The winners and losers of MotoGP's reshuffle

Fitting in can be tough, especially if you're a high-profile sportsperson. That's the situation more than half of the riders on the MotoGP grid find themselves in this year, with 12 of the 23 in new surroundings following a winter of massive change.

As ever, some have found their new homes more comfortable than others. There have been surprise packets, highs, lows, disappointments and everything in between since 2017 unofficially started with testing at Valencia last November, but especially from the time everybody rolled out for the Qatar season opener in March.

Five of the year's 18 races in - with four more to come in the next five weekends before the summer break - seems as good a time as any to run the rule over how the new faces are settling in.

STAR PUPILS

JOHANN ZARCO
Tech3 Yamaha
Grade: A+
Championship position: 5th
Best result: 2nd (Le Mans)

MAVERICK VINALES
Yamaha
Grade: A
Championship position: 1st
Best result: 1st (Qatar, Argentina, Le Mans)

No prizes for guessing the riders getting pizza after parent-teacher night. These two men have been the pick of the full field, let alone the group of recruits.

And that's before you even take into account that Johann Zarco is a rookie. The dual Moto2 champion made an immediate impression in the premier class, with some bold moves from the outset in Qatar to lead by halfway around his first lap. That dream did not last, but it is far from the end of Zarco's list of highlights.

I wrote this after the Jerez race, four into the campaign, about how impressive Zarco has been. And it all still stands, but it could even be expanded on following his French Grand Prix weekend.

Zarco was in demand and riding the wave of massive expectation from local fans, but he barely put a foot wrong. He did have a fall in third practice and missed out on an automatic spot in Q2, but responded by staying out for all of Q1 on the same tyres. And just when it looked like they had run out of steam, and that he would be pipped by Dani Pedrosa, Zarco responded after the chequered flag and went through.

He sat out the first phase of the main session and grabbed a spot on the front row of the grid alongside factory Yamaha pair Maverick Vinales and Valentino Rossi. Getting the best of the start, he then led the first six laps and didn't repeat his Qatar error, staying calm and with Vinales when he lost the lead and then keeping Rossi at bay until the closing laps.

A maiden podium was a just reward, but it was another weekend of Zarco not just shining with what he was doing, but how he was doing it.

Vinales has been much the same. He was outstanding last year with Suzuki and has gone on with it at Yamaha, slotting in seamlessly to replace Jorge Lorenzo. The young Spaniard became the first Yamaha rider since Wayne Rainey in 1990 to win the first two races of a campaign with the Japanese manufacturer, in a perfect start.

Crashing out at Austin, when he had looked to have a chance of beating the unbeatable Marc Marquez there, and an odd Sunday at Jerez are the only two blots on the Vinales copybook. But without pointing the finger at Michelin after both races, he intimated that there was something unusual about the tyres bolted onto his M1 for the two Sundays.

He bounced back at Le Mans to make it three wins from five starts, topping qualifying for the first time for his first real pole position, Qatar's having been based on practice times. If we're being honest he would've topped that session anyway.

In that Le Mans race, it was Rossi and not Vinales that blinked in the closing laps, the veteran forced into a pair of mistakes on the final lap, having started it with one hand on the silverware.

It's relatively early days, but Vinales has put himself in control of the 2017 championship.

SHOWING POTENTIAL

ALEIX ESPARGARO
Aprilia
Grade: B
Championship position: 14th
Best result: 6th (Qatar)

POL ESPARGARO
KTM
Grade: B
Championship position: 21st
Best result: 12th (Le Mans)

JONAS FOLGER
Tech3 Yamaha
Grade: B-
Championship position: 9th
Best result: 6th (Argentina)

BRADLEY SMITH
KTM
Grade: B-
Championship position: 22nd
Best result: 13th (Le Mans)

In just about any other year, Jonas Folger would be the toast of the rookies. He's been more than solid, the only rider to have scored points in all five grands prix so far, and not just scrappy points. Folger has only finished outside of the top 10 once, and that was an 11th.

The problem, if you can even call it that, hasn't so much been Folger, but the bloke on the other side of the Tech3 Yamaha garage, Zarco. That shows the ultimate potential of the package - last year's Yamahas used by Rossi and Lorenzo - and Folger hasn't been able to hit the same heights yet. But criticism of his recruitment this time last year can well and truly be dismissed.

The Espargaro brothers (Pol pictured above) share a grade as well as a surname for their efforts with the developing Aprilia and newcomer KTM.

Older brother Aleix concedes his championship position is "a disaster" and feels somewhat frustrated at watching so many satellite bikes doing well. But he has to play the long game.

Aprilia did a lot of good work last year, and Espargaro was impressed with what he sat on when he started testing. He has outperformed Alvaro Bautista and Stefan Bradl (Aprilia's 2016 riders), admittedly on a package that is continuing to improve and his experience with Suzuki will prove valuable in not only evaluating the package and new bits, but also identifying its shortcomings.

His ride in Qatar to finish in sixth, right behind the Hondas, was massively impressive. Results since then have dried up, including a crash in Argentina and there is an argument that he should be experienced enough to not get into as big a hole as he did at Austin.

But another storming ride to what would have been sixth at Le Mans - before an engine failure - shows that things are on the right path, as Espargaro rebuilds his stock after a 2016 to forget alongside Vinales.

