prototype and back again.
15 June Mire
It started: 20 race: sixteen I finish: Not finished
Mir might have been the best performer among Honda drivers this week, had it not been for a technical problem on Sunday that left him on the sidelines.
He looked competitive until a warning light on the dashboard forced him to park – but there’s more evidence that things are slowly improving now.
16 Miguel Oliveira
It started: 15 race: The tenth I finish: Not finished
Despite being an invisible man all weekend at Silverstone even as other Aprilia bikes made headlines, Oliveira is clearly still unable to handle the bike in the way that the more experienced Italian factory riders do.
There might have been more performances on Sunday, but thanks to his teammate we didn’t get much chance to see what could have happened.
17 Johann Zarco
It started: sixteen race: 14 I finish: 14
Having Honda at the front again means another good weekend of performances for Zarco in both the sprint and main races.
Perhaps aided by the technical problem Mir faced that led to her finishing first, this confirms that the two are the best performers at the Japanese factory at the moment.
18 Luca Marini
It started: 19 race: 15 I finish: 17
It was an unlucky weekend for Marini, who should have been able to add some points to his limited points tally until a tyre pressure penalty cost him 15th place after the race.
However, it’s improving on the Honda, and this was just another sign that things are improving (albeit at a very slow pace). The Marini/Honda package will certainly offer more of what we’ve already seen.
19 Augusto Fernandez
It started: 17 race: 13 I finish: sixteen
Augusto Fernandez described Sunday’s race as one of the worst of his entire career, with heavy tyre drops (which hampered more than one rider at Silverstone) making him unhappy with the weekend, and although that may have been due to factors beyond his control, it was the worst performance ever by a KTM RC16 rider.
20 Nakagami Taka
It started: 21 race: 17 I finish: 15
Silverstone was a fairly average weekend for Nakagami.
No drama, nothing too dramatic, no headlines, but a good points-scoring finish, rounding off a weekend that saw just about enough testing work for Honda drivers as they tried to rectify their problems.
21 Raul Fernandez
It started: 14 race: 12 I finish: Not finished
There was a lot of potential this weekend for Fernandez, given what he has shown us recently and what the other Aprilia bikes have shown, but instead of a strong start to his first weekend on GP24 machinery, he ended up taking out his team-mate and finishing his team’s race on the first lap.
This was something he had to forget, especially after his entire race was jeopardized by a crash in front of him.
22 Franco Morbidelli
It started: 13 race: Not finished I finish: The tenth
It’s hard to find many positive points from Morbidelli’s weekend.
His race ended at the first corner when he overtook his friend Bezzecchi with an overly ambitious cornering approach and a completely unnecessary mistake for which he refused to take responsibility, while in the main race he was far behind the other three GP24 machines in first, second and third.
It looked like he had gone over the Sachsenring corner, but Silverstone was back to square one.
