When the dust has long settled on the 2025 MotoGP season and casual observers take a look back at the 22-round campaign that was in years to come, they could be forgiven for thinking it was a close-run thing.

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Marc Marquez’s championship margin was relatively modest, they could reason. Seven different riders won a Grand Prix, four of them victorious more than once. A manufacturer other than Ducati, MotoGP’s dominant force since midway through 2022, won three of the year’s final four races.

Sounds close and competitive, right?

Not so fast.

Yes, Marco Bezzecchi gave Aprilia back-to-back wins for the first time in its premier-class history in Sunday’s season-ending Grand Prix of Valencia, the Italian leading from lights to flag to take his third win of the season in the same fashion as his second just seven days previously in Portimao.

Aprilia stablemate Raul Fernandez, a shock winner of the Australian Grand Prix at Phillip Island in October, was second for Aprilia’s first 1-2 in over two years.

Ducati’s Fabio Di Giannantonio had to fight past KTM’s Pedro Acosta to sneak third place, preserving Ducati’s 88-race podium streak that, remarkably, dates back to the 2021 British Grand Prix.

All five MotoGP manufacturers finished the season with a bike inside the top 10 in the final race.

All facts. With one very large asterisk.

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With Marc Marquez a trackside spectator in Valencia for the fourth straight round as he recovers from right shoulder surgery following his accident on lap one of the Indonesian Grand Prix, younger sibling Alex Marquez’s sixth place saw the final margin between the siblings in their history-making season shrink to a respectable-sounding 78 points.

Marc Marquez has won titles by much, much bigger margins and with more victories in a season. But the world champion’s absence only showed why Ducati moved mountains to get him in its factory team for 2025. The 32-year-old remains MotoGP’s biggest difference-maker more than a decade after his 2013 debut, and Sunday underlined why.

Bezzecchi and Aprilia never looked like losing, and Fernandez showed why the smaller of the two Italian factories is now unequivocally MotoGP’s second-best squad. Alex Marquez faded to sixth, and just three Ducatis finished in the top 10. KTM, the Austrian manufacturer which has been beset with financial woes and off-track stability on multiple occasions this year, matched that number.

And then there’s Marquez’s teammate, Francesco Bagnaia.

The two-time MotoGP champion has either won or finished second in the past four seasons, securing his 2022 and 2023 titles at the same Valencia circuit. On Sunday, the Italian lasted all of four corners before he again became an early spectator; this time wasn’t his fault, as he was clattered by Honda’s Johann Zarco and dumped into the gravel trap, Zarco receiving a long-lap penalty for his moment of misjudgement.

It was Bagnaia’s fifth-straight non-scoring Grand Prix since Marquez won the title in Japan in September, a race Bagnaia – against the run of play – won handsomely from pole position.

Like Marquez, Bagnaia didn’t score a single Grand Prix point after Motegi across five races – and Marquez didn’t start four of that quintet.

Marquez’s substitute Nicolo Bulega – who had never raced a MotoGP bike before last weekend in Portugal – finished 15th in Valencia to score one of the factory Ducati team’s two – yes, two – Grand Prix points in the final five rounds.

Yes, Bezzecchi was impressive. Fernandez arguably more so, given the Spaniard crashed so heavily in practice in Portugal last weekend that he missed the Grand Prix altogether with a right shoulder and collarbone injury. Di Giannantonio saved Ducati’s blushes. Acosta signed off the season with his fifth top-five finish in a row, even if the wait for his first MotoGP victory will endure into his third season.

But 2025 was all about Marc Marquez, whether he was on the bike or not. His presence – 25 wins in 35 starts across sprints and Grands Prix until Bezzecchi ended his year early in their Mandalika crash – was undeniable when he was racing. And even more so when he wasn’t.

Marquez won the title with five rounds to spare, led by 201 points after Japan when he’d almost doubled Bagnaia’s points tally, and still led by 183 points when his season ended abruptly in Indonesia. He effectively took 20 per cent of the season off, and still had a significant margin.

Aprilia are coming, KTM is rising, and former Japanese giants Honda and Yamaha are showing signs of life. But Ducati has Marquez, and the final standings showed why he’s still MotoGP’s must-have asset.

Without him, the final quartet of races looked – felt, were – completely different.

Marquez didn’t feature on track at Valencia, but his absence only highlighted how much he dominated 2025. (Photo by Jose Jordan / AFP)Source: AFP

BEZZECCHI MAKES AMENDS, AGAIN

The longer the race, the happier Bezzecchi is; for a second straight weekend, the fastest rider in the field put a Saturday disappointment behind him to score biggest on Sunday and secure third in the championship, the best-ever finish for an Aprilia rider.

The Italian – who turned 27 on the Wednesday before the final race of the season – was on pole in Portugal last weekend but finished behind Alex Marquez and Acosta in the sprint before dominating the Sunday Grand Prix over 25 laps for a comfortable win.

In Valencia, a late pre-sprint decision to run the soft-compound Michelin front tyre backfired after he made a slow start and faded to fifth, but Bezzecchi made amends on Sunday with a strong start and again led for every lap, winning by six-tenths of a second after Fernandez’s late pace gave him food for thought as the laps ticked down.

