2025: not only Marquez, surprises and the divine Spanish school

The year 2025 is drawing to a close, and there are many expectations for the upcoming MotoGP season, the last season of MotoGP as we have known it in recent years, dominated by lowerers and aerodynamics, before the big rule change that will shuffle the cards (and the balance?) on the track. There will be a lot of meat on the fire both in terms of new entries, between those who have said farewell to the premier class (Oliveira, Chantra) and those who are arriving (Toprak, Moreira), but also for those who remain there with much of the grid coming to the end of their contracts and the beginning of a rider transfer market that promises to rain down a quantity of fire and brimstone to make Lieutenant Kilgore from Apocalypse Now proud. Before launching into our resolutions for the year ahead, however, it may be useful to review some reflections that emerged from this motorcycle racing season that ended just over a month ago, amid surprises and a few disappointments.

God has given it to me, let he who touches it beware!

Let's cut to the chase right away with irony, with this famous phrase uttered by Napoleon when he crowned himself. To say that Marc Marquez's dominance this season has been a surprise would be an oxymoron, from the moment the Spaniard donned the red Ducati cape there was no need to read the stars to predict the future. The Spaniard's season has been a triumphant ride with few stumbles, fifteen podiums, eleven wins, fourteen sprint successes. Only the injury in Indonesia (just after winning the title) forced him to take an enforced rest preventing him from surpassing his 2014 record of victories.

That Marc was off on the warpath we had already realized on the starting grid at Austin, where the Spaniard even bent the regulations to his will in what will go down in posterity as one of the iconic moments of this championship, because if Marc runs, the others are forced to chase him. Make no mistake, the surprise was not so much in his dominance let's be clear about that, but in his having been virtually unchallenged. Marc Marquez ended his own exile and claimed the crown for himself, thus satiating a five-year-long hunger. His very quick adaptation to the GP25, which instead put Bagnaia in crisis, was undoubtedly his art, but we expected at least a little more resistance from his rivals.

All for one, one (against) all...and the surprise is Alex Marquez

Taking up the challenge of halting the perfect storm were his rivals. Alex Marquez, Bezzecchi, Bagnaia and Acosta were the four riders completing the top 5 of this championship. The new generation of riders clashed with the past and this round went to the latter. Alex Marquez was the one who came closest, riding the GP24 , "the steed" with which Martin and Bagnaia had battled for the title the previous year, and the Spaniard wrote the history of the sport by concluding the season 78 points down on his brother and handing the Gresini team a memorable year as the best independent team.

Never before had two brothers shared the top slots in the premier class, and it is unlikely to be repeated anytime soon. The surprise lies not so much in the Spaniard's talent, nor in the professionalism of the Gresini team, which has been successfully raising young talent for years, but in the fact that Alex was able to show a champion-like consistency on the track that under other circumstances perhaps would have earned him the title.

The same can be said for Marco Bezzecchi. Getting out of one's comfort zone is never easy, but an official team is always the natural goal for any rider who wants his career to take off. Arriving in Aprilia, however, it was by no means easy, especially since the first of his rivals on the other side of the box was none other than reigning world champion Jorge Martin, who sported the #1 for the occasion.

Fate, however, is known to take unknown paths. Virtue emerging from necessity then because of the absence of the Spaniard, the Rimini rider shouldered on his own the weight of expectations and dreams and those of the Italian manufacturer (with the fundamental contribution of development), giving life to one of the best sporting fairy tales of recent years.

The Aprilia-Bezzecchi duo poached third place in the standings out of the hands of their friend Bagnaia, handing the Veneto manufacturer its best and most successful season ever in the premier class, and at the same time becoming de-facto the second force in the championship. The difference, however, was not only seen in terms of sporting success but also in terms of communication, from God save the Bez of Silverstone to Garbez of Misano; if MotoGP wants to grow it also and above all needs to be marked by the charisma of its characters.

Not only joys: there were also those riders left standing at the post.

Counterbalancing the positive notes, however, were the difficulties of some key rivals: Bagnaia, for example, who was in clear difficulty for much of his opaque season, Martin who was absent due to injury, the delay in the technical development of the KTM that held back Acosta, to which must also be added a fifth, Quartararo on an M1 that went well on the fast lap, but was not yet good enough in the race according to the needs of the Frenchman, who also found himself a second support team at the beginning of the season, something that was not necessarily to be taken for granted. With the exception of the exploits of Alex Marquez and Bezzecchi, what has been lacking this season has been on-track tussles, which were glimpsed in brief stretches but nothing that came anywhere near to challenging Marc's aspirations. It was no Waterloo then for the Spaniard, who wrapped the championship up with a full five races to spare despite the fact that there was far more than one talented opponent on paper.

