MotoMatters.com | Kropotkin Thinks

With the 2025 MotoGP season slowly starting to heave into view, it's time to make a few predictions of what may lie ahead. There are a few things that seem almost set in stone for this year, but racing and reality have a way of surprising us. So below are my hostages to fortune for 2025. The first part appears today, with the rest to come tomorrow.

Meet your 2025 MotoGP champion: Marc Márquez

It is pretty much a given that Ducati will make it four rider championships in a row. And it is indisputable that the pairing of Marc Márquez and Pecco Bagnaia at the factory Ducati squad is the best team on the MotoGP grid in 2025. So the chances that one of the two will take the 2025 crown are pretty close to 100%.

So why pick Marc Márquez, a rider who hasn't won a title in five seasons, over Pecco Bagnaia, who won two of the last three titles and has spent all of his MotoGP career on a Ducati? The flippant (if correct) answer is because he's Marc Márquez. But the statistics bear this out.

With the 2025 MotoGP season slowly starting to heave into view, it's time to make a few predictions of what may lie ahead. In the second part of my predictions for the coming season, I offer a few more hostages to fortune.

Jorge Martin - sacrificing 2025 for 2026

Jorge Martin's 2024 championship campaign was a huge improvement over 2023. The Pramac Ducati rider learned from the mistakes he made at the start of his 2023 campaign, and worked to improve them. The campaign wasn't quite flawless - he crashed out of the lead at both Jerez and Sachsenring, throwing away 50 points - but it was a massive step forward.

At Mugello, we learned that Ducati had chosen Marc Márquez over Jorge Martin to partner Pecco Bagnaia in the factory squad. And on Monday evening, after a rained off test, just as we were about to pack up and head home, we were told that Jorge Martin had signed with Aprilia.

It was unexpected, but not a surprise. The main reason that riders leave a team, factory, or manufacturer is because they do not feel they are being treated with the respect they deserve. And being passed over for the factory slot definitely felt like a slight.

Much of the attention at the launch of Aprilia's MotoGP project for 2025 centered on the question of whether Jorge Martin would run the #1 plate or continue to run his traditional #89. It was never really going to be a question, Martin explained as he unveiled his bike. "I didn't have any doubt about running the #1, because I've been fighting for this all my life." Perhaps there is a generational shift taking place, with riders preferring to run the #1 plate again after Pecco Bagnaia broke the perceived curse in 2023.

The unveiling was done well, though it wasn't captured on the live video stream. As Aprilia PR boss Antonio Boselli spoke to riders Jorge Martin and Marco Bezzecchi before the livery was unveiled, the backdrop behind Martin showed his old number, #89.

In the second half of the Ducati Lenovo MotoGP team presentation, the host, Barbara Pedrotti, asked Ducati test rider Michele Pirro how he would sum up the Bologna factory's 2025 MotoGP project in a single word. Pirro chose the phrase "Dream Team", which prompted Pedrotti to give him a pass for ignoring the set criteria as, she said, he had said the phrase quickly enough for it to be a single word.

In the context of MotoGP in 2025, the pairing of Pecco Bagnaia and Marc Márquez certainly qualifies as a dream team. The rider who finally brought the riders championship back to Ducati after 15 years, then followed it up with another and came close to making it three in a row, paired with the greatest rider of his generation, and possibly of all time. As team manager Davide Tardozzi pointed out, they have 11 titles between them.

In four weeks time the lights will go out at Phillip Island and the 2025 WorldSBK season will start. The campaign is already underway, as WorldSBK is in the middle of the Iberian Winter Test season. Two days at Jerez followed by two days at Portimao are ideal for getting ready for the new season. Four days of running will be complimented by two days of testing in Australia before the first race of the season.

It’s hard to find a better way to prepare for the year. The south of Spain offers the promise of good weather and the Algarve almost guarantees it. These winter sun destinations are popular tourist traps at the time of year. What could go wrong?

Quite a bit it seems. Two days of rain-interrupted testing saw the value of the Jerez days questioned by teams. WorldSBK regulations limit teams to just ten days of testing throughout the season for their race riders. Was it better to get track time now to be ready for Australia or to save the days for later in the year? The majority of teams opted to sit it out. The expense of travelling to Jerez was balanced by the value of running.

Unsurprisingly, when KTM's press officer started the online debriefs with journalists at the KTM launch, we were told that neither the riders nor the team managers would be able to comment on the Austrian manufacturer's financial woes. That would have to wait until KTM's Sporting Director Pit Beirer spoke to us at the end of the day (and once his computer had finished rebooting itself for the umpteenth time). But Beirer was very forthcoming about the current situation, KTM's future plans, and how they are approaching the coming season and beyond.

"It’s been a rough winter," Beirer said with a feeling for understatement. "But it’s nice to talk about racing." Racing is what KTM does, and what they will continue to do, he insisted. "Motorsport is a major part of our company. It’s not just our passion – it’s part of our business model. We go racing. Attached to our racing activities, there is a market. We wouldn’t be part of this restructuring [process] if that wasn’t the case."