Marc Marquez has been the hallmark of MotoGP excellence throughout the 2025 season with Ducati.
He’s on course to deliver a remarkable seventh premier class title, six years after winning his last one with Honda. Since 2020, Marquez has faced a gruelling battle to return to the top.
In truth, he couldn’t have done it without Ducati, who have been in excellent form this season, winning 22 of the 24 races on offer so far.
He’s going to break many more MotoGP records along the way, and rivals can begin to look forward to 2026 as their next best opportunity to inflict some revenge.
Ducati feared losing without signing Marquez, but it was still considered a risk to sign him at the time. Nobody quite knew if he could rediscover his form or provide more upside than Jorge Martin.
One of his biggest rivals, Jorge Lorenzo, believes that Marquez has a weakness that undermines his ‘natural talent’. He thinks that he’s always pushing too hard.
Photo by Qian Jun/MB Media/Getty ImagesMarc Marquez has a ‘winning skill’ under braking that MotoGP engineers have been trying to solve
Marquez has to ‘entertain himself’ amid Ducati’s dominance and sometimes pushes to the limit to remain focused in races.
That’s the extent of his advantage. No one can get close to him on his day, and part of that is down to a unique braking technique that no other rider can copy.
According to Mat Oxley, some MotoGP engineers have attempted to come up with systems to prevent locking under braking, but Marquez has been the most effective solution.
“One of the engineers I interviewed, who I interviewed quite a while back, because obviously writing this book, I’ve also used a lot of the stuff that I researched over the past 15 years with Marc,” he said.
“One of the engineers – he was working with Yamaha at the time, or Suzuki in fact. And he said, ‘Ever since motorbike racing has been going on, engineers have been looking for a device to save the front tyre from locking like an anti-lock braking, which you’re not allowed to use in Grand Prix racing.
“Honda now has that device, he’s called Marc Marquez.’ That is his winning skill; no one else can touch him there. Even now, it’s incredible really.”
Why the MotoGP paddock must be concerned by Marc Marquez’s Ducati dominance
An Aprilia chief sent Marquez a warning that his team are eager to end his dominant run, but there are worrying signs about his form.
If he has enjoyed such an advantage and the regulations don’t change much for 2026, then next year could be yet another run of Marquez dominance.
Beyond that, no one quite knows how the field will take shape for the new rules in 2027, but he may already have wrapped up two more titles than he has now by then.
Would anyone be able to stop a 34-year-old Marquez from winning another title in 2027, even if the field is close? Johann Zarco’s performance at the same age this year suggests that there won’t be much of a falloff before then.