Portimao gets top marks as a racetrack, but how did the riders rate? After being camped out in the desert for weeks, it was time for the MotoGP circus to pitch their tents in Portugal and head out onto this swooping rollercoaster of a track.
Top ten finishers rated out of 10
Fabio Quartararararo – 10 out of 10
Another perfect race from the second-moodiest Frenchman on the grid to make him the new championship leader. Needs to build up a good lead before the inevitable bout of arm-waving, shrugging and garlic-scented crying that he will start at some point in the season.
Pecco Bananas – 9 out of 10
Excellent race from a poor grid spot to move into 2nd place in the championship standings. Fast, consistent and overtakes people without hitting them. Makes his team-mate Miller look like more and more of a drongo every time out (much to the delight of the “neutral” YouTube MotoGP pundit Jorge Lorenzo).
Joan Mir – 8 out of 10
Great race from the […checks Wikipedia…] reigning world champion to get on the podium. Boring consistency won the title for him last year, although it didn’t do anything to help me remember which one’s Mir and which is Rins. (Hell, I still don’t know, or really care.) Must keep plugging away like this if he wants to win another title.
Frankie Morbidelli – 8 out of 10
After a terrible start to the season, the painfully cool young Italian-Brazilian is finally starting to make beautiful music, even though Yamaha have stupidly provided him with the equivalent of a 1980s Bontempi organ, and inexplicably given his fading, lower-case goat of a team-mate a concert grand piano.
Brad Binder – 9 out of 10
While Colombians are best known for producing coffee, white South Africans are best known for shooting and barbecuing to death every bird and mammal within a 300km 4×4 drive of their house. Which is pretty much what Brad Binder has been doing to the rest of the KTM riders lately. Binder rode a brilliant race on a bike that hates this year’s front Michelins. He finished in 5th place, with the other KTMs ending up 13th, 15th and 16th.
Aleix Asparagus – 8 out of 10
Normally Aleix is a safe bet to produce a predictable run of DNF results, but he has started this year with a string of excellent top 10 finishes on the underpowered, Cessna-winged Aprilia. Losing Bradley Smith as a team-mate seems to have cheered him up no end.
Marc Marquez – 8 out of 10
The one-armed bandit was straight back on the MotoGP pace and even managed to collide with someone, just like in the old days. When his arm muscles have grown back he’ll be winning races and getting away with barging people off the track as if he’s never been away.
Alex Marquez – 6 out of 10
An 8th place finish is decent by his standards, but he still got soundly beaten by his injured and vastly more talented brother.
Enea Bastianini – 7 out of 10
No idea who he is or what he looks like, but he was the top rookie. Finished inside the top 10 on his Ducati partly because 2 other riders fell off Ducatis in front of him, so he did OK.
Taka Nakagami – 6 out of 10
Last Honda finisher, but at least he didn’t drop the bike like Pol Asparagus did. Needs to start reheating his pre-race noodles in the microwave to spur him on to better results.
Selected other riders:
Maverick Vinales – 5 out of 10
Now, this is more like the annoyingly random character that Maverick has always been. I knew he had it in him!
Johann Zarco – 6 out of 10
There’s some question as to whether Zarco accidentally changed down too many gears, causing him to run wide and fall off, or if his gearbox went all funny and did it for him. He was going brilliantly when he crashed, so maybe the team made up the gearbox fault to stop him going all French and moody and beating himself up about it.
Valentino Rossi – 2 out of 10
Yamaha have won 3 races in a row. Rossi has been nowhere twice, then ended up on the deck at Portimao. Should’ve gone to World Superbike this year.
Jackass Miller – 3 out of 10
After crashing out of the race, Jack said, “We’re in the trenches at the minute. I’m trying to dig myself out”. Even someone with as little education as Jackass should realize that if you’re stuck in a trench, digging even deeper won’t get you back up to the surface. Not even in Australia.
Lorenzo Savadori – 0.9 out of 1.0
Incredibly, Savadori finished 14th and bagged 2 world championship points. A stunning result for the Italian nonentity, who’s further out of his comfort zone in MotoGP than Uccio at a Weight Watchers meeting.