Between them, they’ve won eight MotoGP world championships, 13 world titles in all, and own the Phillip Island all-time lap record and fastest pole.

Collectively, they’re all absent – or have the potential to be – from this weekend’s Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix, the 19th round of a 22-round 2025 campaign that’s become a survival of the fittest, not just the fastest.

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Last year’s world champion Jorge Martin (Aprilia), his 2025 successor Marc Marquez (Ducati), 2018 Australian Grand Prix winner Maverick Vinales (KTM) and – potentially – last year’s Moto2 champion Ai Ogura (Aprilia) will all be missing from the Phillip Island weekend, the quartet recovering from injuries that are either new, recurring or lingering.

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With many of their rivals who feature prominently in the top 10 of this year’s riders’ standings either out of form or with no previous experience of fighting for the biggest prizes at the Island, the only guarantee is that this year’s running of the Australian Grand Prix looks to be the most open in memory.

That’s not for debate; what is open to conjecture is the identity of the rider who succeeds Marc Marquez as the Australian Grand Prix winner this Sunday afternoon.

Here, Fox Sports looks at who is missing and why at the Island, and the five riders with the strongest possibilities to step into the void left by the seven-time MotoGP champion’s absence.

Marquez won in Australia last October, but his absence this weekend makes for a race of uncertainty. (Photo by Robert Cianflone/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

INJURIES FOR SOME, OPPORTUNITIES FOR OTHERS

By the time you get to October and round 19 of a 22-round MotoGP season, there’s always a chance the regular line-up of 22 riders could look a little different with the bruising nature of ever-expanding calendars; add another 22 race starts at every round since the advent of sprint races since 2023, and more manic first laps leads to more peril, and a longer list of absentees.

The way MotoGP contests unfold in the modern era – forthright risk-taking early on before races become more processional and strategic as riders balance tyre pressure boundaries with riding in the wake of a rival whose bike is creating dirty air through its assortment of aerodynamic excrescences – only adds to the early mayhem.

Of the four big names either confirmed as or suspected to be missing in Australia this weekend, three of them were injured in first-lap incidents.

Aprilia’s Ogura – the one rider on this list with an asterisk – has missed the past two Grands Prix in Japan and Indonesia after a massive 260km/h crash on the opening lap at Misano for the San Marino Grand Prix, which left him with – miraculously, given the speed of the spill – with right hand and wrist injuries, two body parts you’d like to be working as they should around Phillip Island’s high-speed 4.445km layout.

Unsurprisingly, given the violence of his crash, Ogura must pass a medical check at Phillip Island on Thursday to be declared fit to compete.

Marquez Out after Horrifying crash | 01:35

Definitely out are three other riders who – if fully fit and available – would have claims to victory at the Island; after all, they were the entire front row of last year’s Australian Grand Prix grid.

Ogura’s Aprilia stablemate and 2024 MotoGP champion Martin fractured his right collarbone – his fourth major injury of a horror title defence that never really got out of first gear – after he crashed on the first lap of the sprint race in Japan, the rider who has sat on pole in Australia for the past three years and owns the all-time circuit record lap (1min 27.246secs set in qualifying in 2023) out of action.

Four-time Australian Grand Prix winner Marquez, who succeeded Martin as world champion on that same Motegi weekend – will miss Australia and Malaysia after fracturing his right shoulder after being taken out by Martin’s teammate Marco Bezzecchi on the first lap of the Indonesian GP, while KTM’s Vinales – the 2018 Phillip Island winner for Yamaha – remains sidelined after the dislocated and fractured left shoulder from a crash in a wet German Grand Prix qualifying session in July has lingered.

Vinales is always a rider liable to spring an Australian surprise, while Martin is Phillip Island’s fastest man, and Marquez the most successful of the current crop. It’s a huge hole to fill but, equally, one that only adds to this weekend’s intrigue.

The winner this Sunday, then, can’t come from that talented trio, and almost certainly won’t from their injury replacements Lorenzo Savadori (for Martin), Michele Pirro (for Marquez) or Pol Espargaro (for Vinales) respectively.

But it might be …

FRANCESCO BAGNAIA (DUCATI)

2025 season: 274 points (third), 2 Grand Prix wins, 1 sprint win, 14 total podiums, 2 pole positions, 2 fastest laps.

