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

This also wasn't particularly close.

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.

Yamaha faces a long road but it looks like it's made a worthwhile roll of the dice in luring back the three-time World Superbike champion.

Qualifying: 11th Sprint: 6th Grand Prix: 7th

Nothing special in a vacuum, or in the context of Acosta's weekend. Pretty special, however, in the context of a pre-season that looked really, really rough - and in the context of the hopeless three days on the Tech3 side of the KTM camp.

Cautiously optimistic that he's less hamstrung by understeer now than last year, Binder made a solid weekend possible by squeezing into Q2 on Friday, then leaned on his usual class-of-the-field skillset in running a combative race in the pack.

He's still clearly a real asset.

Qualifying: 16th Sprint: 16th Grand Prix: 14th

The idea that Quartararo is phoning it in faced with an uncompetitive bike and an expiring deal seems to have got a lot of traction already (unlike the Yamaha) - but I find it baseless.

He was already so-so at Buriram last year, and - while not overwhelmingly better than his stablemates - seemed to put in a pretty good shift this weekend, save for a sprint compromised by a poor start.

He was 16th in Friday practice and 16th on the grid, and 14th in the race - all of which were probably the best available result.

Qualifying: 8th Sprint: 4th Grand Prix: 5th

Finishing fourth-and-fifth last year was enough for Ogura to top these rankings. This year, fourth-and-fifth returns a ranking of 12th.

This was not a good Ogura weekend. And full credit to him because he clearly knew that and had no issue admitting it, describing himself as "completely" disappointed in his Sunday debrief and castigating himself for "how s**t I was in the first part of the race".

"The position is the same but the feeling is completely different. Zero happiness."

This is the right way to be, but let's go over where Ogura's weekend fell short: strange Friday outlap crash that nearly tossed him out of Q2; untidy Q2; bad start in sprint; bad start in grand prix and getting boxed in behind Mir.

Fourth and fifth, still. He had to earn it, but it was the minimum of what the RS-GP gave him - because he is very, very good here, and should have been in the thick of the podium fight.

Qualifying: 14th Sprint: 10th Grand Prix: 10th

I think we've all seen this exact Marini weekend before.

Making Q2 on Friday was make-or-break, and Marini looked like he just about had the performance to do it - but the runplan didn't quite align with the weather.

Honda's rivals then usually find something extra over a single lap overnight - so he was doomed in Q1, and consigned to two races riding around in the pack, front tyre pressure and temperature spiking, unable to exploit the bike's corner-entry strengths.

Qualifying: 12th Sprint: 12th Grand Prix: 11th

Something is still not quite right between Zarco and the Honda after the bike was improved mid-season last year - and it's a feeling he compared to walking around with a stone in your shoe.

He can still make it work reasonably well over one lap, but either doesn't have the consistency or pace he craves over longer distances, as evidenced by an early Turn 3 mistake that hurt his sprint and a decent enough but overall subdued Sunday race.

Qualifying: 9th Sprint: 14th Grand Prix: 8th

Considerably faster than the results showed, though not exactly spectacular.

Morbidelli paid the price for a suboptimal Friday afternoon by needing to go through Q1 and then not having enough tyres to maximise his Q2 - but even if that wasn't the case, his starts were a deal-breaker this weekend.

He said this is a persistent issue he's having with the 2025 bike, with a 0-100km/h time "not nearly as good as it should be".

That wrote off the sprint but, given he was a hideous 19th after the opening lap on Sunday, playing the long game to keep his tyres alive and move up 11 places in the end was a good show.

Qualifying: 19th Sprint: 18th Grand Prix: 15th

The Rins revival teased by the switch in Yamaha specs does not appear to be happening.

His performance in the two races was reasonable but single-lap pace was a disastrous constraint last year, and the early signs are that the V4 bike hasn't fixed this.

He was much closer to Razgatlioglu than Quartararo both in Friday's 'Q0' and in Q1.

Qualifying: 18th Sprint: 15th Grand Prix: 18th

Assessing Yamaha riders' efforts promises to be a real pain in this early phase of the season, because the indications are that the new V4-engined M1 just isn't ready yet to perform consistently session to session.

In Miller's hands, it was a credible single-lap performer but badly dropped off on Sunday - which, to be fair, does fit his own performance profile. But shipping 17 seconds to Quartararo by the end of the grand prix is surely circumstantial.

Qualifying: 13th Sprint: 9th Grand Prix: 9th

Bagnaia claimed he was "not that worried about my result" given the low points of late-2025 - but was also clear that it was a very difficult, unimpressive weekend.

He absolutely struggled even within the context of Ducati's general malaise. You could say missing Q2 on Friday was a consequence of run timing, but in truth he never looked quick enough then - and backed it up by being completely outmatched by Fernandez and Morbidelli in Q1.

He was limited on corner entry again, and nothing in either race suggested he was any better than the fifth-fastest Ducati rider this weekend. If he's not worried, others should be on his behalf.

Qualifying: 20th Sprint: 17th Grand Prix: 12th

Bastianini said his grand prix was "saved a bit" by his rear tyre-saving, which reflects the grimness of his current situation - because he only finished 12th.

He'd had a tentatively promising Friday but cut a dejected figure for the rest of the weekend, lamenting that "nothing works well" in the heat and that the bike wasn't stopping - while also struggling with excessive movement on the straight when up to fifth gear.

Qualifying: 7th Sprint: 11th Grand Prix: DNF

Marquez felt exposed by the combination of the 355mm brake disc and the reinforced rear tyre casing, but an OK weekend was still there to be salvaged.

It was not salvaged. Friday and qualifying were solid but unremarkable, but in the sprint the mess at Turn 3 - which he gets the lion's share of the blame for - and a compromised return to the track on the run to Turn 4 (inadvertently squeezed out by a loose Zarco) meant no points on offer.

A "small, stupid mistake" leading to the Sunday crash consigned the weekend to the dustbin.

Qualifying: 22nd Sprint: 21st Grand Prix: 19th

Pirro has built a lovely competitive mini-career of MotoGP stand-in outings and wildcards, and it's still fun to see him suit up in new colours.

But he's not fast enough anymore to contribute in a competitive sense during a MotoGP race weekend, so was just making up the numbers.

Qualifying: 17th Sprint: 19th Grand Prix: 16th

One of the worst weekends of Vinales' MotoGP career, which had been subtly foreshadowed by the sheer number of 'ruined' laps he'd had during his race simulations in the test.

This, it turns out, may have been a symptom of the central quandary of Vinales's weekend, which is that he could barely keep his KTM on the track.

The trigger of the issue is not clear, but the bare facts are. Vinales was not fast enough to be that loose, and he and his side of the garage did not do a good enough job to salvage a basic level of respectability from the weekend.