Flag successes: Zarco and Honda, Raul Fernandez and Aprilia.

Putting aside the battle for the championship, the 2025 season also produced three other highlights, three surprises that deserve a mention. Zarco's victory at Le Mans, in difficult and unpredictable conditions, made the French anthem ring again in its homeland after an absence of a full 71 years. Zarco's last success was in fact at Phillip Island in 2023 when he was still racing on a Ducati, a first decisive milestone then in the improvement and development of Honda, which after difficult years and the consensual separation from Marc Marquez is beginning to see a glimmer of light.

But if one clue does not make proof, three are enough: following Zarco's podium at Silverstone, Honda then hammered home the message in Japan and Malaysia with a rediscovered Joan Mir. The 2020 Spanish world champion was able to breathe again after years of competitive apnea. Green light also for Raul Fernandez, who, after his arrival in MotoGP with KTM and subsequent move to Aprilia, seemed unable to find his footing. He made personal amends at Phillip Island, then came close to a repeat performance at Valencia. Special mention also for rookie of the year Fermin Aldeguer, who in Indonesia scored his first victory in the premier class in his debut year, an achievement that was by no means a foregone conclusion; the last person to achieve it was Jorge Martin at the Austrian GP in 2021.

Moto2 final goal goes to Brazil's Diogo Moreira

Of the three championships fought this year, however, the one that kept everyone with bated breath, and produced the most twists and turns, was Moto2. Concluding in the final round at Valencia, it saw the triumph of the #10 of Moreira, who scored the match-winning goal by slipping the trophy out of the hands of Manu Gonzalez, something that at mid-season many would have already given up as being a sure thing for the Spaniard. With nine podiums and four wins to his name, the Brazilian rider rewrote the statistics by bringing a historic success to Brazil (although to be fair he has been residing and training in Spain for years), just in time for MotoGP's debut in the South American country next year.

It might have been an unprecedented outcome, but irrespective of the title fight, the surprise of the intermediate class has also been the wide variety of winners this season. Whereas in MotoGP with Marc Marquez and in Moto3 with Rueda most of the victories remained concentrated in the hands of a clear dominator, Moto2 proved to be more "democratic" with as many as 11 different winners.

In addition to the two title contenders Moreira and Gonzalez both with 4 wins, next on the list of the most successful riders was Dixon with an impressive 3 wins. Too bad, however, that the Briton abandoned the category at the end of the season to arrive in Superbike, a bittersweet farewell. Two instead were the victories achieved by Agius, Oncu, and the best rookie of the season Holgado. There was a win apiece for Canet, Vietti, Guevara, and Alonso (also in his rookie year), and there are those who already see in some of these guys the future of MotoGP.

The divine school in Moto3: either you are Spanish or...you live in Spain like Alonso

"Human beings use only 30 percent of their real potential, but the secret of the Divine School is to access the remaining 70 percent," went a well-known Japanese manga character. In fact, if you look at the Moto3 rankings of recent years, if you want to excel you must either be Spanish or your name is David Alonso (and you live and train with Spaniards anyway). So it was no surprise in passport terms to see the triumph of Rueda, who ended a very solid season with 14 podiums including ten victories. A consecration that came in Indonesia shortly after that of Marc Marquez and that once again demonstrates the preponderant Spanish presence in the three championships. If we look at the top ten in the three categories, half are Spanish and tend to occupy the top spots, with MotoGP still "balanced" by as many Italians.

Taking a look at the brood of young talent, in terms of wins in the cadet class the Spanish dominance is overwhelming, with the Japanese Furusato the only one capable of interrupting the perfect series of Spanish triumphs. In terms of podiums, with Kelso's 4 and Yamanaka's 2, the only others attempting to stem the tide were the Italians themselves, with Lunetta (2 podiums), Pini (1), Foggia (1) and Bertelle (1 before injury). Among the rookies, however, the "surprise" of the year remains Maximo Quiles. The Marquez brothers' protégé, despite missing the first two rounds due to age limits and two others due to injury, batted an impressive average of 14 points per round in his rookie year. A consistency that makes the doubts about those first two rounds he skipped, without which there might have been a completely different championship, weigh even more heavily.