In many ways, the 2025 MotoGP championship promises to be one of the more interesting in recent years. Perhaps not the most closely contested – the general consensus among fans and pundits alike is that you can take your pick of whether it will be Pecco Bagnaia or Marc Márquez who ends up lifting the 2025 MotoGP crown – but behind the title fight, there are some fascinating developments to watch out for.
We may as well start with that title battle. The dominance of Ducati was so great last year that it is hard to imagine anyone other than Marc Márquez or Pecco Bagnaia walking off with the title. Despite the fact that they are sticking with their GP24 engine – a little more on that later – both Bagnaia and Márquez showed pace during the test, Márquez’ race simulation at Buriram almost fast enough to win a sprint race.
The fact that, for example, Alex Márquez was also quick during testing can’t disguise the fact of the strength of the Ducati Lenovo line up. Between them, Bagnaia and Márquez have a grand total of 11 world titles, 8 in the premier class. The riders capable of beating them – Pedro Acosta, Jorge Martin, Fabio Quartararo – are on bikes which are either arguably or demonstrably inferior, making it hard to tackle two of the best riders on the bikes which are a step ahead.
So who is it going to be? So far, the expected fireworks in the Ducati Lenovo garage have failed to appear. That is predictable, given that both Márquez and Bagnaia had much higher priorities during the preseason. First, they needed to make sure they had a bike which was capable of winning the title. Beating their teammate only becomes a priority once the rubber hits the track at Buriram.
Even once the championship starts, we are unlikely to see any fireworks that might happen. Both Bagnaia and Márquez know that the best place to do their talking is on the track. So if you are hoping for fireworks, that is where you are going to find it.
The two have contrasting styles making a clash on track almost inevitable. Bagnaia likes to push hard and ride fast at the front, laying down a pace so withering that no one can follow. Márquez likes to stalk his rivals, keeping his powder dry until he needs it, safe in the knowledge that no one is as comfortable in wheel-to-wheel combat as he is.
That doesn’t mean that Bagnaia is just going to roll over and let Márquez past. Bagnaia can fight when he needs to, as he so ably demonstrated during the scintillating first three laps of the Malaysian GP at Sepang last year. We can only hope that he has to call on those skills a lot more often this year.
The battle will be brutal, and it will be hard fought. But it should also be fair.
Ducati
Can Ducati dominate in 2025 as they did in 2024? There is good reason to believe both that they will continue to rule MotoGP, but that their reign will be slightly less iron-fisted than last year. The Bologna factory spent all preseason testing trying to make the 2025 engine work, only for the riders to reject it in favor of an updated version of the 2024 motor.
The new engine made more power and delivered that power more smoothly, but Ducati couldn’t fix the engine braking issues that plagued the new powerplant. The influence of aerodynamics and ride-height devices on acceleration means that gains there are limited, and the focus has shifted to braking. The new engine was costing the riders too much in braking that they couldn’t make up in acceleration gains.
That’s not to say that the GP24.9, as it has been dubbed, is going to be slow. The bike was already formidable in 2024, and with more refinements ahead of this year, the bike Pecco Bagnaia, Marc Márquez, and Fabio Di Giannantonio will field this year – we will have to start referring to it as the GP25, just for the sake of simplicity – will be more than competitive. A new swingarm, new ride-height device, new suspension, and a lot of work on electronics will make the bike much better.
But Ducati have lost a couple of their advantages for the 2025 season. They have reduced the number of bikes on the grid from 8 to 6, and the number of factory-spec bikes from 4 to 3. Ducati will have less data to analyze, from fewer of the same spec machines. They are still ahead of the other factories in that respect. But the gap has shrunk.
The smaller performance gap between the GP25 and the GP24, to be fielded by Franco Morbidelli, Fermin Aldeguer and Alex Marquez offers the three riders on the older bike a big opportunity, especially in the first part of the season, before Ducati find a bit more performance out of the factory bikes. Alex Márquez has been very impressive in preseason testing, and Franco Morbidelli has shown some of his previous speed. They are looking competitive.
Ducati may have lost two bikes off the grid, and lost world champion Jorge Martin to Aprilia and race winner Enea Bastianini to KTM, but they are still holding the strongest hand in the paddock.
Aprilia
2025 is to be the year that Aprilia make a big push to contending more closely for the MotoGP crown. To that end, they signed Jorge Martin to replace the retiring Aleix Espargaro. And when Maverick Viñales also announced he would be leaving, they hired the highly rated Marco Bezzecchi to join Martin.
