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Quiz Val on his Silverstone MotoGP rider rankings
🕑 Added 2025-05-25 22:49:59 +0000 UTCThe Grand Prix of the Americas and the French Grand Prix were truly chaotic fare - but there's an argument to be made that the British Grand Prix was MotoGP's weirdest 2025 race yet.
The particularities of the track tore up the formbook, and the variable, sketchy weather during the weekend tore it up further, even if none of the qualifying segments or races were wet.
Here's Val's best-to-worst ranking of all the riders' performances - ready for you to drop your questions and thoughts in the comments so he can respond in his rankings debrief video.
Qualified: 1st Sprint: 7th GP: DNF
A dynamite performer who fully deserved a first win since 2022. It is criminal he's had to wait that long already, and it's something worse than criminal that he'll have to wait longer still - but, on the evidence of Sunday, not that much longer.
For all the gains made by the M1 with its new engine and new chassis, Fabio Quartararo had a borderline insulting nine tenths of a second in hand over his stablemates in qualifying and remains the only rider who delivers for Yamaha weekend after weekend.
You could potentially make the case, if you were so inclined, that he didn't 100% maximise the sprint, but it's not a very strong case and Sunday should've rendered it irrelevant anyway before his ride height device failure.
Qualified: 11th Sprint: 4th GP: 1st
A sprint run from 19th on lap one out of Brooklands to fourth at the finish made it clear this could be a big Sunday for Marco Bezzecchi, and so it proved - though attrition obviously helped.
It was a big relief overall after a promising-looking weekend looked to have been frittered away through another poor qualifying, and it's a break Bezzecchi deserved. For all of the untidiness of his start to life at Aprilia there have been some elements to his game that have looked unmistakably world-class.
Qualified: 9th Sprint: 5th GP: 2nd
Very fast and very good, though a touch lucky that his Q2 crash didn't matter more and that he got a re-do of the Sunday race start, as any chance of a podium looked to have gone away with the initial getaway.
It's a result that's difficult not to view in the context of the ongoing hullabaloo surrounding the vacant Honda factory ride for 2026, but I will choose to remember it instead for the outrageously tasty overtake around the outside of Pecco Bagnaia at Stowe - a move that looked like a race-ruining mistake before Johann Zarco suddenly somehow made the corner.
Qualified: 14th Sprint: 8th GP: 6th
Pedro Acosta was unsparing in his exceptionally blunt assessment of the current state of KTM's programme on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. But he earned the right - by also being KTM's clear best rider on Friday, Saturday and Sunday in every session that mattered.
It was a timely reaffirmation, to the outside world anyway, of his value as a rider after a slightly shaky patch, but that seemed to be of little consolation.
Acosta emphasised his faith in KTM the brand (Daniel Sanders' Dakar 2025 win came up) but the faith in KTM the MotoGP project is clearly not as strong. And there remains an unmistakable undertone - which might be too mild a word at this point - of fear that his 2025-26 will be wasted.
Qualified: 2nd Sprint: 1st GP: 5th
It's not great that riders are having to play around with their lap-one braking at a first corner like Abbey due to the ride height devices, but Alex Marquez clearly did a worse job than most in the grand prix - and was extremely fortunate that it wasn't the end of his weekend.
He doesn't get a lot of extra credit for his confidence-sapped but ultimately quite efficient ride to fifth, but his weekend before Sunday was a stellar one - befitting of his reputation as a Silverstone specialist.
The sprint win was genuinely encouraging for the prospects of the 2025 title battle, even if it required a mistake by his brother to make it straightforward.
Qualified: 6th Sprint: 9th GP: 7th
A second-row spot in Q2 flattered the actual laptime, but Jack Miller has confirmed again he is the clear second-best Yamaha rider - even if there is a true chasm to Quartararo ahead.
He had very Miller-looking races on both Saturday and Sunday, navigating a pace drop-off that seemed to stabilise - which could've almost been enough for a podium.
But the Yamaha predictably didn't fare too well in a dogfight against multiple Ducatis, and being overtaken by Franco Morbidelli left him with dirt on the tyres and thus vulnerable to Acosta, too.
Qualified: 4th Sprint: 2nd GP: 3rd
Up until now, the MotoGP standings had undersold Marc Marquez's true performance across 2025. But while seven rounds is too small for the law of large numbers to truly kick in, there was a further evening of the scales here - because he unmistakably got away with one in what was by far his ropiest weekend of the year.
It had the best of Marquez - a lightning start in FP1 as always, a truly audacious opening lap in the sprint - and the worst of Marquez - the qualifying tow games, the sprint error, the crash that should've ended his Sunday.
Marquez said he was "angry at himself" for the Sunday crash, though it was wind-assisted. He was also keenly aware that he looked off after the restart, attributing it to the medium front, which he felt was the only option he and many others could use (as the soft won't have lasted and it was too cold for the hard).
