In MotoGP in 2025, more actually means less.
This weekend’s season-ending Grand Prix of Valencia confirms it.
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The 22-round campaign – the longest in the sport’s history and one with 44 race starts if you factor in the sprints and feature races at every round – has been as much a survival of the fittest as a celebration of the fastest.
It’s also one that started – ominously – as it was destined to go on.
At the season-opening Thailand Grand Prix in March, all the teams assembled for the traditional class photo on the Buriram grid with 22 bikes and 21 riders, as Aprilia’s Jorge Martin was at home in Andorra recovering from a pair of pre-season injuries that delayed the first outing in his title defence.
Fast-forward 21 rounds and, remarkably, just once – in Catalunya in round 15 in September – has a Grand Prix started with the complete grid of 22 full-timers this year.
MotoGP is unforgiving at any time, but this year has been something else. While 11 riders on the grid – Australia’s Jack Miller being one – have started every sprint and Grand Prix, the premier-class infirmary has been inundated with some of the sport’s biggest names, Martin and the rider who succeeded his Spanish compatriot as world champion, Ducati’s Marc Marquez, among them.
Marquez – recovering from right shoulder surgery – will be at Valencia this weekend to watch rather than ride. Martin (right collarbone) and KTM’s Maverick Vinales (left shoulder) will make their returns from long-term layoffs with little on the line for the final round, but with every reason to stay upright for what’s actually the most important day of MotoGP’s visit to the Spanish city for the first time in two years, last year’s season finale shifted to Barcelona after heavy flooding made the Ricardo Tormo Circuit unusable.
There’s not much left to play for in 2025, which means Valencia this weekend is primarily a bridge to what comes next.
Marquez wrapped up the world championship with five rounds to spare, his brother Alex Marquez cemented the runner-up spot two rounds ago, and the younger Marquez’s Gresini Ducati teammate Fermin Aldeguer had the rookie of the year crown in his keeping by Malaysia.
Third in the championship is all but done; after Aprilia’s Marco Bezzecchi won last weekend’s Portuguese Grand Prix as Ducati’s Francesco Bagnaia crashed out, Bezzecchi needs only to score two points in two races this weekend to round out the season’s podium, a reflection of Aprilia’s ascendance and a sign of how far Bagnaia has dropped off the pace this season after four straight top-two championship finishes.
For Martin, Vinales and the rest of the grid besides Marc Marquez, Valencia is just as – if not more – important for the one-day Tuesday test session that follows Sunday’s Grand Prix, the first time the riders and teams get to try their 2026 bikes in public before the northern winter shutdown.
While there’s still a final race weekend to be run and won, it’ll take place with an eye on what follows, and will be the first time since 2021 that the championship hasn’t gone down to the final day of the season.
Given the rider responsible for that – Marc Marquez – won’t race this weekend seems almost appropriate for a bruising season where, at times, the best ability has been availability.
Here’s your Insider’s Guide to the final round of the MotoGP season, with the 27-lap Valencia Grand Prix set for 12am (AEDT) on Monday after the 13-lap sprint race at 1am Sunday (AEDT).
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The annual pre-season class photo in Thailand – without Martin – was a sign of what was to follow in 2025. (MotoGP Press)Source: Supplied
MILLER CLOSES OUT SEASON AT TRACK WHERE HE LAST LED
The return to Valencia for the first time since 2023 will be a reminder of the one that got away for Jack Miller, the Australian crashing from the lead in the season finale two years ago in a bittersweet end to his first campaign with KTM.
In a final round that doubled as a title showdown between Ducati riders Bagnaia and Martin, Miller took the lead ahead of Bagnaia when KTM teammate Brad Binder ran off track on lap 14, but crashed five laps later at Turn 10 when he had an advantage of over one second; “I had a little cry,” he admitted afterwards.
PIT TALK PODCAST: Renita and Matt are joined by MotoGP writer and broadcaster Neil Morrison to review the Portuguese Grand Prix, and debate the five moments that defined the season ahead of the final round of 2025 this weekend in Valencia. Listen to Pit Talk below.
It’s the only time in Miller’s premier-class career that he’s fallen from the lead of a race, and of the 150 laps across 23 races he’s led in his MotoGP career, Valencia 2023 is the most recent.
Miller, who start his 199th MotoGP race this Sunday, has always been strong at Valencia. He won there in his final Moto3 race in 2014, and has three MotoGP podiums at the track, matching the Red Bull Ring in Austria as his most successful. Since 2019, he’s not qualified or finished lower than sixth in the four races where he’s seen the chequered flag.
“It’s a big pleasure to be back at a place I thoroughly enjoy,” Miller said.
“Valencia is a funny one with a MotoGP bike, because it feels like a bit of a go-kart track, but it’s just a fun place to finish the season out.
“I’ve had a lot of good results here and it’s one I enjoy riding. It’s pretty tight and it’s not crazy fast … there’s a decent front straight, but fingers crossed we’re able to make up what we lose [with Yamaha] there. The bike itself once it’s going is OK, the issue is just getting it going.”
Valencia is the final stop on a season for Miller where he’s just 18th in the standings, his worst position since his 2015 rookie campaign, and has scored 72 points, his fewest since 2016 when he scored 57 points for Marc VDS Honda well before the series adopted sprint races for points at every round from 2023.
They’re numbers that, without context, look unfavourable; Miller, though, is the second-best of the four Yamaha riders in the standings ahead of Alex Rins (66 points) and Pramac Yamaha teammate Miguel Oliveira (38), who competes in his final Grand Prix this weekend before switching to BMW in World Superbikes for 2026.
“I’m happy that my transition over to the Yamaha was what it was and I was able to make it work because on paper, it’s not a bike for my riding style,” Miller said.