But they didn’t just need better riders. They also needed an upgrade from the bike. And going by preseason testing, Aprilia have delivered in spades. The 2025 Aprilia RS-GP features a stronger engine, better aerodynamics, and an even better chassis. More importantly, they have also made big steps with electronics, one of the areas that was holding them back last year. The work of Romano Albesiano, before he left for HRC, and his team in Noale has paid off.
The bike is clearly more competitive. Marco Bezzecchi got off to a good start at Sepang, then finished the test in Buriram as third fastest, just a fraction behind Alex Márquez in second. His sprint race simulation was the fastest of those who did a simulation, and he had the third highest average top speed, just 2 km/h behind Pecco Bagnaia.
Perhaps a better indication of how good the Aprilia has been is to be found by the performance of Ai Ogura. The rookie has taken to the RS-GP like a duck to water, ending the Sepang test just a little behind fellow rookie Fermín Aldeguer on the Ducati, and as fastest rookie at Buriram, ahead of Trackhouse teammate Raul Fernandez, though Fernandez was riding injured.
But injuries are what have hampered Aprilia’s hopes so far this season. Star signing Jorge Martin crashed at Sepang after just 13 laps, and had to have surgery on his injured right hand. Then on Monday, when he was back on a supermoto bike for the first time since the Sepang crash, to prepare for the first round at Buriram, Martin highsided and fractured his left wrist, requiring surgery and screws to fix his left radius and scaphoid.
This second crash has particularly tough to accept, Martin said in a post on Instagram. “This time it has been especially hard, both physically and mentally, and means that for the first time in my career, I am going to miss the opening race of the season.” Probably not just the first race either. A fractured radius and scaphoid make it likely Martin will miss perhaps the first two or even three rounds of 2025. That will make defending his title very hard indeed.
But Martin made it clear at the Aprilia launch in Milan in January that he didn’t expect to defend his title. His focus was on getting the best out of the project this year, in the hope of fighting for a title next year. He wants to try to win races, and get on the podium, and get the best out of himself and the bike.
That, of course, is not helped by starting the season off with a serious injury. Martin has missed both tests in February, which could have helped him get used to the bike. And he is going to miss the opening race, and maybe more. There is much reason for optimism at Aprilia this year. But Martin’s start to 2025 is not one of those reasons.
KTM
There has been a lot of attention on KTM recently, for all the wrong reasons. Stefan Pierer’s hubris and insatiable appetite for growth came within a whisker of killing the company he saved from bankruptcy in 1992. Ironic, then, that 32 years later, he nearly drove it to the same fate.
For now, though, KTM as a motorcycle manufacturer is saved. On Tuesday, a majority of KTM’s creditors accepted the deal on the table (30% of the debt to be repaid by May 23rd, the rest written off), and insolvency was averted. KTM now has to find roughly €800 million in financing before that date, most of which it already has from partners such as Bajaj Auto, CFMoto, and Fountainvest.
The price KTM paid was that Stefan Pierer is out as CEO, replaced by Gottfried Neumeister. And Pierer will lose a controlling stake in the Austrian manufacturer.
It does mean, however, that KTM will continue to race in MotoGP, for 2025 at least, and probably beyond. With that weight off their minds, Pedro Acosta, Brad Binder, the hundreds of people who work in KTM Factory Racing (and the thousands who help build the bikes KTM’s customers buy) can focus on the season ahead.
What can we expect from the Austrian manufacturer, now that the distraction of its imminent demise has been lifted? At the Sepang test, the times did not look promising. Nor did the look on Pedro Acosta’s face. But that was because KTM had brought a mountain of new parts to test, and given that Tech3 had two new riders, albeit the relative veterans Maverick Viñales and Enea Bastianini, the testing fell on the shoulders of Acosta and Red Bull KTM Factory Racing teammate Brad Binder.
There were far fewer new parts visible on the bikes at Buriram, as they approached their final form. And Maverick Viñales was closer to being up to speed than in Sepang. The bike is fast – Viñales had the second highest average top speed at Buriram, Binder not far behind – and the pace in long runs looks decent.
For the first half of a run, at least. For both Binder and Acosta, their pace fell off a cliff after around 12 laps, or sprint race distance. After that, they were a second or so slower, the rear spinning up and consuming the center of the tire. That looks like being an issue specific to Buriram, and the heat-resistant casing which Michelin uses at the Thai track. But if it isn’t, that could spell trouble.
