Ranking the top 10 riders of MotoGP 2022

Francesco Bagnaia ended a 15-year MotoGP drought for Ducati in a dramatic 2022 season that saw him come from 91 points behind to beating 2021 world champion Fabio Quartararo.

In total, seven riders representing four brands won grands prix in 2022, with all six manufacturers making podium appearances this season for the first time. Adding to that, a total of 14 riders scored podiums, while there were two first-time race winners in 2022.

Aprilia won for the first time in the modern era, while Suzuki went out on top despite the Japanese marque’s baffling decision to pull the plug on its MotoGP project just one season into a new five-year deal with Dorna Sports. Honda registered its second winless campaign in three seasons, but still registered two podiums across a hugely difficult year.

As is tradition, Autosport ranks who it believes were the top 10 riders of a stacked grid in 2022.

10. Miguel Oliveira – KTM

Oliveira was the only winner for KTM in 2022, taking to the top step twice before joining Aprilia next year

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Championship: 10th, 149 points
Total podiums: 2
Best result: 1st (Indonesian GP and Thailand GP)
Best qualifying: 7th (Indonesian GP)

Miguel Oliveira was the only KTM rider, for the first time since it starting winning grands prix in 2020, to take victory in what was an underwhelming 2022 campaign for the Austrian brand.

The Portuguese rider’s two wins came in similarly wet conditions at the Indonesian GP held at the new Mandalika Circuit in round two, and in MotoGP’s return to Thailand later in the season.

The RC16’s poor qualifying form meant Oliveira spent most weekends putting in recovery rides on Sundays, with his top 10 appearances outside of his wins limited to just three.

Off to pastures new in 2023 with RNF and Aprilia, Oliveira must start showing more consistency in qualifying and in races next year if he has any aspirations of breaking out of MotoGP’s midfield.

9. Marco Bezzecchi – VR46 Ducati

Moto2 graduate Bezzecchi was the best newcomer with VR46 and took pole in Thailand

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Championship: 14th, 111 points
Total podiums: 1
Best result: 2nd (Dutch GP)
Best qualifying: 1st (Thailand GP)

The latest product of Valentino Rossi’s riders’ academy, Marco Bezzecchi started to make waves in the early races of his rookie campaign aboard his 2021-spec Ducati.

Making it into the top 10 with ninth in Argentina, he repeated that feat again at the Spanish GP and qualified on the front row in tricky conditions at Mugello to springboard himself to a strong fifth in the race.

A maiden podium followed at Assen's Dutch TT prior to the summer, while Bezzecchi stormed to pole in Thailand.

Consistency eluded the Italian 24-year-old in the early part of the year, but his tally of top-10 finishes stood at nine come the end of the 20-round championship to earn top rookie status.

Getting a 2022-spec Ducati for his second year in the top class, Bezzecchi looks like he could follow in Enea Bastianini’s footsteps as a race-winning sophomore.

8. Marc Marquez – Honda

Marquez enjoyed his best performance of another injury-disrupted season at Phillip Island as Honda invariably struggled

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Championship: 13th, 113 points
Total podiums: 1
Best result: 2nd (Australian GP)
Best qualifying: 1st (Japanese GP)

The 2022 season was another year fraught with injury problems for Marc Marquez, as the six-time MotoGP world champion missed two rounds early on due to vision problems from a crash in Indonesia, while a fourth major arm operation after Mugello led to a six-race spell on the sidelines.

Marquez also had to contend with a Honda that had been radically overhauled in the winter, to the point where he couldn’t use his strong front-end feel to make up time.

Despite all of this, Marquez ended the year as the top Honda rider by a whopping 57 points and scored the marque’s best result of second in Australia – while he was only ever beaten on track by team-mate Pol Espargaro once all season.

Firmly pointing in the right direction in terms of his physical state, Marquez’s big limitation now seems to be the machinery he is fighting with.

7. Brad Binder – KTM

Binder didn't win a race in 2022, but furthered his credentials with a consistent campaign aboard a bike that didn't take the step forward of its rivals

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Championship: 6th, 188 points
Total podiums: 3
Best result: 2nd (Qatar GP, Japanese GP and Valencia GP)
Best qualifying: 3rd (Japanese GP)

Brad Binder may have registered his first winless season in MotoGP in 2022, but was easily KTM’s best rider across another consistent campaign in trying circumstances.

KTM didn’t make the steps forward its European rivals in Aprilia and Ducati did this year, with rear tyre contact and drive grip holding Binder back. But he beat race-winning team-mate Oliveira 13-3 on-track in 2022 and scored 17 top 10 finishes from 20 races despite only cracking the top 10 in qualifying six times. He also made the most overtakes of anyone this season, with 96.

All of this once again netted Binder sixth in the championship, a result the South African believes he is much better than. The 27-year-old needs KTM to hold up its end of the bargain in 2023 if he is to start making good on the form he has shown in his short MotoGP career so far.

6. Jack Miller – Ducati

Miller produced his best performance of the season to win at Motegi, but there were too many indifferent days too

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Championship: 5th, 189 points
Total podiums: 7
Best result: 1st (Japanese GP)
Best qualifying: 1st (San Marino GP)

Jack Miller threw together another solid season in his last as a factory Ducati rider, ending a pole drought dating back to Argentina in 2018 and taking arguably his greatest win.