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“I was super motivated after yesterday because for different reasons, I wasn’t good enough to fight for the podium [in the sprint] and I was a little bit angry with myself,” Bezzecchi said of Aprilia’s first 1-2 finish since the Catalan Grand Prix of 2023.

“I started in front and put my rhythm on, and I was feeling good and able to manage [the race] until the end. I was not [surprised] from Raul, I saw his pace yesterday and I was hoping for a little bit less, but in the end, the last two laps, I was a bit afraid.

“I was managing through all the race and it never got too scary, I was always in control, but then in the last two laps I stared to think I was in a little bit of trouble with the rear [tyre] as Raul was coming.”

Bezzecchi won at Silverstone in round seven after his first six Grands Prix yielded just 38 points, the Italian sitting in 12th in the standings after the French Grand Prix.

Finishing just six-tenths of a second behind Marquez in a tense Dutch Grand Prix in round 10 was a turning point, and from San Marino in round 16 to the end of the year, Bezzecchi took four pole positions, won three sprints and two Grands Prix, and was only outscored by Alex Marquez (105-99) in the final four rounds.

“I’m happy for how the season ended … it’s true that from Silverstone, but especially from Assen … that was the moment we started to fight constantly for the top five, top six, and I was able to make some good races, some good battles with Marc and battles in the front,” Bezzecchi said, looking ahead to Tuesday’s one-day test at Valencia that marks the unofficial start of the 2026 season.

“It was super cool, in the beginning [of the season] we were suffering a lot. It’s important for us, this test on Tuesday. It’s already a beginning to have a decent start to next year. Of course all the riders are super strong, but Marc and Alex [Marquez] in particular, they’ve been amazing this season. We will try to fight them.”

Bezzecchi’s best-ever MotoGP season ended with back-to-back wins and third in the standings after he was 12th six rounds into 2025. (Photo by Javier SORIANO / AFP)Source: AFP

MILLER FINISHES 2025 WITH STRONGEST SHOWING IN MONTHS

Jack Miller finished a difficult first season for Yamaha with a flourish at Valencia on Sunday, the Australian running as high as sixth place midway through the 27-lap race before fading grip saw him fall to ninth at the chequered flag, passed by former KTM teammate Brad Binder on the final lap of the race.

The result was Miller’s first top-10 Grand Prix finish since he was 10th in the Czech Republic in July, 10 rounds previously, and he was comfortably the most competitive Yamaha in Valencia, Fabio Quartararo well behind him in 11th before the 2021 world champion crashed out with four laps remaining.

The result – Miller’s fifth top-10 showing in 22 Grands Prix – saw him rise to 17th in the final standings with 79 points, his fewest points since 2016, and his lowest finish since he was 18th in that same season for Honda.

While the stats don’t paint a pretty picture, Miller was a comfortable second of Yamaha’s four riders this season after Quartararo’s teammate Alex Rins was just 14th at Valencia, eight seconds behind Miller and 11 points behind him in the standings (19th).

He earned a contract extension for 2026 back in September as Yamaha prepares to race its new V4-powered bike full-time next season, an expected shift from the inline-four bike that was confirmed by the Japanese manufacturer before Sunday’s race.

Miller’s affinity with Valencia saw him finish with his best Sunday race result in 10 rounds. (Yamaha Motor Racing Srl)Source: Supplied

“That was decent, but I had to push too much to stay with the other guys to try to do anything,” Miller said.

“The straight between Turns 6-8 with the kink in it … I was having to roll out at the end because as I started to lean the bike over, the [wheelspin] was growing massively.

“The tyre gave up with 10 laps to go, and I was bleeding time massively at the end, just trying to manage it. It was spinning like mad, so I was trying to play with the lean angle and the throttle because the bike was no longer behaving like it should. But we showed our pace at the beginning.”

Miller – whose MotoGP history before this season was spent riding V4 bikes for Honda, Ducati and KTM – will be a valuable asset to Yamaha next season, especially as one of its four bikes will be ridden by reigning World Superbikes champion and 2026 MotoGP rookie, Toprak Razgatlioglu.

“It [the V4] is no more of a step than I’ve had in the last year, you could say,” Miller said of the prospect of having to adjust to a new machine for next season, one he’s only briefly ridden in out-of-race test sessions this year.

“From what I’ve known to this inline-four, I feel like – especially in these last couple of Grands Prix since Australia – we’ve been able to understand a little bit more, maybe lose a little performance but gain in feedback and stability. That was a learning process, and I understand this bike now more and more.

“Next year’s bike is different, yes, but the DNA is there.”

Miller said Quartararo – who showed blinding one-lap speed this season to take five pole positions and finish ninth in the championship with 201 points despite his final-race crash – shows that Yamaha have a rider to propel the project forward, and indicated the Frenchman has been a beneficiary of his own work behind the scenes.

“He’s shown what the bike is capable of, and it’s been good to have a target like that and be able to help out,” Miller said of Quartararo.

“At the end of the day, that’s what I was brought across for, my knowledge and what I have. We’ll see what we can do with the new bike, and we need to put in the work now to have it ready for Thailand next year.”