The MotoGP season so far: Motorsport.com's rider ratings

Rider										Average
Marc Marquez	9	10	10	8	6	10	9	8	10	8.9
Danilo Petrucci					9	7	6	9	7	7.6
Valentino Rossi	7	8	5	10	7	9	9	6	6	7.4
Andrea Dovizioso	8	9	8	8	5	6	5	6	8	7.0
Maverick Vinales	7	6	8	7	8	8	7	5	6	6.9
Jorge Lorenzo	9	3	9	7	10	9	6	5	2	6.7
Pol Espargaro	7	7	7	7	7	3	8	8	6	6.7
Scott Redding	6	7	7	5	6	6	3	9	8	6.3
Andrea Iannone	6	4	7	6	5	7	4	7	6	5.8
Dani Pedrosa	5	5	3	6	6	7	7	5	6	5.6
Cal Crutchlow	7	4	4	5	4	4	7	6	9	5.6
Aleix Espargaro	4	4	7	8	5	5	4	5	4	5.1
Bradley Smith	6	5	4	4	4	8	5	4	4	4.9

It's also worth mentioning Jack Miller was awarded a 10 for his star turn at Assen, although the Australian is not a regular on our ratings section and it would be therefore unfair to include his average score here.

The same applies for Hector Barbera, Eugene Laverty and Yonny Hernandez, who have all earned themselves occasional honourable mentions but not enough to give them a representative average.

Marquez the stand-out

Of the seven 10s we've dished out so far, four have gone to Marc Marquez - who, by any metric, has to be considered the outstanding rider of the first half of the campaign.

The Spaniard was given perfect scores for his wins in Argentina, Austin and Germany, while his agonising near miss in Mugello also earned him top marks. 

But what really makes Marquez's average of 8.9 is his sheer consistency, which is reflected by the championship table that he leads by a comfortable 48 points. The lowest score he's been awarded all season is 6 after his Le Mans crash, from which he recovered to still score three points in 13th.

Contrast that to Lorenzo, who has as many wins as Marquez - three - but has failed to score twice and finished outside the top nine on another two occasions.

The Yamaha rider's lacklustre showings in Argentina and Germany in particular have taken their toll on his average score, which stands at 6.7 after nine races. His score is also harmed by the fact that he only has one 10 to his name, for his crushing Le Mans win.

Also with one sole 10 to his name is Lorenzo's teammate Valentino Rossi, the Italian picking up his top score at Jerez. The Doctor's other win at Barcelona, much like Lorenzo's victories in Qatar and Mugello, was only compensated with a 9.

Rossi may be further back in the title chase, 11 points behind Lorenzo and a mammoth 59 behind Marquez, but the scores he accrued when suffering his DNFs (Austin, Mugello, Assen) have enabled him to maintain a somewhat healthier average of 7.4.

Jorge Lorenzo, Yamaha Factory Racing, Valentino Rossi, Yamaha Factory Racing, Marc Marquez, Repsol Honda Team

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography

Petrucci surprises

Perhaps the biggest surprise thrown up by the average scores is Danilo Petrucci. In his five outings since recovering from his hand injury, he has never been rated lower than 6, an honour shared only with Marquez, with two 9s giving him an average (7.6) second only to the Spaniard.

Two others that have shown commendable consistency - at least in our ratings, if not necessarily the championship itself - are Andrea Dovizioso and Maverick Vinales, with averages of 7.0 and 6.9 respectively.

Neither have scored lower than 5 all year, although Dovizioso has only been handed a 9 once (in Argentina) while Vinales has yet to crack 8.

Pol Espargaro also deserves an honourable mention for his solid campaign aboard the Tech 3 Yamaha, the young Spaniard recording five straight 7s to start the year.

Only his nightmare Mugello weekend really drags him down in our averages - without that, he would be up ahead of Dovizioso, Vinales and Lorenzo in fourth place.

Danilo Petrucci, Pramac Racing

Photo by: Toni Börner

Pedrosa on the back foot

By nearly any measure, the biggest underperformer of the first half of the season has been Dani Pedrosa, who despite being fourth in the points has been shaded by Honda teammate Marquez almost everywhere.

Teammate comparisons are integral to rating a rider's performance for obvious reasons, and of all the match-ups present here, the battle between the Repsol Honda riders has been most one-sided.

Team	Rider 1	Scores		Rider 2
Honda	Marc Marquez	8	0	Dani Pedrosa
Yamaha	Valentino Rossi	5	3	Jorge Lorenzo
Ducati	Andrea Dovizioso	6	2	Andrea Iannone
Suzuki	Maverick Vinales	7	1	Aleix Espargaro
Tech 3	Pol Espargaro	8	1	Bradley Smith
Pramac	Danilo Petrucci	3	1	Scott Redding

Teammate battles don't include ties

Perhaps that says more about Marquez's brilliance than it does about Pedrosa's own performances, but it's still clear that the latter's campaign has been devoid of any standout showings so far - hence the 30-year-old having yet to score better than a 7.

In much the same boat are Aleix Espargaro (average 5.1) and Bradley Smith (4.9), both of whom have been outclassed by their respective teammates, Vinales and Pol Espargaro, fairly comprehensively.

Both have scored one 8 apiece, but this hasn't been enough to prevent them languishing at the bottom of our rankings for now.

Scott Redding (6.3) may have only bested Danilo Petrucci once so far, but the pair have only shared the track five times, making the comparison slightly less relevant - while Cal Crutchlow (5.6), the sole rider for LCR is often a tough one to accurately mark precisely because of having no teammate.

The rest

Rating the whole field in MotoGP every race is a very difficult thing to do objectively, because further down the order information about the factors that affected a rider's performance tends to be more scarce.

It's only when one of the lesser-heralded riders (Miller at Assen, for instance) makes a welcome cameo further up the field that it becomes possible to rate them properly. 

Here's a quick guide to the occasional interlopers, for which we can't give a meaningful average, and the marks they scored at certain races:

Rider	Race	Position	Rating
Jack Miller	Assen	1	10
Hector Barbera	Argentina	5	9
Jack Miller	Sachsenring	7	9
Hector Barbera	Qatar	9	8
Eugene Laverty	Argentina	4	8
Hector Barbera	Sachsenring	9	8
Hector Barbera	Jerez	10	7
Eugene Laverty	Jerez	9	7
Yonny Hernandez	Assen	DNF	7

What we can conclude is that Barbera - the season's best-scoring Ducati rider - would have an average score close to the likes of Petrucci and Rossi, such has been his consistency on the Avintia-run GP14.

Much the same applies to Eugene Laverty on the Aspar GP14, the Irishman clinging on to his place in the top 10 of the standings overall ahead of several more illustrious names.

Miller is a little harder to nail down, his Assen win and Sachsenring performance counter-balanced by a couple of DNFs and the effects of his early season foot injury, while Yonny Hernandez would still probably find himself down at the Smith end of the spectrum having scored only three points all year.

Hector Barbera, Avintia Racing

Photo by: Gold and Goose Photography