Cycle News In The Paddock
COLUMN
Marginal Gains, Big Results
The closing rounds of an epic 2025 season may come trailing in after the main event, Marc Marquez’s inspiring comeback championship. But they have the potential to be quite interesting, all the same.
But only if early signs in the post-summer season actually mean something.
Namely, the growing strength of at least two of Ducati’s rival machines: Aprilia and (gasp) Honda.
Aprilia is not so surprising. The RS-GP is the only bike other than Ducati to have won any dry races since Brad Binder’s Jerez Sprint win for KTM way back in April 2023.
Note dry races, because of Johann Zarco’s thrilling Honda win in a topsy-turvy wet French GP. That was a triumph of tactical gambling and controlled risk rather than any machine advantage. But still a win, Honda’s first since two weeks before Binder’s Spanish victory, when Rins won in the USA.
When conditions are equal, however, only Aprilia has actually—now and then—shown the Ducatis the way home. Especially at fast, rhythmic tracks: COTA, Silverstone and Catalunya. Elsewhere, and especially in hot conditions, erratic results have undermined their credentials.
The latter half of 2025, however, has seen growing strength, and against the odds.
Firstly, Aprilia lost both factory team riders (and race winners) Aleix Espargaro to retirement and a testing role at Honda, and Maverick Vinales to KTM. And they lost technical director Romano Albesiano, architect of their success so far, to Honda.
Secondly, they lost star-signing Jorge Martin. The 2024 champion was injured at the first 2025 test and has been experiencing frequent injuries since then, including during testing at home, more seriously during his comeback at Qatar, and again more recently at Motegi, just as he was finding his feet again.
Despite all this, nominal number two rider Marco Bezzecchi has, since even before the summer break, shown himself several times to be the main opposition to Marc Marquez. A win and four seconds were underlined by the Sprint win at Misano, after he pushed Marquez into crashing out of the lead.
Next time out, in Japan, Aprilia’s threat was snuffed out at the first corner on Saturday, when Martin barreled into Bezzecchi, taking both out. Martin suffered further fractures (collarbone this time); Bezzecchi escaped merely battered and bruised.
The recovering Bezzecchi firmly seized the early advantage on the first day in Indonesia, in the blazing heat that had previously made Aprilias wilt. The bike is seriously competitive. And with tech development frozen next year, it’s looking good for 2026 as well.
The biggest improver, because it’s coming from so far behind, is Honda. Zarco’s flash in the pan apart, at Motegi, Joan Mir gave the much-maligned RC213V its first podium since Marquez was third at the same circuit in 2023.
In fairy stories, sleeping giants wake in an instant. In MotoGP, it takes a bit longer. More than six years, in fact, in a process that for Honda has only just begun.
The racing giant fell asleep after 2019, the last year they won the constructors’ title, ending eight years of domination. Next year, Marc crashed to begin his five years in the doldrums, and it became clear that his towering talent had masked the RC213V’s failing strength. Others had found the bike increasingly hard to tame and easy to crash.
Mir’s third at Honda’s home circuit, after qualifying second, less than a tenth off pole, was the latest and strongest evidence that the giant is beginning to stir. It follows improving results from teammate Luca Marini, who has consistently scored points and racked up top 10s, with a best of fifth.
And it confirms a new spirit at Honda, where Mir (and others) have spoken of “big changes in the way of working.”
Honda and Yamaha had been outpaced by their reluctance to embrace the new Ducati-led Formula One-inspired design philosophy. Deeply traditional, preferring steady development to leaps of inspiration, and used to operating within their own closed circles, both previously dominant Japanese makes were rapidly left behind.
Now HRC team principal Alberto Puig has been able to inspire a fresh, outward-looking and more energetic approach.
Significantly, Honda turned to Europe for the first time, commissioning swingarms and a chassis from Kalex.
More importantly, at the end of 2024, they poached Aprilia’s Albesiano to bring fresh thinking, and boosted the test team with his ally Aleix Espargaro. During this season, they lured KTM’s Kurt Trieb, the engineer behind MotoGP’s most powerful motor.
Improved performance is the first fruit of fresh thinking, and the concession system allows for HRC midseason development and a raft of parts, including engine and electronic developments, several chassis and swingarm changes, and radical aero upgrades.
It proves something else. Margins between success and failure in MotoGP are very small. Something that is helping the slow one and should have Ducati slightly worried. CN
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