Phillip Island record (MotoGP only): 4 starts, 3 podiums, best result 2nd (2023).

Wait, what? The rider who finished dead-last in the sprint race at the most recent round in Indonesia and crashed – again from last place – in the Grand Prix 24 hours later? A chance in Australia?

Potentially, yes. Because – to twist a phrase – if you’re only as good as your second-last race, Bagnaia is pretty damned good.

In Japan, the round before Mandalika, Bagnaia’s nostalgic dominance – pole, sprint win, Grand Prix win, led every lap – was very 2024-spec ‘Pecco’, when Marquez was a mere stablemate on a 2023-spec Ducati that wasn’t a title threat, and with the Italian on a bike he gelled with to such a degree that he won 11 of the 20 Grands Prix.

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The 2025 season – as has been well-documented – has largely been painful mentally and poor mathematically, but Bagnaia has always been fast in Australia on MotoGP machinery. The best result of his 2019 rookie season by far was fourth place at the Island, and once MotoGP came back to Australia after the pandemic, Bagnaia has never been off the podium, and always inside the top five in qualifying.

Predicting anything Bagnaia might do this season is a fool’s errand, but with Marquez and Martin at home and the riders near him in the championship standings all having question-marks over their Australian prowess, the Italian might surprise.

It wouldn’t be shocking if Bagnaia was then nowhere in Malaysia the following Sunday, but on a track where he’s been rapid from day one in the premier class, a big result isn’t a small chance.

Will Bagnaia be dominant like Japan or devastated like Indonesia this weekend? (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

FABIO DI GIANNANTONIO (DUCATI)

2025 season: 191 points (7th), six total podiums, best Grand Prix result 3rd (twice), best sprint result 2nd, best qualifying 2nd.

Phillip Island record (MotoGP only): 3 starts, 1 podium, best result 3rd (2023).

If Bagnaia isn’t the fastest Ducati at the Island this year, there’s a good reason to think compatriot Di Giannantonio might be.

Campaigning a GP25 like Bagnaia has this year, ‘Diggia’ has blown hot and cold, and trails VR46 Ducati teammate Franco Morbidelli – on a year-old Ducati – by 16 points in the standings. But when he’s been good, he’s been very good – and Australia is one of his annual sweet spots.

Di Giannantonio took his first premier-class podium in Australia in 2023, then stormed through from 12th on the grid last October to fourth after bulldozing his way into the top six inside 10 laps. The longer Australian races go, the faster he gets – he took third on the final lap two years ago, while last year, his fastest lap of the race came with tyres that had already done 25 laps and was just a tenth of a second slower than race-winner Marquez.

The 27-year-old hasn’t had a Grand Prix podium since Mugello in round nine, but scored three straight sprint podiums from three starts inside the front two rows of the grid from Hungary to San Marino. If he gets Saturday qualifying right, he’ll be right in the mix.

MARCO BEZZECCHI (APRILIA)

2025 season: 254 points (4th), 1 Grand Prix win, 2 sprint wins, 10 total podiums, 3 pole positions, 2 fastest laps.

Phillip Island record (MotoGP only): 3 starts, best result 4th (2022).

With Martin in and out of the line-up, Bezzecchi has been Aprilia’s shining light this season, and went toe-to-toe with Marquez as recently as three rounds ago at Misano, where he won the sprint and finished second in the Grand Prix.

‘Bez’ has race-winning speed on a strong bike, but a pair of big recent crashes – and his machinery – might be a bridge too far this weekend.

The 26-year-old was the unfortunate victim of Martin’s out-of-control start in the Japan sprint, heavy contact between the Aprilia teammates leaving Bezzecchi with a right leg where “the muscle is completely full of blood”.

At the next round in Indonesia, where he took a dominant pole position and won the sprint after a dramatic fightback, Bezzecchi clattered into Marquez as he tried to recover from another poor getaway and eliminated himself after seven corners, and faces a grid penalty for this weekend in Australia for punting Marquez as a result.

Then there’s Aprilia’s so-so form in Australia; since Aprilia became an official factory team in 2022, none of its riders have finished better than eighth at Phillip Island.