Qualified: 10th Sprint: 11th GP: 4th
Morbidelli's Sunday was a rescue job on a weekend that should've been ruined many times over - when he crashed on Friday and struggled to find confidence again, when he impeded Bezzecchi so gratuitously that even it being practice wasn't enough to keep him unpenalised, when he couldn't get his ride height device to disengage for a long time on the opening lap in the sprint.
Mostly it looked to have been ruined when Aleix Espargaro crashed and took him down with him on Sunday, but the resulting red flag gave Morbidelli a second chance that he utilised with aplomb, in what was maybe his most convincing grand prix ride on a Ducati yet.
Qualified: 7th Sprint: 3rd GP: 9th
Fabio Di Giannantonio was on course for a 'get-right' outing that his VR46 team-mate Morbidelli got instead.
Changes to the bike balance to unlock a bit more corner entry performance seemed to drag Di Giannantonio out of his Jerez/Le Mans funk, and this culminated in an impressive sprint podium, which probably could've been more with a better qualifying.
But like many of his Ducati peers he seemed out of sorts on Sunday, attributing this to a puzzling loss of braking performance - which makes his weekend a bit difficult to evaluate in the end.
Qualified: 18th Sprint: 13rd GP: 11th
A weekend primarily undone by the chain coming off in Q1, though even if he did get the laps in Maverick Vinales looked Q2-marginal at best.
Vinales - usually much more potent at Silverstone - admitted he both felt under-experienced with the KTM at the track, and that the track didn't particularly suit the RC16.
His big issue was an "icy" feeling on the rear when braking and, true to form, he wasn't capitalising on various instances of start chaos, but given it was such a rough KTM weekend overall he clearly wasn't the problem.
Qualified: 13th Sprint: 12th GP: 10th
Undone by vibration on Saturday and by tyre wear on Sunday, having used up too much of his medium rear in the early laps after the restart.
Joan Mir posited that the big difference-maker for Honda standout Zarco at Silverstone was "the luck that I didn't have" - and hinted that in comparable circumstances he could've had the LCR rider's number in a straight fight, which is what he could've got given he was actually three places ahead of Zarco at the time the red flag came out.
I see his point. But it also must be acknowledged that Zarco has consistently made his own luck in his time at Honda by qualifying fantastically. Mir has long struggled to match that - and it happened again this weekend, even if he was just narrowly on the wrong side of a slipstream lottery for making Q2.
Qualified: 8th Sprint: 10th GP: 15th
Luca Marini was largely par for the course with Honda team-mate Mir here, but was one of the riders who may have had themselves a big Sunday without the red flag.
He forfeited a big chunk of points through a miscalculation on his front tyre pressure strategy - seemingly a mistake in overtaking the tyre-limited Mir one lap too soon late on - but that kind of blame is almost always shared between the rider and their crew.
Qualified: 5th Sprint: 14th GP: 8th
Fermin Aldeguer came down to Earth a bit at Silverstone after the heady heights of his recent form, though he still qualified extremely well and - like Marini - could've been in position for an absolutely huge result sans red flag.
Instead he didn't take all that much out of the weekend, losing a point on Saturday with a way-too-optimistic overtaking attempt on Acosta that sent him exploring the gravel (Acosta rightly, if somewhat patronisingly, called it a rookie mistake), then being caught out with the wind on Sunday and struggling with arm pump after that.
The arm pump might be a concern. The rest of the weekend certainly isn't.
Qualified: 3rd Sprint: 6th GP: DNF
A catastrophic weekend for Bagnaia's title aspirations - which, like Le Mans, felt like it was just one turning point away from giving him a massive points boost instead.
He was surely on for the podium before the red flag, then all at sea after a change of rear tyres for the restart. "Sliding and spinning everywhere, no traction."
More concerning, if much less damaging in the points, was another meek sprint surrender he had attributed to his continued lack of feeling with the new bike.
It might be too early to say, but this increasingly feels like a year where he just needs to find his way again - rather than fight for the title.
Qualified: 16th Sprint: 19th GP: 12th
Raul Fernandez probably didn't have the pure performance to do anything really special at Silverstone, as while he's more comfortable with the 2025 Aprilia now he still sounds at least half a step behind.
But that was proven academic here. Yellow flags removed him from contention in Q1 and an unseen 'racing incident' collision with Morbidelli - who had gone wide in battle with Enea Bastianini and rejoined the track - de-wingleted his Aprilia in the sprint.
The GP was followed by a considerably more alarming revelation, that Fernandez struggled with a recurring (not from earlier in 2025 but from the past) physical issue. "I cannot ride well after five-six laps," he admitted - indicating it was an arm issue but not arm pump.
"I finished the race and I went directly [to the medical centre]. We checked everything, the shoulder and the arm. They didn't see anything strange."
Qualified: 15th Sprint: 16th GP: 16th
Miguel Oliveira's sprint was compromised by what he described as an unintentional brake-checking into Luffield from Morbidelli trying desperately to disengage his start device - but overall his weekend just seemed like a case of too much too soon, "too much" being a physical track like Silverstone.