The Australian’s lights-to-flag ride to victory at the Japanese GP was Miller at a level he had yet to show in his MotoGP career. A further six podium appearances helped Ducati to a third-consecutive constructors’ crown.

But the good days for Miller were peppered with disappointing drops in form. He dropped outside of the top 10 four times at the chequered flag in 2022 for various reasons.

Inconsistency is an all too familiar tale for a rider who should have finished higher than his eventual fifth in the championship, with a 76-point deficit to world champion team-mate Francesco Bagnaia.

Only beating future KTM team-mate Brad Binder by a single point on a vastly superior bike is a clear sign Miller must do better in 2023, or he could find his tenure in MotoGP meeting a premature end.

5. Aleix Espargaro – Aprilia

Aleix Espargaro took a long-awaited maiden MotoGP win with Aprilia in Argentina, but faded from title contention

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Championship: 4th, 212 points
Total podiums: 6
Best result: 1st (Argentina GP)
Best qualifying: 1st (Argentina GP and Catalan GP)

As the only manufacturer still running under concession regulations, Aprilia had to build on the momentum of 2021 when it achieved its first podium in the modern MotoGP era.

From the off in winter testing it was clear the RS-GP Aleix Espargaro had at his disposal was a strong package, with fourth on the opening night of the year in Qatar a sign of things to come.

In Argentina, at round three, Espargaro used the Aprilia’s strengths in low-grip conditions to fend off Pramac’s Jorge Martin to claim his long-awaited maiden grand prix victory.

Following that up with four more consecutive third-place finishes from Portugal to Mugello, Espargaro was thrust into an unlikely championship contention, where he remained through to the penultimate round of the season.

The podiums dried up in the second half of the year, however, with Espargaro making one final rostrum appearance at Aragon as he admitted Aprilia simply wasn’t good enough yet to sustain a championship charge alongside Francesco Bagnaia and Fabio Quartararo.

An unfortunate technical issue in the Valencia finale robbed him of a top three championship position, but Espargaro and Aprilia can now genuinely be considered among the title favourites for 2023.

4. Alex Rins – Suzuki

Rins signed off on Suzuki's MotoGP involvement in style with an end of year flourish and won the final race of the season in Valencia

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Championship: 7th, 173 points
Total podiums: 4
Best result: 1st (Australian GP and Valencia GP)
Best qualifying: 5th (Malaysian GP and Valencia GP)

Alex Rins came into 2022 under extreme pressure after a woeful 2021 campaign. Suzuki made significant enough gains with its GSX-RR for the bike to be considered the best the marque had built since its return in 2015.

Third in Argentina and two of Rins’ finest rides in America and Portugal, where he carved through the pack to take second and recovered from 23rd on the grid in the latter to finish fourth, put him in the joint lead of the championship after five races.

Then Suzuki announced after the Spanish GP that it would be quitting MotoGP at the end of the year and everything changed. The mental toil the uncertainty of the situation took on both Rins and team-mate Joan Mir led to back-to-back DNFs for the pair, while Rins was wiped out in a Turn 1 collision in Barcelona which fractured his wrist and ruled him out of the German GP.

It wasn’t until the Australian GP that Rins stood on the podium again, the Spaniard carving his way through from 10th on the grid to score victory before adding to that with a stunning ride to the win in Suzuki’s swansong in Valencia.

PLUS: Why the 2022 MotoGP season had a bittersweet ending

What could have been for Rins had Suzuki not decided to quit remains one of 2022’s great questions and his shift to Honda with LCR in 2023 may take some time to bear fruit. At least he firmly put the woes of 2021 behind him.

3. Enea Bastianini – Gresini Ducati

Four wins for Bastianini in 2022, including at Le Mans, marked a superb second campaign in MotoGP

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Championship: 3rd, 219 points
Total podiums: 6
Best result: 1st (Qatar GP, Americas GP, French GP, Aragon GP)
Best qualifying: 1st (Austrian GP)

Enea Bastianini impressed in his rookie campaign for Avintia on a two-year-old Ducati with two podium finishes. As such, big things were expected from the Italian on his switch to Gresini aboard a 2021-spec Ducati.

Topping the opening test of the year in Malaysia, Bastianini carried that form through to the opening round of the season in Qatar when he qualified second and went on to claim a maiden win.

A second victory in four races at COTA put him into the lead of the championship, with Bastianini emerging as favourite for a factory Ducati team seat for 2023 when he beat Francesco Bagnaia in a duel that ended in a humiliating crash for the latter.

Bastianini won again at the Aragon GP after beating Bagnaia in a last-lap duel, and pressured his future team-mate in the penultimate round in Malaysia in a bid to keep his title hopes alive.

Three DNFs and inconsistent results around his victories, with Bastianini outside of the top six eight times, did him few favours. Neither did qualifying outside the top 10 on nine occasions. 

Clearly immensely talented and deserving of his factory Ducati team promotion, Bastianini must stamp out all inconsistency in his results if he is to challenge for the championship in 2023.

