He may have missed its finale, but 2025 was all about one man—and more specifically—that man’s return. He is Marc Marquez.
Photography by Gold & Goose
Marc Marquez capped quite possibly the greatest comeback in MotoGP history by claiming a ninth World title, and a seventh in MotoGP, making child’s play of the competition along the way.
At one point this was going to be one of the most dominant campaigns in history. Now in factory Ducati red, the 32-year-old won 14 of the year’s first 15 Sprints (he finished second in the other), stood on the podium in the first 17 Sunday races of the year, bar two, and amassed 11 Grand Prix successes for the third time in his career. In truth, the title fight was done and dusted as early as June.
A glance across the garage, and it was clear Marc’s genius papered over Ducati’s cracks. The struggles of teammate Francesco Bagnaia (just seven podiums, two wins) and VR46 Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio (four podiums, no wins), the grid’s other men aboard GP25s, showed engineers had taken a wrong turn with this year’s bike. That Alex Marquez was his brother’s closest challenger all year long on last year’s GP24 underlined the fact that last year’s machine still remained the benchmark for the class.
From a rather predictable and at times monotonous run to his coronation in Japan, MotoGP entered into a weird and wacky phase once Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi took the champion out in Indonesia. That spill injured Marquez’s right shoulder so badly, he missed the final four rounds. And in his absence, there were four different winners in the final five races, with Fermin Aldeguer (Gresini Ducati) and Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) taking unlikely first-time victories in Indonesia and Australia.
That late period, plus the progress of three of MotoGP’s other factories—Aprilia, KTM and Honda—pointed to closer competition in 2026. With Marc injured, Ducati’s six-rider fleet appeared vulnerable. Incredibly, its factory team scored just two points in Sunday races in the final five rounds. And there was genuine reason to think Aprilia’s RS-GP had surpassed the Desmosedici late in the year as Bezzecchi’s and Fernandez’s performances showed.
Another light came in the form of Pedro Acosta’s midseason turnaround. MotoGP’s next superstar in waiting sought to show he’d be anywhere other than KTM in the season’s opening months as he continued to crash and make mistakes. But an aero update midseason reversed his fortunes. From there, a less impulsive, more mature figure took hold to claim 12 podiums (Sprints included) in the season’s second half. It was hard to think of anyone riding better in October or November.
In terms of racing, 2025 won’t go down as a vintage. Bezzecchi pushed Marc hard at both Assen and Misano. Indonesia’s fight for second was memorable. And the Sprints in Germany, Indonesia and Portugal went down to the final lap. Otherwise, it was rare to see a group fighting at the front. 2027, with its reduced aerodynamics, move to Pirelli tires and discarding of Michelin’s badly outdated front, plus bans on ride-height and start devices, can’t come soon enough. The show demands it.
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Aside from racking up 11 Sunday wins, 14 Sprints and a record 545 points in 18 weekends, it was the manner in which Marc Marquez did it in 2025. For long stretches of the season, his superiority over the rest verged on the embarrassing, with wins at Sachsenring, Brno, Red Bull Ring, Balaton Park and Misano all achieved when nowhere close to his limit. At times, Marquez’s dominance resembled that of fellow major-injury hardman, Australian Mick Doohan, who reigned over 500cc GP racing in the late 1990s with an iron fist.
And that Marquez mustered it all from an injury place so bleak that even the most battle-hardened riders would have waved the white flag made it all the more compelling to watch. Once he worked out to let the races come to him, after crashes early at Jerez and Silverstone, he was peerless. And there were arguably just two occasions (the Silverstone Sprint and Barcelona race) when he was simply beaten by a faster rider. Despite missing the final four rounds, he was still a comfortable 78 points clear of second.
If it veered toward the predictable, the comeback narrative was always strong. And his crowning in Japan brought many of the torturous moments, from four operations on his upper right arm to overriding a woefully uncompetitive Honda, into focus.
“The most difficult thing was fighting against Marc,” he said of those tough moments. “One Marc said stop, the other Marc said continue. But in the end, I tried to follow my instinct, to give my 100 percent, and never give up.”
It wasn’t just the number 93’s riding that stood out.
“The humanity of Marc. I didn’t expect this man beyond the rider. This is the most surprising thing,” said Ducati Corse General Manager Gigi Dall’Igna. “I don’t know if he had this since he was young. He’s a real man, not only a champion.” The team’s swing from surrounding former golden boy Bagnaia to lauding its new rider had a destabilizing effect on the Italian.
In his place, Marc’s brother Alex rose to the fore. Taking full advantage of the sorted GP24 package, his consistency (15 Sprint podiums and 12 on Sundays) was astonishing for a rider whose previous best MotoGP finish was eighth overall. He backed up his maiden success at Jerez with further wins in Barcelona and Malaysia. Plus, he was the lone rider that could assert that he had beaten Marc in a straight fight before the championship went to Japan. For the first time in MotoGP history, brothers finished first and second in the championship.
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Having scored 700 points from a possible 728 in the 2023 Constructors’ Championship, then 722 from 740 in 2024, the only way was down for Ducati. That didn’t necessarily show early on in this campaign, as they locked out the season’s first four podiums. But other factories soon caught up.