The Pramac rider - healed but not race fit - felt he was 0.5s off the pace he should really be doing with the same amount of effort.
He will hopefully get closer to his real potential at Aragon in a fortnight, but it's hard to tell how long it might take - and how long we should reasonably expect for it to take - for Oliveira to be showing his true Yamaha level.
Qualified: 12th Sprint: 20th GP: 13th
Qualifying didn't come together for Alex Rins, seemingly through little fault of his own - although it must be said that he appears way, way too reliant right now on following other riders to secure any kind of good grid position.
He then went into the gravel while getting caught out in Bezzecchi's slipstream on Saturday, and was surprisingly timid in the early laps on Sunday - unable to warm up the rear tyre (while that was the secret to the early charge of Yamaha stablemates Quartararo and Miller).
Bagnaia's 'slide-off' crash, in which Rins just avoided tagging him in the back, hurt his race further, and a last-lap ride height device failure (like Quartararo's) effectively finished it off, though he could at least reach the flag.
Qualified: 20th Sprint: 18th GP: 18th
Lorenzo Savadori has a couple of reasons to be happy coming out of Silverstone.
The big one is that the 2025 Aprilia RS-GP he developed and championed - and helped improve for Bezzecchi in particular of late - finally truly shone, and the smaller one is that, despite a 16-second tyre pressure penalty, on the balance of things he won the battle of the test riders this weekend.
Not bad for a first outing at Silverstone since, remarkably, 2013 in Superstock 1000 (when future World Superbike rider Sylvain Barrier won both races).
Qualified: 22nd Sprint: 21st GP: 19th
Given his arm pump surgery was substantial enough to rule him out of the (potentially very fruitful) French GP, Somkiat Chantra could only ever really use this British GP weekend to get back into some semblance of a groove.
He had little stamina on his right arm, and Silverstone unsurprisingly punished him for it, though a conservative Sunday approach of just running slow-and-steady seemed to pay off OK.
Marked down slightly for crashing in Q1, but he can't really be judged on the merits of the weekend.
Qualified: 21st Sprint: 17th GP: DNF
Espargaro's Silverstone wildcard should prove useful for Honda down the line, given he put a lot of kilometres on a new carbon swingarm design that sounds ready for proper introduction.
He was otherwise not terribly fast - unable to buck the usual wildcard rider trend - and his Sunday was mostly notable for the red flag-causing crash into the Vale chicane that collected Morbidelli, ironically so given Espargaro's whole approach into the corner was an attempt to avoid that exact outcome.
It left him without the use of his preferred bike and preferred tyres for the restart, and he found the alternative - specifically the much-maligned medium front - unrideable.
Qualified: 17th Sprint: 15th GP: 17th
At a circuit where he swept the weekend last year, Bastianini looked and felt "the worst rider on the track" this time.
Only a double finish keeps him from last place here, and even then it's a bit on the limit - as he finished a horrifying 38 seconds from the winner on Sunday, at which point you might as well park it.
A repeatedly sticking ride height device contributed to it but couldn't explain it fully. Same for a long-lap carried over from Le Mans.
Bastianini is desperate for design changes to make him more comfortable on the KTM RC16, and has hinted that those had been delayed by KTM's financial situation.
The problem is that he's not KTM's only issue - or its most pressing issue for its MotoGP future. Which is not to say that he deserves this current rut. Rather, with a two-year deal in hand that sounds less and less 'two-year' with every passing weekend, this one maybe just wasn't meant to be.
Qualified: 19th Sprint: DNF GP: 14th
A total write-off from start to finish that really drives home the extent of KTM's plight.
Brad Binder cannot make the current RC16 work for him in qualifying and looked particularly toothless over one lap here, but he's also suddenly unable to make up for it in the race like he usually does.
Though he was more competitive on a "horrendous" Sunday than Bastianini despite similar-sounding issues of instability on the straight, the crash in the sprint consigns him to one place behind Bastianini in these rankings.
Qualified: N/A Sprint: N/A GP: N/A
Ai Ogura deserved a shot at showing what he can do in the Aprilia-friendly confines of Silverstone, but cancelled his weekend with a practice crash at Farm - which he, in what has been a consistent trait of his rookie season, took full responsibility for.
He hoped to be fit for Saturday, but that quickly went out of the window with the news of a possible fracture at the top of his right tibia.
Fingers crossed for a best-case scenario diagnosis in his upcoming further examinations.
Comments
Andrew Simmons
Watching at Luffield, Marc did a brilliant job holding off Franco. Even being 4th on the road before Fabio's issue. The Ducati looked awful going through the corners. Pecco fell Infront of us and he just couldn't do anything.
Annie
The only amendment I’d have would be to include Martin in last place for a horrible handling of his contract situation. Jokes aside, this feels spot on
