MotoGP's 2026 season kicked off in earnest with a deeply fascinating three days in Thailand.
Aprilia ran roughshod over its rivals in the Thai Grand Prix - but the true star of the weekend was not aboard one of its bikes.
Qualifying: 6th Sprint: 1st Grand Prix: 2nd
The last holdouts against the idea that 'Pedro Acosta is actually as good as advertised' did have a valid point insofar as, in his first two years in MotoGP, it wasn't really clear that there had been a single weekend in which he was the best rider in the world.
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Well, this weekend he was. It was not particularly close. Acosta danced, schemed and divebombed to two finishes that had been difficult to imagine coming out of the two-day pre-season test here, and he did it while continuing to look a good two steps ahead of the other KTM riders at all times.
I was mesmerised by his weekend. How could you not be? I think he should go and ask Ducati for a 2027 raise already.
Qualifying: 2nd Sprint: 2nd Grand Prix: DNF
Marquez has clearly not looked right through the pre-season, and that translated into the sprint - where you would've expected him to win 10 times out of 10 once Marco Bezzecchi went down - and into his cautious main race.
Even limited like that, he was infinitely better than the other Ducati riders, and showed the manufacturer suddenly needs to rely on every bit of his otherworldly talent rather than just having him as a 'guarantee' of an already-likely victory.
His 1m28.687s to miss pole by three hundredths was the lap of the weekend and better than most poles. And the late-race failure on Sunday was a cruelty his weekend emphatically did not deserve.
Qualifying: 10th Sprint: 7th Grand Prix: DNF
With a three-point yield and no particularly flashy moments, this looks like it's going to be a forgotten Mir weekend in just a handful of days' time - which is a real shame.
Mir's dominance over his fellow Honda riders was not as pronounced as what Acosta did at KTM and Marquez at Ducati, but there was no real question as to who was making the most of the RC213V here. And it was not the bike to have at Buriram, hamstrung by the reinforced rear tyre carcass.
There is an inevitable doubt over whether Mir will have had any culpability in his tyre failure on Sunday, given this was clearly a race of excessive wear, but the nature of the issue - the fact the tyre went so suddenly - suggests not.
Qualifying: 1st Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: 1st
It's unfortunate for Bezzecchi that his crash in the sprint - and the one in Q2, really - was made to look worse in hindsight by how easily the Sunday win came to him.
Clearly, this was a weekend to do the 37-pointer, which would've been Bezzecchi's first. But Saturday was just too much of a mess, and the crash from the lead in the sprint, coming as he took a corner too tightly and nipped the white line on the inside, was very regrettable.
It happens. And, of course, make no mistake, this was of course an impossibly encouraging weekend for Bezzecchi and Aprilia.
Qualifying: 5th Sprint: 5th Grand Prix: 4th
This was a very nice 'walk before you can run' Martin weekend that his 2025 could have used a lot more of.
He was quite a bit off the fastest Aprilia, Bezzecchi, but even that was plenty good enough here over one lap - where he still feels he's too aggressive - and race distance.
A write-off 2025 and compromised pre-season means he still doesn't have his set-up, but in fighting Marquez and Acosta in the early stages of Sunday's race Martin finally felt the "same as I used to be" - even though 26 laps was far too long to sustain it.
Qualifying: 3rd Sprint: 3rd Grand Prix: 3rd
First and foremost: this was a really good weekend to have an Aprilia RS-GP underneath you. Any ranking for an Aprilia rider must take this into account.
But Fernandez's weekend took a couple of blows that could've easily knocked him off his stride but didn't. Blow one was a weather-influenced absence from the top 10 on Friday, blow two was the aggravation of an existing shoulder injury in Sunday warm-up.
But he navigated Q1 and both races with aplomb, though surely would've missed the Sunday podium if Marquez had stayed in the race.
Qualifying: 4th Sprint: 8th Grand Prix: 6th
Circumstances beyond Di Giannantonio's control snatched a great weekend away from him.
He was very fast on Friday, much faster than pre-season testing had ever suggested, and performed par for the course in Q2, even if Marquez showed him and the rest of the Ducati riders up.
The sprint was ruined at Turn 3 when, to avoid a collision with Fernandez, Alex Marquez had to run Di Giannantonio out wide. He suggested Di Giannantonio was culpable in robbing him of room on the outside in the turn-in, but I don't really see it.
An unspecified "technical issue" was a major limitation on Sunday, rendering tyre management "impossible" - something easy to believe because the pace was out of line with the rest of Di Giannantonio's weekend.
Seventh feels almost unjustifiably low - but I can't sanction going any higher.
Qualifying: 15th Sprint: 13th Grand Prix: 13th
As a debutant, you don't need the cleanest weekend, right? Just need to show you belong.
Moreira belongs. This much is clear - he has made fantastic strides through the pre-season. But, save for some errors in that 'Q0' session on Friday, he was also very clean and dependable.
Tucking in behind Luca Marini in Q1 probably eased his path through the weekend a bit by helping out the grid position, but there was still a big job to do in the two races and Moreira did it.
Qualifying: 21st Sprint: 20th Grand Prix: 17th
Razgatlioglu was the only positive story of Yamaha's weekend. He was competitive with the other Yamahas in every important session, which wasn't necessarily a given after a slightly erratic pre-season in which his confidence and energy seemed to wane occasionally.
He attributed the sprint crash to a lapse in managing an engine brake issue, but if it's any kind of blemish on his weekend it's a small one.
