It was a welcome return to the Algarve, as Portimao is possibly the best track in the world now that Stalag Luft Philip Island is off the calendar and probably being used as an internment camp for dissident plasterers. How did the riders do? Let’s rate them to find out.
Top ten riders rated out of ten:
Pecco Bananas – 10 out of 10
A Stoner-like performance on the Ducati, but with dramatically less sour-faced, bitter complaining in the post-race press conference.
Joan Mir – 9 out of 10
Did everything he could to stay with the much faster Ducati of Pecco, but only succeeded in staying ahead of all the other much faster Ducatis.
Jackass Miller – 8 out of 10
Relieved of his tail gunner duties, Jack can stop crashing his meagre brains out and get back to finishing on the podium. This was his kind of race as he could just go for it without having to think through any possible outcomes.
Alex Marquez – 8 out of 10
The other Marquez brother usually has one or two good results per year, and this one was mostly spent battling Jackass.
Johann Zarco – 8 out of 10
His name starts with a Z, and this race certainly contained plenty of them, zzzzzzzz.
Pol Asparagus – 7 out of 10
Back to mediocrity for the other Asparagus brother.
Jorge Martin – 7 out of 10
7th place was a decent showing on his return to a track where he did a Crutchlow and got half his skeleton replaced with titanium.
Alex Rins – 6 out of 10
The other Spaniard on the other Suzuki showed why he didn’t win the title last year (at least I’m pretty sure he didn’t, I can’t be bothered looking it up).
Enea Bastianini – 6 out of 10
Only quick around Misano, eh? Let’s put that factory spec Ducati idea on ice, then.
Brad Binder – 5 out of 10
Kept up his incredible run of being top KTM rider in 10th place due to a demolition derby between the orange bikes that left him as the only KTM finisher again. Brad may have hit Petrucci, but got away with it as the huge Italian was too busy tumbling through the gravel trap to ID his assailant.
Selected other riders:
Valentino Rossi – 6 out of 10
Finished in 13th, right behind his brother. Shows he’s still capable of battling with lesser riders.
Stefan Bradl – 5 out of 10
A points finish in 15th place for the German sub. (Does that make him a U-boat?)
Maverick Vinales – 4 out of 10
16th position and just out of the points for the random Spaniard on the random Aprilia. Will probably finish on the podium at Valencia, just for the sheer randomness of it.
Fabio Quartararararo – 3 out of 10
Some people claim that when they’re standing at the top of a cliff or lighthouse or something, they can’t help thinking, “What if I jumped?” Well, after a season of stunning consistency that won him a world title, Fabio must’ve been thinking, “What if I braked a bit too late, with the bike leaned a bit too far over, just a little bit off line?” He found out that if you do that, you end up sliding along the tarmac on your backside on the way to a Bradley Smith style disappointing DNF.
World Superbikes – 10 out of 10
They had 3 races around Portimao a while back in World Supers and all of them were incredible. Only MotoGP could stage a snoozefest around such an awesome track. (On two wheels, anyway).
Marc Marquez – 1 out of 10
When the Honda disinformation machine finally stopped telling porkies, we found out what had really happened to Marquez. The octochamp’s supposed minor concussion was really a recurrence of the serious vision problem that kept him off a Moto2 bike for several months. After so long with one arm, his body has reacted to the reappearance of his second arm by making him see two of everything else as well. I’m not going to mock the Catalan for this medical problem as I myself have had the unpleasant experience of double vision. Luckily it got better after I sobered up. The room also stopped spinning, but that might just have been a coincidence. Anyway, we at MGPN wish Marc Marquez a swift recovery. Races are much more interesting with him ricocheting around the place.