Ranking the top 10 MotoGP riders of 2021

The 2021 MotoGP season was a more normal affair despite COVID-19 still hanging over the paddock, with a full schedule of 18 races taking place. This didn't stop the season from being just as chaotic as the 2020 campaign however, with eight riders taking to the top step of the podium on four different motorcycles. In all, no less than 15 riders finished on the podium.

From that crop, Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo emerged as the man to beat and the Frenchman emerged as his nation's first MotoGP title winner, sealing the championship with a fine recovery ride at Misano. 

In such a competitive season, many riders - new faces and returning combatants alike - stood out. Autosport picks out its top 10 riders from the 2021 MotoGP world championship.

10. Miguel Oliveira

Wrist injury plagued Oliveira's season, but before that he'd showed class by winning in Spain

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Wins: 1 – Catalan GP
Other podiums: 0
Poles: 0 (Best qualifying – 4th, Catalan GP)
Championship: 14th, 94 points

Miguel Oliveira was one of the stars of the 2020 campaign after winning twice on the Tech3-run KTM. Already on his way to the factory KTM squad for 2021 before racing had begun the previous year, his performances had definitely earned him that shot.

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Expected to be a factor in the title battle, at least in the early stages of 2021, KTM’s lack of progress with its RC16 challenger over the winter ruled out a championship tilt in the opening rounds.

Slightly better in qualifying trim compared to team-mate Binder, scoring 10 top 12 starts, Oliveira’s Sunday form was wayward. However, the issues with the KTM were coupled mid-season with a nagging wrist injury he picked up in an odd crash during the Styrian GP weekend. The Portuguese then spent most of 2021 shrouded by woe.

However, a brief surge late in the first half of the campaign proved enough for Oliveira to remind everyone why he is deemed worthy of factory support in motorcycle racing’s top category.

A revised chassis brought by KTM for the Italian GP at Mugello allowed him to claim second, having not finished higher than 11th in the first five races. He won the Catalan GP the following week – only very slightly benefitting from Fabio Quartararo’s equipment malfunction late on, having legitimately battled the Yamaha rider for victory before that point.

And he chased Marc Marquez hard in the German GP before ultimately finishing second heading into the summer break. If KTM can come to 2022 armed with a better motorcycle and Oliveira can avoid walking under ladders, the 26-year-old is still more than capable of fighting at the front in MotoGP.

9. Brad Binder

Heroic gamble to stay out on slicks as rain fell in the closing laps at Austria gave Binder his only win of 2021

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Wins: 1 – Austrian GP
Other podiums: 0
Poles: 0 (Best qualifying – 6th, Italian GP)
Championship: 6th, 151 points

None of the rookie crop from 2020 came into 2021 with a particularly easy job, given the COVID-19 pandemic massively reshaped their first MotoGP campaigns. But those who rode KTMs had an even tougher task. Losing its result-based concessions for 2021 thanks to amassing three wins in a chaotic 2020, KTM lost a key advantage in being able to test freely with its race riders.

Though it could come into 2021 with a new engine, having been allowed to build one inside the development freeze, KTM failed to hit the ground running. The RC16 hadn’t changed much from the 2020 bike, but its rivals had taken bigger steps forward, while Michelin’s front tyre allocation on more occasions than not worked against KTM riders.

Essentially going through an extended rookie season, Brad Binder still proved to be hugely impressive despite the limitations of the bike and his knowledge at many circuits. Only qualifying inside the top 12 eight times across 18 races, Binder’s prowess as a Sunday rider shone through as he tallied up 13 top 10s and scored points in all but one round – the flag-to-flag French GP, when he crashed out.

The highlight of his year was his heroic gamble to stay out on slicks in the wet final laps of the Austrian GP to take a stunning second MotoGP victory of his career. That alone warranted inclusion in Autosport’s top 10 riders list for 2021, but his ability to generally extract the maximum from his machinery in an unexpectedly difficult year for KTM proved Binder’s class as a top MotoGP talent.

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8. Aleix Espargaro

Fittingly, it was Espargaro who scored Aprilia's landmark first podium at the British GP

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Wins: 0
Other podiums: 1 – 3rd, British GP
Poles: 0 (Best qualifying – 3rd, German GP)
Championship: 8th, 120 points

Aprilia was under no illusion heading into 2021 that the campaign would be a pivotal one. The Italian manufacturer was the only marque still with results-based concessions, which meant it could build a totally new bike under the development freeze put in place to keep costs under control due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Its pre-season began in the worst possible circumstances in February when Fausto Gresini – whose team ran in conjunction with Aprilia’s factory effort – sadly died after a battle with COVID-19.

