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Well begun is half done, says an old adage, and if we were to listen to it, Marc Marquez would already have the world title in his pocket. It is a provocation of course, but the fact remains that the Spanish champion's start to the championship has been perfect: full spoils on Saturday as well as Sunday, with the icing on the cake of pole positions. The result is 74 points in the bag and a feather pillow to dream of Austin.
His teammate Pecco Bagnaia cannot say the same. Not that two podiums in the Sprints and one from the GP are to be thrown away, but his initial outings have been off-kilter compared to expectations, and the rider from Piedmont can't get over it. For him, the days until he leaves for the United States will serve to mull over the 31-point gap and what went wrong.
We, meanwhile, look back at the past, at what Marc and Pecco did in the years when they won the World Championship or were otherwise in the top three positions at the end of the season. In the table below you can find the points scored in the first two Grands Prix, the points difference from the leader or second in case they were in the lead and the position in the championship at the end of the year.
It immediately emerges that for Marquez this 2025 has begun under the best auspices, because he had scored full points in the first two GPs only on one other occasion, the 2014 season in which he scored 10 wins in a row. In that case, the lead from the second (it was Pedrosa) was 14 points, so even more than the 16 he now has over Alex, because without the Sprints, 25 points were awarded per weekend against the current 37. Marc, however, has always got off to a good start: considering his 6 titles won in MotoGP, only twice did he find himself chasing after the first two race weekends, in 2017 (he was even at -37) and in 2018 (at minus 18).
Quite the opposite for Bagnaia, who seems used to racing on the comeback trail. From 2021 to the present, the Italian has never led the standings after the first two GPs, not even when he won the first race (as happened in 2023 and 2024). In the two years in which he won the title, Pecco has always played catch-up: in 2022 he was 29 points behind, 9 in 2023.
The peculiar thing is that in the past seasons Bagnaia was struggling with a 'new' bike, something that did not happen this year. In fact, the 'real' GP25 has been shelved: the engine has been rejected, aerodynamics and chassis will be tried again in the Jerez tests. This year's official Desmosedici is more of a restyling than a new model: the suspension changes, the lowering device has been evolved (but only Marc uses it) and there are other unidentifiable details.
In the last 5 years, Bagnaia only scored points in all races in 2021 (but there were no Sprints), so the start itself is almost comforting and probably also a result of the lesson learned last season. Pecco understood that it is important (sometimes) to settle for the result, but the trouble is that in both Thailand and Argentina he had no choice because the two Marquez riders were clearly superior to him.
Thinking of fighting against Marc for the final victory changes the rules of the game, not only is there no margin for error but you are facing a cannibal with enormous experience. That is, a rider who makes few mistakes, especially when he can count on the margin shown in the first two rounds.
Certainly we are in the face of one of the best Marquez ever, in complete symbiosis on his Ducati, while the same cannot be said of Bagnaia. So much so that Pecco has even ventilated the possibility of trying a 'standard' version of the GP24 in Austin.
The only clear thing is that a reaction is needed. With 20 Grands Prix still to race and 740 points available, nothing is written in stone.