2. Fabio Quartararo – Yamaha

Quartararo couldn't keep pace with Ducati in the latter stages of the season and his once-commanding advantage was eaten away

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Championship: 2nd, 248 points
Total podiums: 8
Best result: 1st (Portuguese GP, Catalan GP and German GP)
Best qualifying: 1st (Indonesian GP)

Even before the 2022 season got underway, reigning world champion Fabio Quartararo was facing a difficult title defence.

A more powerful engine Yamaha had developed for 2022 had to be scrapped in the winter due to unreliability, forcing it to use a motor with similar power outputs to 2021 – when the marque regularly brought up the rear in the speed charts.

A miserable run to ninth in the Qatar GP signalled the difficulties Quartararo would face in 2022 on an underpowered Yamaha that wasn’t much use in pack races either.

Despite the bike’s deficiencies, he was the only Yamaha rider to score any podiums. The Frenchman opened his account with second at the wet Indonesian GP at round two, before taking his first win of the season in Portugal to take the series lead.

Victories in Barcelona and Germany during difficult afternoons for his main title rivals suggested 2022 was very much his title to lose. Podiums at Yamaha’s weakest tracks in Mugello and Red Bull Ring did nothing to quell this.

But the bike’s issues coupled with key errors conspired against him. Particularly costly were his collision with Aleix Espargaro at Assen, which netted him a long lap penalty for Silverstone and in turn meant he could only finish eighth at the British GP; a tyre pressure error in the wet Thai GP that left him 17th; and a crash while trying to recover from an early mistake in Australia.

PLUS: Was the MotoGP 2022 title won by Bagnaia or lost by Quartararo?

A valiant ride to third in Malaysia as Francesco Bagnaia registered his seventh win of the season kept the championship alive to the final round, but he was 23 points adrift and could do no better than fourth in Valencia to see his throne change hands.

Ending the year 186 points clear of the combined total of the other four Yamaha riders who contested races in 2022 highlights just how good Quartararo was in 2022 – but it simply wasn’t enough to topple Ducati and Bagnaia. Much like Marc Marquez, Quartararo is at the mercy of his machine right now and Yamaha has a big winter ahead where it must build a more competitive bike to avoid a repeat of 2022.

PLUS: Why Yamaha has just six months to safeguard its MotoGP champion's future

1. Francesco Bagnaia – Ducati

Bagnaia magnificently overhauled his mid-season points deficit to recover the title

Photo by: Ducati Corse

Championship: 1st, 265 points
Total podiums: 10
Best result: 1st (Spanish GP, Italian GP, Dutch TT, British GP, Austrian GP, San Marino GP, Malaysian GP)
Best qualifying: 1st (Spanish GP, French GP, German GP, Dutch TT, Aragon GP)

Francesco Bagnaia’s breakout year in 2021 when he won four races and put on a late title charge positioned the Ducati rider as Fabio Quartararo’s biggest threat for the 2022 campaign.

A difficult pre-season for Ducati’s 2022 bike led Bagnaia to ditching the full 2022 engine due to its aggression under acceleration, instead choosing a hybrid 2021/2022 unit on the eve of the opening round.

Bagnaia crashed out of the Qatar GP and didn’t score a podium in any of the next four races as he continued to look for a better front feeling on the GP22. From the Spanish GP, he decided to stop throwing set-up changes at the bike and instead focused on finding the feeling he needed.

PLUS: Why the new MotoGP world champion has a stronger character than it seems

This led to his first win of seven in 2022, although DNFs in France, Barcelona and Germany – two of which his own errors – between his Jerez and Mugello victories put him 91 points behind Quartararo at the season's midway point.

Bagnaia claims he only “lost faith in the championship for half-an-hour, one hour” after the German GP, and rebounded emphatically with four straight wins from Assen through to Misano. Having registered a fifth DNF in Japan trying to pass Quartararo for eighth, two third places in Thailand and Australia vaulted Bagnaia into the championship lead by 14 points heading to Malaysia.

Victory in Sepang and a steady ride to ninth in Valencia when the pressure was at its worst showed Bagnaia had learned from the error of his prior five DNFs. It was enough for him to become Ducati’s first world champion since 2007 and complete one of the great sporting comebacks, with no rider in MotoGP history having ever overturned a deficit as large as 91 points – nor with five DNFs to their scorecard – to win the title.

PLUS: Why Bagnaia's MotoGP triumph is as worthy as Stoner's Ducati breakthrough

The Italian brushed aside exterior pressure for a drink/driving offence in Ibiza during the summer break and criticism for his bizarre Dennis Rodman (a basketball player convicted of spousal abuse and a keen supporter for the North Korean regime) helmet design at Misano to not let the ultimate prize slip from his grasp.

Clearly, Bagnaia has work to do both on track and off it to mould himself into a true world championship ambassador for MotoGP. The talent and determination he showed in 2022 makes him a worthy champion, nevertheless, and he will be a hard rider to beat next season if the Ducati remains the dominant bike.

The Assen victory was the first of four in a row for Bagnaia that helped turn the tide in his favour

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