With Aprilia placing rookie Lorenzo Savadori on one of its bikes after Andrea Iannone’s doping offence from 2019 led to a four-year ban, and test rider Bradley Smith walking away, the burden of development was largely laid at Aleix Espargaro’s feet.

But the veteran Spaniard hit the ground running in 2021 with the overhauled RS-GP, scoring three top seven results in the first four races. That gave him belief that a podium was genuinely possible. Consistently guiding his Aprilia to top eight finishes in the events that followed, Espargaro finally got the RS-GP to the rostrum at Silverstone with a competitive run to third.

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It would prove to be his only podium of the year, with the final rounds of his campaign stunted somewhat by a largely mysterious desertion of form from the bike in the closing races. But the underrated Espargaro proved how vital he is to the Aprilia project and, for all the criticism he has received on social media – including from Jorge Lorenzo earlier in the year – proved he has the talent to run at the front in MotoGP.

With Aprilia on a good course now and a fast team-mate in Maverick Vinales installed next to him for 2022, conditions are primed for Espargaro to take his biggest step forward in the premier class.

7. Jorge Martin

Pramac rookie Martin broke his win duck at the Styrian GP

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Wins: 1 – Styrian GP
Other podiums: 3
Poles: 4 - Doha, Styrian, Austrian, Valencia GPs
Championship: 9th, 111 points

The rookie roster for the 2021 campaign was certainly the worst prepared for a MotoGP season of any in years gone by, as the COVID-19 pandemic meant their testing programme was limited to just seven days before the opening round in Qatar.

But Pramac rookie Jorge Martin made it look as if he’d been riding his factory-backed Ducati for years in the second round of the season at the Doha Grand Prix, where he qualified on pole and led for the first 18 laps before ultimately finishing third.

Had it not been for the horrifically violent accident he suffered during third practice for the following round in Portugal and the subsequent four-race absence with injury, Martin’s growth in 2021 could have been much more rapid than it turned out to be.

Though it took him to the end of the season for his injured wrist to be back to full fitness, Martin started the second half of the year in fine form, claiming back-to-back poles in the Austria double-header and taking a stunning first MotoGP victory in the Styrian GP.

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Top 10s in every race he finished from then on, including a second at the Valencia finale, netted him top rookie honours. He needs to work on tyre conservation going into year two, but Martin has already emerged as a future Ducati star and it wouldn’t surprise many if he turns into a dark horse contender for the 2022 world championship.

6. Enea Bastianini

Riding a two-year-old Avintia Ducati, Bastianini twice graced the podium, and passed Marquez in brilliant San Marino charge

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Wins: 0
Other podiums: 2 (Best result – 3rd, San Marino and Emilia Romagna GP)
Poles: 0 (Best qualifying – 9th, Aragon GP)
Championship: 11th, 102 points

Ducati changed its approach for the 2021 season in banking on youth for its teams, bringing Francesco Bagnaia and Jack Miller up to its factory squad; Jorge Martin into Pramac and placing his fellow Moto2 graduates Enea Bastianini and Luca Marini at Avintia.

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Of the Avintia duo, Bastianini was expected to be the one who made the most immediate impact, having quickly become a podium contender in his first season in Moto2 in 2019 on his step up from Moto3.

The 2020 Moto2 champion was solid in the first half of his rookie campaign on a two-year-old Ducati, claiming three top 10 finishes. But it was in the second half of the year where ‘the Beast’ really started to show his merits, finishing inside the top nine in each of the final six races.

This included two podium visits at the Misano races, Bastianini coming from 12th and 16th in both contests to finish third – the latter with a daring last-lap raid on world champion Fabio Quartararo.

It wasn’t enough to make him rookie of the year in the final standings, his qualifying form left wanting as he made just two Q2 appearances over the 18 rounds.

But the fact this is stat is married with 14 points finishes – nine of which inside the top 10 – on Sundays is testament to Bastianini’s racecraft. If he can figure out his qualifying, Bastianini will be a weapon in 2022 as he moves to a 2021-spec Ducati with the Gresini squad.

5. Joan Mir

Defending champion Mir didn't win a race in 2021 as his Suzuki team faltered, but the Spaniard's consistency impressed

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Wins: 0
Other podiums: 6 (Best result – 2nd, Styrian and Algarve GPs)
Poles: 0 (Best qualifying – 3rd, Algarve GP)
Championship: 3rd, 208 points

Joan Mir spent the winter of 2021 facing accusations that his 2020 championship was delegitimised by Marc Marquez’s absence in last year’s heavily COVID-affected season. But the class Mir exuded in 2020 and the consistency he showed across the year made him a dangerous prospect coming into a much more normal 2021 schedule.

His title defence, however, was stymied from the start. Suzuki failed to make any major steps forward with its solid package, while the improvements made by the likes of Yamaha and Ducati undoubtedly caught it off-guard.