Pol Espargaro and Bradley Smith are doing plenty of heavy lifting with KTM, and are continually raising the bar. It does help that the Austrian brand does not lack resources or enthusiasm, and it looks to have recruited well to bring upper-level experience to this new project.

Smith says scoring points in three of the first five rounds was not part of the plan. It's difficult to see how anybody would have expected that. But whenever KTM rocks up with new bits requested by the riders, you can see the bike take another step forward. That shows they are both up to the task of developing the package, and they both seized the opportunity in the drying third practice session at Le Mans to snatch places in Q2.

Espargaro shades Smith for having shown that little bit more outright pace to lead the head-to-head qualifying 4-1.

NEEDS TO WORK HARDER

JORGE LORENZO
Ducati
Grade: C-
Championship position: 8th
Best result: 3rd (Jerez)

SAM LOWES
Aprilia
Grade: C-
Championship position: 23rd
Best result: 14th (Le Mans)

KAREL ABRAHAM
Aspar Ducati
Grade: C+
Championship position: 19th
Best result: 10th (Argentina)

ALVARO BAUTISTA
Aspar Ducati
Grade: D
Championship position: 16th
Best result: 5th (Argentina)

ANDREA IANNONE
Suzuki
Grade: D
Championship position: 15th
Best result: 4th (Austin)

The big ticket item here is Jorge Lorenzo. His move to Ducati was the one that prompted the movement that we have had between the manufacturers. If Lorenzo stayed put, Vinales would probably still be at Suzuki, and Iannone would probably still be at Ducati, for instance.

All eyes have been on Lorenzo, and it has been quite the journey to watch, even at this early stage. Asked by Autosport how he'd sum up the first five races after Le Mans, the three-time world champion offered: "Difficult, in general very difficult."

I'd say more difficult than Lorenzo or Ducati would have predicted. The Spaniard has not arrived at a Ducati team that appears the 'finished article', in the sense that Lorenzo really was the last piece of the puzzle. It does not look to have successfully addressed its key shortcomings, and instead has probably lost ground compared to Yamaha and Honda relative to last year, when it got back to winning ways after a barren spell post-Casey Stoner.

That does not help Lorenzo, and he has made progress, especially after rectifying his riding position in Argentina, feeling the direction he went down when he started testing means that running was "wasted". That falls into the 'better late than never' category and he does at least have a podium on the board at Jerez. However even that came as the Yamahas tanked and Lorenzo finished 15 seconds behind the winners.

More concerning, though, is that we have already had a few instances of Lorenzo struggling for feeling and pace in low-grip conditions, especially in those mixed-weather sessions at Le Mans.

The man he has essentially replaced, Iannone has had an even worse time. You have to wonder what the atmosphere is like inside Suzuki, especially compared to its high-flying start to 2016 with Vinales. Iannone has jagged a couple of isolated quick laps to start third in Qatar and fifth at Jerez, and run in the lad packs of those races early, but he has otherwise been nowhere.

The bigger issue is that Iannone doesn't really look like a 'come with me, I'll sort this out' team leader. That's what he has to be, and leading a manufacturer, not even just a team. Suzuki's fortunes and progress rest largely on the mercurial Italian, who has scored in just two of the five races, with errors - including a very marginal jump start - proving costly in the others.

For an idea of how far Suzuki has fallen, Vinales was on the podium at Le Mans in 2016, third and 14.177s off the winner. This year, Iannone was a lowly 10th, 48.332s off the winner. But he only cracked 10th after both Pramac Ducatis, Marc Marquez, Aleix Espargaro and Rossi retired from much further up the road.

On the package that looked so close last year for Ducati, Alvaro Bautista should be an underdog doing good things this year. He finished 2016 well with Aprilia, and looked quick in pre-season testing on Aspar's '16-model Ducati. Fourth in Argentina is the sort of result he should be there or thereabouts to get whenever others strike trouble, but he's too experienced to be crashing early in three of the five races.

Karel Abraham is on Aspar's 2015 Ducati and if anything slightly above where people expected him to be. He made the most of changeable conditions to qualify in the middle of the front row in Argentina but faded in the race.

Of the four rookies, Sam Lowes has the toughest gig, with Aprilia. Team-mate Espargaro is doing the heavy lifting, as you would expect for a rider with more experience, and the onus is basically on Lowes to chip away at it and find his feet.

Lowes is not believed to be quite on the same spec bike as Espargaro, and other than having the "worst race of my life" at Jerez he looked to take a step over the rest of the weekend there and at Le Mans.

ATTENDANCE IS AN ISSUE

ALEX RINS
Suzuki
Grade: MIA
Championship position: 20th
Best result: 9th (Qatar)

Unfortunate is just about the only way you could just the start of Alex Rins' MotoGP career. He looked to have shaken the collarbone injury he picked up in Moto2 in mid-2016 by the time he was ready to start testing a MotoGP bike with Suzuki, but then crashed on the first day at Valencia and compressed two vertebrae.

That cost him a handful of days of late-2016 testing, but he looked to be settling in well in the pre-season running, and beat Folger to be best of the rookies in Qatar with a composed ninth place.

Since then, he's essentially been on the sidelines. He limped through the Argentina weekend with a fracture in his right ankle sustained in a motocross training accident, then fell at Austin a fortnight later in practice, breaking his left wrist in two places. Rins will be starting from scratch when he returns at Barcelona, either in the GP weekend or the post-race test.