Aprilia was the big surprise. It featured an all-new rider lineup in 2025 (with new crew chiefs), plus a new technical director in former KTM man Fabiano Sterlacchini. Yet the RS-GP went from a bike that performed beautifully in fast, low-grip conditions to an all-round contender. Bezzecchi’s run from Assen, which resulted in two wins and eight podiums, was enough to steal third overall from Bagnaia in the championship—a first for the factory. In that time, Fernandez also contributed a win and further podium. And all this despite its star signing, 2024 World Champion Jorge Martin, missing 15 of the year’s 22 rounds.
KTM endured a horrible winter. The negativity surrounding the company entering into receivership spilled over into its MotoGP efforts. “By [the] Thailand [test], we felt this drama at home,” admitted KTM Motorsport Director Pit Beirer. “[This affected] the spirit in the group. Then we went with too many options to the first GP.” But Acosta wouldn’t take it lying down. From July, it felt as though he was dragging the RC16 forward on otherworldly talent alone. He turned defensive riding into an art form, with performances in Indonesia and Portugal particularly standing out.
And Honda, the whipping boy of the class from 2020, finally got its act together. With new Technical Director Romano Albesiano at the helm, its MotoGP project was more coherent from the first months of the year. It could finally boast of a top-class test team, while it went from the slowest bike through the speed traps at the start to one of the fastest by November thanks to various engine updates. Its progress was such that it climbed out of the lowest concessions category thanks to Luca Marini’s seventh place at the final race.
“We are super close,” said Marini soon after. “Now, we need just to use well all the resources that we have; use all the tires that we have less. So with a good plan, we can handle it even without concessions, and it will be fantastic to improve the bike for next year.”
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As the title fight became an all-Marquez affair in the season’s first half, it was left to the reigning champion to bring the drama, even if he was absent. What can’t be denied was Jorge Martin living through a nightmare. An injury sustained on the first day of testing was compounded by another on the eve of the first Grand Prix. His comeback in Qatar was ruined when he crashed at over 100 mph and was tagged by Di Giannantonio.
Soon after that, he started to lose confidence in the project. A disagreement over a contract clause that confirmed his slot at Aprilia in 2026 and was enacted after six races (Martin wanted to delay, but Aprilia refused) led to the Spaniard angling for a move away in May.
Considering he had yet to complete a full race weekend for the brand through three of his own mistakes, sympathy was hard to come by. Yet fearing this could turn into a protracted saga, he agreed to stay in July. And he fronted up to those actions upon his return in Czechia. Rather than try to hide, Martin was refreshingly honest, insisting he had done little wrong while also explaining his mindset after the Qatar spill. “You are never prepared for being close to dying,” he said. Across 30 minutes when speaking in his second language, it felt as if Martin had earned the racing world’s grudging respect.
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blustery ex-airfield setting an hour north of London offered up some respite from the usual Ducati domination. Cold temperatures meant no red bike could run Michelin’s soft front tire, which led to Marquez and Bagnaia running off track at will. There was drama (and heartbreak) as a guaranteed Fabio Quartararo win slipped away as his ride-height device failed. And Bezzecchi took the most unlikely of victories from 10th on the grid—two weeks on from his teammate making clear his desire to leave Aprilia. Wild, bonkers fun.
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Johann Zarco at Le Mans. On paper, there wasn’t a great deal to set the heart racing, as the home hero’s tire gamble resulted in him nursing a 10-second advantage over Marquez with 15 laps to play. But the sense of jeopardy was never far away. Surely Zarco, with one MotoGP win in 149 previous appearances, couldn’t handle the pressure? Yet the fact he did, and the 120,000 fans celebrating a first home success at the premier class level since 1954, as well as his own parents bursting into spontaneous tears, was a reminder of what sport’s all about. It was a moment that will be talked about in France for decades to come.
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Marc Marquez, COTA. Only one rider in MotoGP would have the nerve to run off the grid to swap bikes (and tires) two minutes before the race started on a wet but drying track, instigating carnage and necessitating a restart procedure. It later transpired that not even Marc knew the rules. But his bare-faced admission after—that he did it to force a stoppage—was his ego on steroids. This was a literal showing of how everyone was following his lead. When it comes to manipulating a situation for his own ends, the Catalan has no equals.
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Pecco Bagnaia in Indonesia. The triple champ’s trials and tribulations were one of 2025’s major storylines. But never did they appear as preposterous quite like those 10 days spanning races at Motegi and Mandalika. Returning to the bones of his beloved GP24, he dominated the opposition in Japan. But a stiffer Michelin rear tire construction threw him off course in a way few could have expected just five days later. He was a baffling three seconds slower per lap in the Sprint. And he crashed out of Sunday’s race when chasing down perennial backmarker Somkiat Chantra. From glory to meltdown in five baffling days.
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Frenchman, who was clearly on the grid’s worst bike. His heroics singlehandedly saved Yamaha’s blushes in the inline-four M1’s final season. One positive was the return of its qualifying potential. And watching the 26-year-old extract the absolute maximum over a flying lap became one of the year’s great pleasures. Jerez was a case in point as he smashed the previous lap record by four-tenths to take a first pole in three years. Four more would follow, indicating the ’21 champ was going above and beyond all season. CN
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