Aprilia’s 2025-spec RS-GP has proven to be more a bike for all seasons rather than specific low-grip circuits where it has shone in the past; while a fully-fit unpenalized Bezzecchi might have been the race favourite, his ailments and that as-yet undisclosed grid penalty could act as more millstones this weekend for a rider who has two top-six premier-class finishes in Australia.

Bezzecchi finished less than a second from victory when he was fourth at Phillip Island in 2022 for Ducati. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

FERMIN ALDEGUER (DUCATI)

2025 season: 181 points (8th), 1 Grand Prix win, 6 total podiums, best qualifying result 2nd, 1 fastest lap.

Phillip Island record (MotoGP only): Yet to race.

A rookie in his first big-bike race at one of the most daunting tracks on the calendar? Because that rookie is Aldeguer, perhaps.

Last time out in Indonesia, the Gresini Ducati debutant was a runaway winner in only his 18th Grand Prix start, and younger (at 20 years and 183 days) than any other rider not named Marc Marquez to ever win a premier-class race. The box of that first win ticked, there’s no telling what Aldeguer could do for an encore a track tailor-made for his specific riding style, which relies on high corner speed to be its most effective.

The 20-year-old has form in Australia, too; Aldeguer won the Moto2 race at Phillip Island last year, and had three top-four finishes in his time in the intermediate class. The Spaniard has already proven that he learns fast this season, and shapes as a value bet for more silverware this Sunday.

PEDRO ACOSTA (KTM)

2025 season: 215 points (5th), 6 total podiums, best Grand Prix result 2nd (twice), best sprint result 2nd, best qualifying 4th (twice).

Phillip Island record (MotoGP only): Yet to race (withdrew from 2024 with injury).

Like compatriot Aldeguer, Acosta – belatedly – should start his first premier-class Australian Grand Prix this Sunday if he can stay healthy, last year’s bruising first visit to the Island seeing him leave Melbourne with a dislocated left shoulder after a nasty crash in the sprint race that sidelined him for the Grand Prix proper.

It’ll irk Acosta that Aldeguer won a Grand Prix before he did, but the KTM rider is getting ever-closer in a sophomore season that began slowly, but now has exactly the same number of points (215) as his entire rookie campaign in two fewer rounds.

After scoring 84 points in the first nine rounds, the 21-year-old has 131 since, a nine-event run where he’s taken all six of his 2025 podiums across both race formats. He’s comfortably been the best KTM rider – teammate Brad Binder is 97 points adrift – and looks primed for the breakthrough Aldeguer enjoyed at Mandalika.

With so many heavy-hitters missing, Acosta is in a good place for that to happen sooner rather than later.

ON THE OUTSIDE LOOKING IN

Prominent names for whom an Island win – even a podium – looks more fanciful than favourable?

Aldeguer’s teammate Alex Marquez has made a habit of exceeding his past this season – the younger Marquez sibling can wrap up second in the world championship if he’s not outscored by Bagnaia by more than 13 points this weekend – but he’ll have to go some to overcome a MotoGP record where ninth (2023) is his best result on a track where he has just one world championship podium (second in Moto3 in 2014) in 10 starts.

Franco Morbidelli – sixth in the standings – has just one top-six MotoGP result in Australia since his first premier-class Island outing in 2018, while Yamaha star Fabio Quartararo’s modest Australian achievements contain one top-10 result (ninth last year) and crashes before half-distance twice (2019, 2022).

Australian Grand Prix 2023 winner Johann Zarco has just two top-10 Island results since 2017, and has scored just 31 points in the past nine rounds for LCR Honda after taking 97 – and a win in France – from the first nine events, arriving in Australia with zero momentum.

Zarco’s 2023 win in Australia is an anomaly compared to his typical results Down Under. (Photo by Quinn Rooney/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images

And how about Australia’s own Jack Miller?

Last year’s run to 11th from 16th on the grid for KTM was the 30-year-old’s worst home race since 2016, but the Pramac Yamaha rider has a premier-class rostrum (third in 2019) on his CV, and often exceeds expectations at the Island, particularly in qualifying.

Picking Miller for a podium at home feels – on the strength of his 2025 performances – like the longest of long shots, particularly as his season-best result (fifth) came all the way back in round three in Texas.

But on a grid missing some of the sport’s biggest names and Island specialists, nothing for Miller – nor anyone else – can be ruled out in what shapes to be a race that’s too complicated to call, and compelling as a consequence.