“We’ve made it work … there’s been some really strong results, some really sh**ty results. When you come to a qualifying lap, you have to push to the maximum because qualifying is absolutely everything in MotoGP nowadays.
“Going to Q2 or not can make or break your weekend with how hard it is to overtake, and with how hard it is to overtake on the Yamaha.”
Miller had the measure of Bagnaia – and the rest – when MotoGP last raced at Valencia in 2023 before crashing out. (Getty Images/Gold and Goose/Red Bull Content Pool)Source: Getty Images
LOWERING TARGETS UNLOCKED ACOSTA’S STEP FORWARD
Pedro Acosta could pile more pain on Bagnaia in 2025 if he’s able to demote the two-time world champion to fifth place in the riders’ standings in Valencia, which looks a distinct possibility given the KTM rider’s red-hot form in the past five rounds.
The 21-year-old has finished on the podium at least once across the sprints and Grands Prix at every round since Japan in September, and – other than Alex Marquez (83 points) – has outscored every other rider since Marc Marquez’s season ended after the Indonesian Grand Prix, his 70 points across the past three rounds seeing him draw to within three points of Bagnaia for fourth in the standings.
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Acosta has demolished highly-regarded KTM teammate Binder 21-0 in qualifying this year – he still yet to be beaten in qualifying by a MotoGP teammate after eclipsing Augusto Fernandez 20-0 at Tech3 KTM in 2024 – and played a starring role in arguably the best sprint race of the season last Saturday in Portugal, where he fought ferociously against Alex Marquez before falling just 0.120 seconds short of his maiden win in either race format in the premier class.
“There’s not a lot of expectations, but it’s true that the last time MotoGP raced here in ’23 Jack [Miller] was super competitive, also Brad [Binder],” Acosta said.
“It’s true that we find some good consistency in last GPs. It was a first part of the season to forget, we were really struggling without really understanding why, but then after making clear our mind and maybe changing a little bit the target … we were finding something extra.
“The bike didn’t improve a lot because we don’t change so much, a fairing was helping and a swingarm was helping a bit, but we still have many problems with tyre consumption, and we find it difficult to be competitive at the beginning of the races because we don’t have grip.
“At the moment that I started to forget about the championship dream, I started to try to get the 100 per cent with my package. One day that was top five, one day that was struggling a bit more … maybe my mind is the one thing that has grown the most.”
Bezzecchi, a comprehensive winner of last Sunday’s race in Portimao, has scored 69 points since Australia to almost certainly keep Bagnaia out of the top three; in a season that has swung wildly between occasional highs and a mysterious lack of performance from weekend to weekend, Bagnaia – a two-time Valencia winner – has scored just 14 points in four rounds since he won the sprint and Grand Prix from pole at Motegi, his Japanese Grand Prix victory his only points from the past six GPs.
“This season is quite difficult to know before the weekend if we have the potential to fight, but … I think the only way possible to finish this season in a good way is with a podium and a fight for the top positions,” Bagnaia said.
“After the last four seasons when a bad result was a third place, I struggle to accept the reality of this season. I did all the season with the best job I could with the team, trying to adapt to the ’25 bike, but unluckily I didn’t.
“The bike has a really great potential because looking at Marc [Marquez], he showed it. But I was just struggling. I don’t know if I’ll learn something from this season, but I always tried to adapt and be competitive.”
Acosta has become a regular front-runner towards the end of his sophomore MotoGP season, but a maiden win remains elusive. (Photo by PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA / AFP)Source: AFP
MARTIN RETURNS TO DRAW LINE UNDER ‘SH**TY YEAR’
One rider – besides Bagnaia – who’ll be extra keen to turn the page on 2025 is Martin, who’ll race with the world champion’s number 1 plate for the final time as he lines up for just his eighth round in 22 this season.
The 27-year-old has had a fraught, injury-ravaged, controversy-laden title defence with Aprilia, and hasn’t ridden since late September when he crashed and broke his right collarbone at the start of the sprint race in Japan, taking teammate Bezzecchi out in the process.
The Spaniard says it “doesn’t make sense to talk about results” this weekend, as he attempts to assess his fitness ahead of the all-important test on Tuesday, where he’ll get to have his input on the initial rollout of Aprilia’s 2026 machine.
“It’s been a sh**ty year, but I wanted to put it behind me … this sh**ty year will not define my career,” Martin said.
“Start preparing for 2026 … that’s why I’m here. I didn’t want to stay at home until February. I was working a lot in the shadows to try to be here. That’s the first step … it’s been six weeks since Japan and I haven’t ridden, so it will be tough to go again.
“[The recovery from Japan] was tough, more difficult than I expected. Injuries are always worse what you expect and I had some problems to recover, but I feel much better now. Mentally it was a bit strange, because I didn’t know if I wanted to try to come here [to Valencia] or wait until next season. But I wanted to be with my team, my crew, and with the fans in Spain, who were important for me to come back.”
Martin will start just his seventh Grand Prix of the season on Sunday at Valencia. (Photo by Mirco Lazzari gp/Getty Images)Source: Getty Images
Bezzecchi has thrived in Martin’s absence, winning Grands Prix at Silverstone and Portimao this season, while fellow Aprilia rider Raul Fernandez (Trackhouse Aprilia) won in Australia as the Italian brand has enjoyed its most successful premier-class season despite its leading rider being sidelined for the majority of it.
“The bike is feeding into their styles, this we can be sure,” Martin said.
“I just need to get some time to make the Aprilia mine. There were some good results for me during the small season I did, but still I was far away in terms of performance. I need time, but I’m optimistic for next season. It’s why I’m here, to start building some feelings and to be more ready.”