The fictional country of Polystyria looks suspiciously like Austria. Did this put the MotoGP competitors off their game? We rate the riders to find out.
Top ten finishers rated out of ten:
Jorge Martin – 10 out of 10
It was a flawless performance from the rookie, who was unbeatable all weekend around the Red Donkey Ring. It’s especially stunning given that a few months ago he was so badly injured in a crash that he missed 4 races, had a load of titanium skeleton repairs and was offered lifetime membership of the Cal Crutchlow fan club. Unfortunately, the young Spaniard’s victory humiliated the factory Ducati team, so he can expect to have around 35bhp less for the following rounds.
Joan Mir – 9 out of 10
Making full use of the Suzuki’s new pole-squat device, Mir was able to finish just 1.5 seconds behind his countryman. This could end his run of boring top 10 finishes and replace them with some dull and worthy podiums instead.
Fabio Quartarararo – 8 out of 10
The championship leader continues to rack up points by finishing on the podium even on tracks where the Yamaha isn’t supposed to be any good.
Brad Binder – 8 out of 10
The South African had a podium in his sights, probably imagining that it was some kind of leopard or endangered springbok. The KTM bike is as dubious about this year’s Michelins as MGPN riders are about Quartarararo’s potential alien status, but Binder did make some great overtakes to finish 4th.
Taka Nakagami – 7 out of 10
Lost a place to Binder on the last lap and trailed in 2 tenths of a second behind Binder, but Taka was still the leading Honda finisher. 5th place was decent but not great, a bit like slurping a bowl of slightly underseasoned noodles.
Johann Zarco – 6 out of 10
Another victim who was mugged by a South African towards the end of the race. We really expect the fast Frenchman to be up there with his team-mate Martin, so he’ll have plenty of reasons to complain and wave his arms around.
Alex Rins – 6 out of 10
Struggled to make as good use of the new Suzuki pole-squat device as his team-mate.
Marc Marquez – 6 out of 10
Not back on the pace yet, but certainly back to his old tricks. This time Aleix Asparagus was the innocent bystander who was assaulted by one of Marquez’s trademark moves. Naturally, the race stewards saw nothing wrong with this.
Alex Marquez – 6 out of 10
Another mediocre result for the over-promoted Marquez brother. Luckily his position in MotoGP seems safe. Partly because of his famous sibling, and partly because teams are struggling so hard to find new riders for next year that anyone good enough to finish 9th in MotoGP has nothing to worry about.
Dani Pedrosa – 9 out of 10
An explosive return to form for the Lilliputian star. After more than two years out of competition, Dani could easily have just tooled around at the back and made up a cock and bull story that he was testing new engine mapping or chassis settings or something. Nobody really expected him to have close battles, overtake a load of people and finish in the top 10. Especially impressive after his scary crash that led to the race being red flagged and restarted.
Selected other riders:
Valentino Rossi – 5 out of 10
The GOAT is being put out to pasture at the end of the year, so the pressure is off. 13th is one of his best finishes of the year. It seems that to Rossi, setting up the Yamaha’s electronics to work with the pole-squat device is as hard as an old person trying to record something on a VCR back in about 1990.
Pol Asparagus – 4 out of 10
Outside the points and rapidly running out of excuses. The evil handling Honda really doesn’t suit the younger Asparagus brother, who has been described as only marginally less flaky than Maverick Vinales.
Cal Crutchlow – 5 out of 10
Tooled around at the back because he is under strict orders from Yamaha not to so much as scratch Frankie Morbidelli’s hated, obsolete model bike. This will further enrage the already angry Brazilio-Italianian, who fully expected Cal to fill at least 3 skips with crashed 2019 Yamaha chassis. This would’ve forced the Japanese manufacturer to replace it with the new model.
Danilo Petrucci – 4 out of 10
It was a tough weekend for the huge Italian as he only discovered that his KTM contract wouldn’t be renewed when he rode into the garage after a practise session and found all his stuff lying in a skip outside. Finished 18th.
Maverick Vinales – 3 out of 10
Practised riding for Aprilia by finishing 19th after battling with various technical problems.
Lorenzo Savadori – 0.6 out of 1.0
Broke his ankle through no fault of his own when he hit the fallen bike of Dani Pedrosa.
Fire Marshals – 10 out of 10
There aren’t that many fires in MotoGP, and those are usually fairly minor. The worst case scenario is for two bikes to collide and explode into an enormous fireball early in the race when they’re still full of fuel. This is exactly what happened, so the fire marshals were able to heroically rush in like Steve McQueen in The Towering Inferno.
Turn 3 – zero out of 10
The Red Donkey Ring is a really dodgy circuit, but turn 3 has no business being in a world class track that holds top level racing. It could almost have been designed to make riders highside out of the corner and land right on the racing line, where following riders can’t see them until the last second due to the change in elevation. The hated turn 3 only even exists to stop riders disappearing into the forest on the parade lap, never to be seen again. This would leave spectators from turn 4 onwards as confused and angry as an Australian who’s just realized that the Crocodile Hunter had vastly more common sense than the entire Aussie government put together.