Both Mir and team-mate Alex Rins spent 2021 batting away suggestions that long-time team manager Davide Brivio’s departure was affecting their season. But the lack of updates and de facto team boss Shinichi Sahara’s late-season admittance that his new role in 2021 was “too much” – as well as paddock gossip of disharmony within the squad – suggests otherwise.

Suzuki’s mystifying lack of qualifying form remained, Mir claiming his first proper front row in MotoGP at the penultimate Algarve Grand Prix and making just three top five starts across the 18 races.

This, along with the Suzuki’s limitations, contributed to Mir’s frankly meek haul of six podiums in 2021. But a deeper look at the results sheets show Mir was riding better than ever – the Spaniard scoring points in 16 of those 18 rounds, all of those top 10s and 12 inside the top six.

This secured him third in the standings, leaving Suzuki no doubts as to how vital Mir is to its project – and ultimately puts big pressure on over the winter to better arm its prized asset and keep him on the books beyond 2022.

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Conceding he “couldn’t do better” than he did in 2021 and “doesn’t give a shit” about the critics of his title defence, Mir definitely doesn’t head into 2022 with a point to prove.

4. Jack Miller

After ending his long win drought at the Spanish GP, Miller won again at Le Mans but was overshadowed by Bagnaia

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Wins: 2 – Spanish GP, French GP
Other podiums: 3
Poles: 0
Championship: 4th, 181 points

Despite being just 26 years old, the 2021 season was Jack Miller’s seventh in the premier class. And though he had one victory already in 2016 at a wet Dutch TT, the talented Australian’s scorecard was pretty thin.

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Ducati’s decision to promote him from Pramac to its factory squad for 2021 came as little surprise. He’s been a factory-contracted rider with Ducati since 2019, and the price tag he came with – as well as team-mate Francesco Bagnaia’s - was substantially lower than that of some of Ducati’s recent signings to that point.

The pressure was on for Miller to vindicate Ducati’s decision. And after the first three races, he’d done little to prove his worth. Two ninth-place finishes in the opening Qatar races, which were largely circumstantial, and a DNF in Portugal – which was wholly his fault – dialled up the criticism.

But Ducati management rallied around Miller – as did the Crutchlow family – and Miller duly won back-to-back races at Jerez and Le Mans. Though these were aided by circumstance – Fabio Quartararo was hit by arm pump at Jerez, while the Le Mans race was flag-to-flag, requiring a mid-race bike swap – the monkey was well and truly off his back.

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The fact he managed just three other podiums – all of them thirds – through to the end of the season shows Miller’s consistency problems of years gone by remain. This needs to be eradicated from his game in 2022, not least with Bagnaia arguably now the most complete rider on the grid and threats from within the Ducati camp keen to snap up his factory seat.

3. Marc Marquez

Even while not at full fitness, Marquez could still beat the best of them and took three wins before his season was curtailed once more

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Wins: 3 – German, Americas, Emilia Romagna GPs
Other podiums: 1
Poles: 0 (Best qualifying – 3rd, Americas GP)
Championship: 7th, 142 points

As winter gave way to spring ahead of the 2021 MotoGP season, there was still no return date on the cards for Marc Marquez. The six-time premier class world champion underwent a third operation on the right arm he badly broke at the 2020 Spanish GP and which would rule him out of the whole campaign.

Marquez missed pre-season testing and sat out the opening two rounds in Qatar. But in Portugal, at round three, Marquez returned to the circuit on his Honda MotoGP bike for the first time since July 2020.

In an emotional display, the Spaniard guided his bike to seventh – Honda’s best result of the season to that point. This would be a trend that would continue, Marquez the only HRC rider able to extract the absolute maximum from a troubled RC213V.

But any notion of a title tilt were put to one side after that Portugal weekend. It was clear Marquez’s physical condition would take much longer to improve than thought, and for much of the year right-handed circuits would cause him no end of issues. The fact the 2021 Honda was also badly behaved only compounded his issues.

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That didn’t stop him from claiming three victories in 2021, using the anticlockwise nature of Sachsenring to claim his first win since Valencia 2019. He valiantly fought Francesco Bagnaia for victory at the anticlockwise Aragon, though came away with second. And at the Circuit of the Americas, Marquez dominated.

Though it was gifted to him after a late fall for Bagnaia, his win in the Emilia Romagna GP at the clockwise Misano – a venue he struggled to a distant fourth at in the San Marino GP – was the biggest sign that Marquez was gaining more strength in his right shoulder.

The fact he missed four races and crashed out of four others yet still finished comfortably as top Honda rider in seventh in the standings, some 42 points clear of team-mate Pol Espargaro, was testament to two things: Honda still has a lot of work to do with its RC213V, and Marquez is still the best rider on the grid.

