A MotoGP rider scored the perfect 37 points at the French Grand Prix - while also perhaps positioning himself as the new 2026 title favourite.
That rider does not top our ranking this weekend. In a field of some serious ups and downs this weekend, several riders really separated themselves from peers on similar machinery - and one in particular did so to a ludicrous extent.
Agree, disagree or just want to send Val spiralling off down a ludicrous tangent? Leave your comments and questions on this post in The Race Members' Club and Val will tackle them in his Q&A later this week
Qualifying: 8th Sprint: 1st Grand Prix: 1st
Jorge Martin is no longer graded out as a nice little Aprilia reclamation story but as a bona fide title contender. He looked every bit one - every bit the title favourite, really - across the 40 racing laps at Le Mans.
I'm ever-so-slightly hung up on qualifying - he's still yet to outpace Marco Bezzecchi in a Q2 in their time as Aprilia team-mates, and the two tenths of a second defeat this time was certainly nothing egregious but ultimately limiting.
Not, as it turned out, limiting enough. Martin was ultimately the best rider on the best bike here, and capitalised accordingly. And the ability to make up positions early is very much part of his skillset - but he will need to rely on it less to feel comfortable in this title battle.
Qualifying: 3rd Sprint: 3rd Grand Prix: 2nd
Shaky but he'll take it.
Bezzecchi seemed well-aware throughout the weekend that he wasn't quite in the groove here, as particularly evidenced by his mistake on Saturday that let Pecco Bagnaia through into second (or the initial mini-error that had opened the door to Martin).
But a very strong qualifying and two lights-out launches meant he never had to worry too much about a big points hit to his title aspirations. The end result of a 'meh' weekend pace-wise was still 27 points, the second-highest tally of his year, but also a perfect signal of the high floor of performance for the championship leader.
Qualifying: 4th Sprint: 16th Grand Prix: 4th
Turbo-fast on Friday - and never really slow over the rest of the weekend - Di Giannantonio had a more eventful weekend than he, VR46 or Ducati would have liked.
Second row, instead of the first (though it turned into that for Sunday after Marc Marquez's withdrawal), was likely a direct consequence of a bee getting into his helmet and compromising his main Q2 run. A dreadful start, which he acknowledged was partly his fault, wrecked the sprint even before he crashed at the Dunlop chicane.
But Sunday was good, as he chose not to chase the Aprilias and run his own pace - which paid off with the best available result of fourth, courtesy of the last-lap lunge on Acosta.
Qualifying: 7th Sprint: 6th Grand Prix: DNF
An outside contender for the #1 spot in these rankings until lap 20 on Sunday, when his front tyre cooled off once clear of Quartararo and he crashed trying to get temperature back in it.
It ended how it ended, and I'm running out of ways to rewrite the same paragraph every other weekend, so let's talk some positives.
Friday? Super strong. Q2? "Amazing lap", as acknowledged by Honda team-mate Luca Marini. The sprint? Good use of discretion, as he probably should have overtaken Quartararo there, too, but was wise not to risk it.
Qualifying: 17th Sprint: 14th Grand Prix: 13th
Toprak Razgatlioglu made solid work of getting his head around a Le Mans track that he had never visited before, much less raced at (unless you count the video game).
He was off the pace on Friday but found a decent chunk over one lap in qualifying, then seemed to figure out some race pace sprint-to-GP, having struggled to stop the bike due to rear-locking.
There were clearly errors in both races but an overall level of performance that was fundamentally sound relative to... two of the other three Yamahas.
Qualifying: 14th Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: 7th
Enea Bastianini said he "cannot be happy" with seventh place as he was too limited by bike stability - so unable to make any progress after moving up to 10th on the opening lap, with the remaining positional gains all coming from attrition.
He hadn't helped his weekend by crashing on the under-temperature hard front in Q1 - and also went down in the sprint.
But he was also very clearly the second-fastest KTM throughout - so while Acosta has pulled clear again, Bastianini hasn't worryingly regressed or anything like that.
Qualifying: 13th Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: 8th
Raul Fernandez's weekend was wrong-footed by that Friday afternoon bike fire that forced him to switch to his quite-different spare for the top 10 bid - which came up short.
As an Aprilia rider, he probably should be successful in navigating Q1, except the two riders who beat him then also beat Martin and Ogura in Q2.
He was managing a clutch issue in the sprint and crashed chasing after Alex Marquez, apologising to the team, then salvaged an acceptable result on Sunday.
But he really didn't enjoy how the bike felt in Bastianini's tow. Ogura and Martin, he said, make overtaking look "like we are on a MotoGP bike and the rest are on a Moto2 - but in my case it’s not like this".
Qualifying: 15th Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: 10th
Yet another Marini weekend that began promisingly on Friday and got derailed by a trip to Q1 - the result of some errors, some yellow flags and some traffic, and the cause of "really, really big frustration".
The worry is, while Marini's pace is never truly alarming, he seems to be missing the upper bound of performance accessed by Honda stablemates Mir or Zarco - though he does tend to make up with for it with professional work in races, as did happen on Sunday despite what he felt was the wrong front tyre choice.
But the laptime in Q1 was a real worry, and the crash in the sprint was an uncharacteristic letdown.
Qualifying: 10th Sprint: 8th Grand Prix: DNF
The younger Marquez's erratic form is one of the primary markers for just how screwed Ducati is without a fit Marc right now.
Two crashes really compromised the Spanish GP winner's weekend: number one came mid-Q2, costing him a shot at a more competitive starting position; number two came early in the race, as he popped an unwanted wheelie on acceleration mid-Dunlop chicane in what he called a "strange" but "really stupid" error.
But the pace just looked really middling outside of that. Perhaps it's better to crash here than last time out at Jerez or next time out at Barcelona.
Qualifying: 22nd Sprint: DNF Grand Prix: 16th
"Super excited and nervous" to ride after three years away (and nine years on from his aborted MotoGP career), Tech3’s Maverick Vinales stand-in Jonas Folger settled at around 2-2.5s off the pace for the weekend.
He crashed early in the sprint (claiming there was nothing explaining it in the data), and didn't really progress hugely towards the regulars through the weekend - there or thereabout on braking from the outset but missing corner speed.
The final result on Sunday was uninspiring, but was a consequence of building discomfort on the bike over 27 laps (he is 178cm tall whereas the regulars are all in the 168-171cm range, so it's not quite geared to him yet), and a conviction to avoid a double DNF.
Folger expects to be back on the bike at Barcelona, so Vinales's absence sounds like it will continue.
Qualifying: 21st Sprint: 12th Grand Prix: DNF
Though Saturday was totally unsalvageable, Brad Binder managed to sound positive on Friday and Sunday. In truth, it was a pretty grim weekend throughout.
Using Acosta as a reference nearly helped him into Q2 on Friday, which could have been transformative, but he was - in his own words - "useless" in Q1, and had too much tyre degradation in the sprint.
A more encouraging main race ended with a crash at Musee. He may well have worked into the top 10 otherwise, but it won't have fundamentally changed the outlook.