Brad Binder faces 2025 needing to fix some of his mistakes from last season. Binder, a little like Pecco Bagnaia, needs to learn to accept when there is nothing more to be had from the bike, and to settle for a top five finish. In 2024, he too often asked too much of himself and of the bike.
He will have to muster up that self control in the face of his toughest teammate yet. Pedro Acosta has rightfully taken his place in the factory KTM squad, and is clearly a step faster than Binder. And given the bike he is on, a step faster than pretty much everyone bar Pecco Bagnaia, Marc Márquez, and if Fabio Quartararo were on a competitive bike, Quartararo.
Acosta’s challenge is different to Binder’s. The Spanish youngster needs to learn patience, and possibly to make a decision about his future. Though Acosta has remained loyal to KTM in his messaging, it is clear that he is in a hurry to start winning. It is also clear from his riding that he has the talent to do just that. If KTM can’t give him a bike to win, then it seems pretty clear he will be looking for a way out. Early, if necessary. And Ducati would be all too happy to have him.
Over at Tech3, now in full Red Bull KTM regalia, the fates of the two signings look to be diverging. Maverick Viñales has adapted relatively well, though he still struggles with setting a fast lap, which will hamper him when it comes to qualifying. But Enea Bastianini is looking miserable, completely uncomfortable on the bike and unable to get his head around braking and corner entry. It looks like being a long year for the Italian, unless he can make a step quickly.
Yamaha
In many ways, Yamaha is by far the most interesting prospect on the 2025 MotoGP grid, even if they are not the most competitive. After losing the championship in 2022, and falling further behind in 2023, the Japanese factory has taken the task of turning its fortunes around deadly seriously. So seriously that it has moved part of its race development to its European base in Gerno di Lesmo north of Milan, hiring a bunch of European engineers, including performance engineer Max Bartolini, and starting a V4 engine development project to run in parallel with its current inline four engine.
The biggest coup, though, was probably luring Pramac away from Ducati and signing them as a satellite team. Or rather, as a junior factory team, Pramac receiving the same support from Yamaha they had from Ducati and running the same spec of bike as Fabio Quartararo and Alex Rins in the factory squad.
Yamaha was aided in this endeavor by Marc Márquez, ironically. When Ducati signed Márquez over Jorge Martin, after Márquez refused to move to the Pramac squad and race a factory-spec Ducati, Pramac went off to greener pastures. Yamaha are offering better financial support and full factory backing.
In the end, of course, it comes down to the bike. And here, too, the Yamaha has made big steps forward. Fabio Quartararo was third fastest at the Sepang test, and was just a couple of km/h off Pecco Bagnaia’s top speed average at Buriram. The bike is much better to ride, feels less aggressive, and has a great front end. And it is fast, Yamaha managing to coax a comfortably large amount of horsepower from the inline four.
But the bike still has a major weakness. It lacks grip, especially on corner exit. So though the Yamaha may be fast, it is losing out on drive out of corners. That is an issue Yamaha have been struggling with for several years, and it remains an intractable problem for them. Yamaha have also put in a lot of work on electronics, and this is likely where improvement will come from eventually.
The improvement of the inline four’s performance does put a question mark over the future of Yamaha’s V4 project. Officially, the V4 will be introduced when it is faster than the I4 bike. Despite the theoretical advantages – lower weight and a narrower profile allowing more room for aero, especially in 2027 when the new more restrictive aero rules come into force – Yamaha’s decades of experience with the inline four keep bearing new fruit.
We will perhaps see the V4 for the first time at one of the official tests this year, either at Jerez, Aragon, or Misano. Or we might not see it at all.
As to Fabio Quartararo, he remains the spearhead of Yamaha’s championship assault, though he himself talks down any expectations. “I don’t expect anything,” he has said repeatedly throughout preseason testing. Expectations have bitten him in the behind in previous years, so he is just focused on getting the most out of himself and the bike. Where that is in respect to others, he has very little control over.
Yet there is room for optimism. As I said, the bike is looking pretty good, the M1 having made a big step forward over the winter. It doesn’t look like Yamaha is ready to challenge for a championship, or even race wins just yet. But don’t be surprised if you see the Yamaha on the podium from time to time.
Alex Rins has also adapted well to the new bike, though the Spaniard continues to struggle with the leg injury he sustained at Mugello in 2023. Rins is still limping, and though he says it doesn’t affect him on the bike, you do wonder just how freely he can ride when he is a step behind his teammate.
Finally, to the Pramac team. As at Tech3 for KTM, there is good news and bad news. Jack Miller is happy back in his former team, having ridden a Pramac Ducati for three seasons. He is also very comfortable on the Yamaha, finding it very easy and natural to ride. Miller is on a one-year deal, but is very well placed to earn an extension for 2026, and maybe beyond.