A recurring eye issue triggered by a concussion ahead of the Algarve GP means he once again faces a winter of uncertainty, although a recent statement issued by the team revealed Marquez is making progress.

2. Francesco Bagnaia

Bagnaia's qualifying form at the end of the season was mightily impressive, but he left himself with too big a gap to bridge to Quartararo

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images

Wins: 4 – Aragon, San Marino, Algarve, Valencia GPs
Other podiums: 5
Poles: 6 – Qatar, Aragon, San Marino, Americas, Emilia Romagna, Algarve GPs
Championship: 2nd, 252 points

Francesco Bagnaia’s first two years in MotoGP with Pramac Ducati were largely underwhelming, though flashes of speed in 2020 proved enough to earn him a place in Ducati’s factory squad for 2021.

He had no expectations of challenging for the championship this season given how wildly his form had fluctuated in the previous two years. But from the off, Bagnaia was far more consistent – scoring three podiums from the first four races.

Over the winter he’d worked hard to improve his tyre warm-up preparations, which had been his Achilles heel in 2019 and 2020. This bore itself out in an unbroken run of front row starts – including five of his six poles – from the Dutch TT through to the end of the season.

In that second half of the year, Bagnaia also managed to get his first win – absorbing massive pressure from Marc Marquez at Aragon to become the second Valentino Rossi protégé to reach the top of a MotoGP podium.

The 2018 Moto2 world champion then fended off a late-charging Fabio Quartararo for victory at the San Marino GP, before claiming back-to-back wins in the Algarve and Valencia GPs. Had it not been for his title-ending crash out of the lead at the Emilia Romagna round, Bagnaia could have snatched the championship away from Quartararo in Valencia.

But Bagnaia’s championship didn’t desert him at Misano. Patchy mid-season form - following a fourth at Le Mans by crashing while leading at Mugello, then a seventh in Barcelona, fifth in Germany, sixth at Assen, 11th in the Styrian GP due to a tyre issue and 14th at Silverstone for a repeat issue – put him at a 52-point disadvantage coming into that Emilia Romagna race.

Nevertheless, 2021 can be viewed as the year where Bagnaia truly moulded himself into the perfect MotoGP rider. Marrying searing one-lap pace with superb racecraft, a calm approach to races and understanding how to properly ride the Ducati, he has became a devastating package.

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The fact he ended 2021 claiming Ducati had already built the “perfect” bike and had improved on that with the 2022 prototype at the post-season test should have the rest of the grid worried going into next year.

1. Fabio Quartararo

Quartararo shrugged off any lingering doubts after his shaky end to 2020 with a polished run to the title

Photo by: Yamaha

Wins: 5 – Doha, Portuguese, Italian, Dutch, British GPs
Other podiums: 5
Poles: 5 – Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Catalan GPs
Championship: 1st, 278 points

Fabio Quartararo’s end to his 2020 title tilt was a disaster, as he went from leading the standings to eighth in the final six races. By this point his move to the factory Yamaha squad in place of MotoGP legend Valentino Rossi had long been sealed – and as a result, question marks appeared over the Frenchman as he headed into his third season.

PLUS: How Quartararo cast aside prior doubts to become MotoGP's newest king

Three wins in 2020 on the Petronas SRT-run Yamaha showed Quartararo was capable of challenging for victories, and form dips were largely down to the inconsistent M1. But his frustrations boiled over more than once, highlighting a weakness in his armour. Recognising this, Quartararo worked with a sports psychologist over the winter to better prepare himself for the season ahead. Marc Marquez would later say the key to Quartararo’s title was his ability “to suffer”.

From the off, Quartararo demonstrated this – finishing fifth at the Qatar Grand Prix after an “amateur” ride, he bounced back with a victory in the Doha GP. He won again in Portugal before arm pump robbed him of a Spanish GP victory.

But having dropped to 13th, he was third next time out in France and won again in Italy. Sixth in Barcelona due to a penalty for a rider suit malfunction, he was on the podium at the next round in Germany. And when he was eighth in Aragon due to a tyre issue, he was on the podium the following week at Misano.

Quartararo married his new-found knack for overcoming problems with the devastating speed he always possessed aboard a much-improved Yamaha – though he admitted to Autosport earlier this year that he had to ride the M1 in a way that is “not really natural”.

Becoming France’s first world champion in MotoGP and ending a drought for Yamaha dating back to 2015 with two races to spare, Quartararo fulfilled the promise he first displayed in his breakout rookie campaign in 2019.

Mugello win was key in Quartararo's title push

Photo by: Gold and Goose / Motorsport Images