Teammate Miguel Oliveira is in a worse position. The Portuguese rider has struggled to adapt to the Yamaha, and has languished near the bottom end of the timesheets at both Sepang and Buriram. Like Enea Bastianini, he has to get his head around the very different nature of the bike. But fortunately for Oliveira, he has a two-year deal. Let’s hope he won’t need that long to adapt.
Honda
We can sum up Honda’s condition by saying that they are in pretty much the same situation as Yamaha are, only a year behind. So the once mighty HRC is having to turn its project on its head to build a more competitive bike. For the first time in their history, they have hired a non-Japanese engineer to head the Honda Racing Corporation’s technical efforts, poaching Romano Albesiano from Aprilia. (They had a shot at hiring Ducati’s Gigi Dall’Igna a year previously, but that was vetoed by Honda HQ.)
Perhaps the most important change for Honda has been the intensification of their testing program. Aleix Espargaro has been hired as a test rider in Europe, with Takaaki Nakagami doing testing duties in Japan. Two riders fast enough to have been in MotoGP last year, and Espargaro proving the bike does actually have performance.
HRC engineers have also sorted out the RC213V, finding the right direction. The Honda has gone from being a bike that did nothing well to being a very good bike to ride, giving its rider a lot of confidence, especially in the front end. But the bike still has a huge weakness, which is a lack of power, and to a lesser extent, a lack of grip.
The change in the Honda RC213V is clearest from the demeanor of Joan Mir. Last year, the 2020 world champion looked frustrated and helpless, unable to get anything from the bike and crashing in the attempt. At Sepang and Buriram, he was upbeat, happy, and enthusiastic about the challenge ahead. He emphasized that the bike was well down on power – of the slowest six bikes in average top speed at Buriram, four were Hondas – and that it also lacked grip. But at least he felt he had something to fight with.
That showed up on the timesheets as well. Mir finished the Sepang test as eighth quickest, and sixth fastest at Buriram. His sprint race simulation was second only to Marco Bezzecchi on the Aprilia. Proof that the Honda is quick.
The trouble is that the Honda is quick in the same way the Yamaha used to be: fast when riding alone, but lacking the top end to compete against other bikes in a battle. The bike itself may be capable of some pretty strong results. But those results may get lost in the general fray of racing.
Joan Mir’s task in 2025 is to keep the faith and not get dispirited by losing out in straight fights. More horsepower will come – Honda, like Yamaha, are Category D concessions manufacturers and can keep developing their engines through the next two seasons – and that may give him more weapons to battle with.
For Luca Marini, his job has been to push the project forward, and give the best feedback possible to help improve the bike. His feedback has helped – or at least, the Japanese engineers have been willing to listen to him – as the improved performance of the RC213V proves. His contract is up at the end of this season, so he will have to prove his value again to the project. Marini is a brilliant technical mind, but he owes his position more to his feedback and work ethic than to his chances of being world champion. He is a huge asset to HRC, but once they believe the bike is good enough, they may choose to move on from him and sign a rider based on pure talent, rather than development skills.
At LCR Honda, Johann Zarco has been the other development workhorse for HRC. Last year, he showed a willingness to work and to find the limits of what the bike was capable of. Now that the RC213V is better, he may once again get competition from Joan Mir for the best Honda rider. But the veteran is valuable to Honda, and valuable to LCR.
Rookies
What of the new kids on the 2025 block? We have already mentioned Ai Ogura and his speedy adaptation to the class. The reigning Moto2 champion has been quietly methodical and quick without being flashy, and should do well at the Trackhouse Aprilia team. Rookie of the year is going to be a close fought battle between Ogura and Gresini Ducati’s Fermín Aldeguer. And given just how strong a package Aldeguer’s GP24 is, that speaks very highly of Ogura.
There are a lot of expectations on Aldeguer’s shoulders, but so far, the Spaniard has capable of bearing them. The Gresini Ducati rider has adapted well to MotoGP, and is as fast as you would want from a rookie. He doesn’t look like making the impact that Pedro Acosta did last year. But he will give Gresini and Ducati exactly what they want.
Somkiat Chantra faces the toughest challenge of 2025. The LCR Honda Idemitsu rider is on the least competitive package and has to deal with adapting to MotoGP on a slow bike. He hasn’t looked comfortable, and he hasn’t been fast. He has an uphill task ahead of him.
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